The growth of humanity is limited by our tools. Each era of human development, from caves to the Industrial Revolution to sending Curiosity to Mars, is marked by technological evolution. A collaborative team of scientists believe the next era of advancement will be defined by energy production and consumption and their related social costs. They have published their proposed methodology of establishing and investigating “social energy” in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica , a joint publication of the IEEE and the Chinese Association of Automation.