The critical role of energy in foundational infrastructure

"[...] the great economic revolutions in history are infrastructure revolutions, and what makes the great infrastructure revolutions transformational is the convergence of new communications media with new energy regimes. Every energy revolution in history has been accompanied by its own unique communications revolution. Energy revolutions change the temporal and spatial reach of society and make possible more complex living arrangements, all of which require new communication media to manage and coordinate the new opportunities. Try to imagine organizing the production and distribution complexities of a steam-powered urban industrial revolution without cheap and quick steam-powered printing and the telegraph, or organizing the managerial complexities of an oil, auto, and suburban mass-consumer culture without centralized electricity and especially telephone communication, radio and television."
Zero Marginal Cost Society, Jeremy Rifkin [pg 236]