Muscle, wood, coal, oil: what past energy transitions tell us about renewable energy

By 2022, the burning of fossil fuels provided 82% of the world’s energy. In 2000, it was 87%. Although renewable energies have undergone tremendous growth, they have been offset by increased energy demand.

That’s why earlier this month the UN released a global status report, an assessment of how the world is progressing in transitioning from these energy-dense but dangerously polluting fuels. Short answer: progress, but not nearly enough, fast enough.

If we consult history, we find that energy transitions are not new. To cultivate fields and build cities, we have gone from relying on human or animal muscle to wind and water to powering sailboats and grinding grain. Then we began to switch to the energy-dense hydrocarbons, coal, gas and oil. But this cannot last. We were first warned in 1859 that when burned, these fuels add to Earth’s warm blanket of greenhouse gases and threaten our livable climate.

It is time for another energy transition. We’ve done it before. The problem is time and resistance from the old energy regime, fossil fuel companies. The energy historian Vaclav Smil calculates that previous energy transitions have taken 5075 years to ripple through societies. And we no longer have that kind of time, as climate change accelerates. This year is probably the warmest in 120,000 years.

So can we learn something from previous energy transitions? As it happens, we can.

Energy shifts occur in fits and starts

Until around 1880, the world ran on wood, charcoal, crop residues, fertiliser, water and wind. In fact, some countries depended on wood and charcoal throughout the 20th century, even as others switched from coal to oil.

The English had been using coal for home heating since Roman times because it burned longer and had almost twice the energy intensity of wood.

So what drove the shift? Deforestation was a part. The dependence on wood worked while there were trees. In the pre-industrial era, cities of 500,000 or more needed vast tracts of forest around them.

In some localities, wood seemed limitless, free and useless. The costs for biodiversity will only become apparent later.

Britain was once carpeted in forest. Endemic deforestation drove the transition to coal in the 16th and 17th centuries. Most English collieries opened between 1540 and 1640.

When the English figured out how to use coal to make steam and push a piston, it made it even more possible to pump water from deepening mine pits, the invention of locomotives, and transport products, including the feed that working animals needed for.

Yet coal had only reached 5% of the global market by 1840.

In North America, coal did not overtake wood until as late as 1884, even as crude oil became more important.

Why did America first begin to exploit oil reserves? Partly to replace expensive oil from sperm whales’ heads. Before hydrocarbon oil was widely available, whaling relied on lubricants and some lighting. By 1846, the United States had 700 whaling vessels scouring the seas for this source of oil.

Crude oil was first struck in Pennsylvania in 1859. To extract it, drilling 21 meters down was required. The drilling machine was driven by a steam engine, which may have been fired with wood.

Steam and muscle

The 19th century energy transition took decades. It wasn’t a revolution so much as a constant shift. By the end of that century, the global energy supply had doubled, and half of it was from coal.

When first invented in 1712, steam engines converted only 2% of coal into useful energy. Almost 150 years later, they were still very inefficient at only 15%. (Gasoline cars still waste about 66% of the energy in their fuel).

Still, steam accelerated early proto-industries such as textiles, printmaking, and traditional manufacturing.

But the engines did not free us from the yoke. In fact, early coal mining actually increased the demand for human labor. Boys as young as six worked on lighter tasks. Conditions were generally terrible. Next to human muscles was the strength of animals. Coal was often raised from pits by draft horses.

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In 1850s New England, steam was three times more expensive than running water for textile mills. Vaclav Smil has shown that industrial water wheels and turbines successfully competed with steam engines for decades. The energy from flowing water was free. Digging up coal was labor intensive.

Why did steam win? Human ecologist Andreas Malm argues that what really drove the switch to steam-powered turbines was capital. Locating steam engines in urban centers made it easier to concentrate and control workers, as well as to overcome worker walkouts and machine breakdowns.

The question of who does the work is often overlooked. When energy historians vaguely refer to human muscles, we should ask: whose muscles? Was the work done by slaves or forced laborers?

Even in the current energy transition, there can be big differences between employer and employee. As the heat rises, some employers are giving their migrant workers ice vests so they can keep working. It is reminiscent of coal shovels in the oven-like stokeholes of steamships, which are submerged in ice baths upon collapse, as the historian On Barak has shown.

What does this mean for us?

As Vaclav Smil points out, any transition to a new energy supply must be driven by the intensive use of existing energies and driving force. In fact, Smil argues that the idea of ​​the Industrial Revolution is misleading. It wasn’t sudden. Rather, it was gradual, often uneven.

The story may seem like it is unfolding nicely. But it doesn’t at all. In earlier transitions we see overlaps. The hesitation. Sometimes more intense use of previous energy sources. They start as highly localized shifts, depending on available resources, before new technologies spread along trade routes. Ultimately, market forces have driven or hindered adoption.

Time is running out. But on the plus side, there are market forces that are now driving the switch to clean energy. Once solar panels and wind turbines are built, sunlight and wind are free. It is the resistance of the old guard that is holding us back.

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