World Energy use in the 1970s and 1980s: Exploring the Changes

Changes in energy demand in Thai industry between 1981 and 2000

“…Such an approach has been used in many studies (see for example [8]). However, the above choice of boundary conditions leaves a residue which is equal to the actual change in energy consumption minus the sum of the above three effects (Eq.…”

ENERGY IN THETWENTIETHCENTURY: Resources, Conversions, Costs, Uses, and Consequences

“…Gradually, higher energy efficiencies of mineral extraction and less energy-intensive industrial processes greatly reduce, or even eliminate, the growth of energy demand in key industries. These improvements have been particularly impressive in chemical syntheses and in both ferrous and color metallurgy (58). Within these industries there are many individual processes whose energy intensity is, as already indicated by the ammonia and steel examples, a small fraction of their typical 1900 levels.…”

“…The energy intensity of the U.S. economy peaked rather sharply around 1920, and by 2000 it was down by nearly 60%; however, between 1949-1973 it remained stable, a constancy that suggested, wrongly, an immutable long-term link. More remarkably, in spite of very different circumstances, pre-1949 and post-1973 declines were very similar, indicating that autonomous technical advances, rather than prices, are the key reason for higher efficiency (58). In contrast, Japan's twentieth-century record shows a gradual, steady rise of energy intensities until 1970, followed by a wavy decline that brought them about 30% below the peak level by 2000 (10).…”

Energy-Efficiency and the Economics of Pollution Abatement

“…During the present century, during which energy-efficiency grew by factors of more than 10 in key sectors such as electricity, world commercial energy consumption 1 has increased 10-fold, an average growth rate of 2-112 percent per year. Since the 1970s, the energy markets in the industrial countries have matured in the sense that the growth of incomes and of commercial and industrial activity no longer exert the large cffect on demand that they did in the past (1). Their energy markets might even peak and then decline in the near future with continued improvements in efficiency.…”

“…The growth of popula tions, incomes, and economic output, and the substitution of commercial for biomass fuels are all likely to exert a huge influence on future energy demands in developing regions. Even under an energy-efficient scenario, their demands are likely to grow 5-1O-fold over the next 30-40 years, leading to a threefold increase in world primary energy demand (1)(2)(3)(4)(5).…”