Search Results

This chapter examines the role of energy in the economic growth of twentieth-century Europe. It considers the interrelationships of factors of production in order to identify the general features of a shared experience of growth, rather than to illuminate the local differences. The chapter first explains how development blocks contributed to GDP growth before discussing seven long-run propositions, including the strong growth of capital stock and catch-up with the leader of capital–GDP ratios; machinery increased more than GDP, labor, and other capital; and falling and converging energy intensity in the twentieth century. The chapter concludes with an overview of the link between energy intensity and economic structure. It argues that it was the third industrial revolution that was behind most of the increasing economic efficiency of energy consumption after the 1970s.

This chapter defines some important concepts that are used in the book and which are relevant to energy in the economic context. It first considers energy consumption in the economic sense; here energy is defined as the capacity to perform work, useful for human beings, thanks to changes in the structure of matter or its position in space. The use of energy by humans has an opportunity cost, meaning that the time and resources allocated to using this energy could have been used differently. In the economic sense, energy consumption entails both private and social costs. The chapter proceeds by discussing primary sources of energy as opposed to secondary energy carriers; power; thermodynamic efficiency and energy productivity; the determinants of energy productivity; energy intensity; macro-, meso-, and micro-innovations; development blocks; market widening and market suction; energy expansion and energy saving; and dematerialization of growth.

This chapter considers the role that energy played in the industrial growth in nineteenth-century Europe. The economies of Europe grew more rapidly during the nineteenth century than at any previous period in history. This was not simply a consequence of the doubling of the population; per capita income rose as well. Given these facts it is hardly surprising that energy consumption also increased dramatically. Consumption of coal seems to have been a key part of economic growth, as measured by per capita income, and cheap energy was a necessary condition of the industrial revolution. The chapter first considers how coal development blocks contributed to growth in Europe during the period before discussing a number of long-run propositions, such as the strong complementarity between energy and capital. It concludes with an assessment of the link between energy intensity and economic structure.

In this chapter, we explain the paradox of China’s green industry growth in an otherwise “brown” economy. We argue that the promotion of green industries should be viewed not as a commitment to an energy systems transformation, but rather as part of the Chinese government’s efforts to diversify its energy mix and extend the country’s export-led industrialization model. At this time, China lacks the type of coalition between policymakers, environmentalists, and industrialists necessary to drive and sustain a broad green growth strategy. Such a coalition is unlikely to emerge as long as the Chinese government - especially organizations at the lower levels - continue to own polluting industrial assets and suppress grassroots social organization.

Traditional societies depended on biofuels and animate power from draft animals and human labor. The energy transition reduced biomass fuels to a globally marginal role, as fossil fuel extraction and electricity generation provided abundant and affordable energy. Consequences of this supply were magnified by conversions of fuels and electricity in new prime movers (first steam engines, and then internal combustion engines, electric lights, and motors). Indeed, they have nearly eliminated animate power, resulting in mechanization of agriculture and industrial production, in the rise of mass mobility, and in the deployment of electronic devices throughout the entire economy. Higher average per capita energy supply has been even more impressive when steady gains in conversion efficiency, and the resulting declines of energy intensities of products and services, are taken into account.