Download Energy History, Development and Sustainability

Energy History,
Development and
Sustainability
Peter Pearson
ESS conference
Tokyo, December 2003
Session 3
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History of Energy
• Useful to explore history of energy markets,
technologies, prices & institutions
• Helps understand
– Energy’s contributions to socio-economic development
– Impacts on resource depletion & environmental quality
– Path dependency and lock-in
• May help map & navigate transitions & pathways
• “A lantern on the stern can help with navigation
ahead.”
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• UN World Energy Assessment (2000):
– “Life is but a continuous process of energy conversion and
transformation.”
– “The accomplishments of civilisation have been largely
achieved through the increasingly efficient and extensive
harnessing of various forms of energy to extend human
capabilities and ingenuity.”
• Access to energy gives benefits through energy
services
– E.g. illumination, transportation, cooked meals, refrigeration,
comfortable temperatures
– Enjoyed by industry, commerce & households.
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UK’s long energy history gives example of benefits
• 16th-19 century
–
–
–
–
UK moved from traditional agrarian ‘organic’ economy
Bounded by productivity of scarce land resource
And limited flows of energy for food, clothing, housing & fuel
To a new regime
• Growth and living standards transformed:
– By exploiting stock of mineral (coal)
– And innovation, steam engine, converting heat to
mechanical energy
• With other innovations, drove the mechanisation
& urbanisation that led to the industrial revolution
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Fig. 1: UK final energy consumption 1500-1800 (TWh)
By 1650
Equal shares of
woodfuel & coal
Coal
Woodfuels
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Fig. 2: UK final energy consumption, 1800-2000 (TWh)
Electricity
Gas
Petroleum
Coal
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Fig. 3: UK Shares in final user fuel expenditure, 1500-2000
Electricity
Candles
Gas
Coal
Petroleum
Woodfuels
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Fig. 4: UK energy intensity - final use energy
consumption per unit real GDP, 1500-2000
Energy intensity rising between 1550
and 1850
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Fig. 5: UK average real ‘energy’ price series, 1500-2000
Energy price trending down between
1550 and 1850
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Substitution
to costlier,
‘higher
quality’
fuels
Fig. 6: UK per capita carbon emissions, 1700-1998
United Kingdom Carbon Emissions
Emissions per Capita (1700-1998)
tonnes of carbon per inhabitant
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
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1700
1750
1800
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1850
1900
1950
2000
Energy, Development and Sustainability
• UK’s access to mineral energy resources freed it
from limits of an ‘organic’ economy
– Enabled industrial revolution & rising living standards
• But environmental externalities not seriously
addressed until 20th century
• Today’s challenge: in developing world
– How to assure rising access to affordable energy services
• Via modern fuels, technologies, infrastructures &
institutions
• And innovations in energy service provision
– Without damaging local, regional & global sustainability
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Sources
Fouquet, R and Pearson, PJG (1998), ‘A Thousand Years of
Energy Use in the United Kingdom’, The Energy Journal,
19(4), 1-41.
Fouquet, R and Pearson, P J G (2003), ‘Five Centuries of
Energy Prices’, World Economics, 4(3), July-September, 93120.
Pearson, P J G and Fouquet, R (2003), ‘Long Run Carbon
Dioxide Emissions and Environmental Kuznets Curves:
different pathways to development?’ in Hunt, L C (ed.)
Energy in a Competitive Market, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
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