Energy efficiency : lessons from the past and strategies for the future

In the next century, strategies to encourage energy efficiency could moderate environmental problems while saving energy, in spite of the enormous potential for growth in the world demand for energy. After describing the energy problem, this paper reviews trends in energy use and energy intensities in the 1970s and 1980s in the industrial countries, the former planned economies of Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R., and the developing countries. Lessons from those years are used to frame policies that could improve levels of efficiency in all these countries. Estimates of future prospects for more efficient energy use in the year 2010 under various scenarios show the possibilities for further improvement.