Human societies have always depended on energy resources to light and warm their homes, prepare food, and to warm water for domestic hygiene applications.
As industrialisation spread rapidly across the developed world, starting in the late 1700s, the scale and range of energy demands expanded until biomass resources became inadequate and were replaced by fossil fuels.
Evolution of primary energy sources
Although the Romans mined coal in Britain for domestic use as early as the late second century, it was only in the mid 16th century that the use of coal as a domestic fuel became popular there.
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