The balance between energy demand and availability is much discussed and increasingly viewed as a major constraint to industrial development and economic growth in many regions.
Human endeavour, driven by the evolution of needs and restrained by basic economics, first sought to satisfy the need for domestic light, heating and cooking and exploited what came first to hand – such as biomass in the form of wood, vegetable oil and animal fat.
The Chinese first used coal as an energy source thousands of years ago, but it was only in the 18th century that the energy output available from locally mined coal spurred the Industrial Revolution in Britain and energy resources became a critical determinant of economic development.
Industrialisation led to urbanisation and this exposed the fact that the use of fuels like coal and biomass was extremely undesirable in areas of high population density because it resulted in the ‘pea soup’ fog for which London was notorious even up until the 1960’s. Many developed countries have adopted the use of other fuels like oil, natural gas, radioactive isotopes or hydropower either because of lower operating cost, or more often to minimise environmental damage.
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