The slow search for solutions: lessons from historical energy transitions by sector and service

This paper reviews past energy transitions by sector and service to identify features that may be useful for future transitions. Although often considered a single event, the transition from traditional energy sources to fossil fuels involved numerous services and sectors at different times between 1500 and 1920. The main economic drivers identified for energy transitions were the opportunities to produce cheaper or better energy services. The existence of a niche market willing to pay more for these characteristics enabled new energy sources and technologies to be refined gradually until they could compete with the incumbent energy source. Nevertheless, this implied that, on average, the whole innovation chain took more than 100 years and the diffusion phase nearly 50 years. In the same way, low-carbon energy sources and technologies offer an additional characteristic (i.e. low carbon impact), which might be able to develop gradually in a niche market until they can compete with fossil fuels. However, because of consumers’ tendency to free-ride, a successful transition will need governments to provide protection of this niche market—possibly for decades. Based on past experiences, a complete transition to a low carbon economy is likely to be very slow.

[1]  Timothy J. Foxon,et al.  Innovation for a low carbon economy : economic, institutional and management approaches , 2008 .

[2]  R. Tol,et al.  Europe's long-term climate target: A critical evaluation , 2005 .

[3]  Roger Fouquet,et al.  The United Kingdom demand for renewable electricity in a liberalised market 1 1 This paper was spons , 1998 .

[4]  Roger Fouquet,et al.  Divergences in the Long Run Trends in the Price of Energy and of Energy Services , 2010 .

[5]  Nebojsa Nakicenovic,et al.  Towards sustainability of energy systems: A primer on how to apply the concept of energy services to identify necessary trends and policies , 2008 .

[6]  Douglas F. Barnes,et al.  Rural Energy in Developing Countries: A Challenge for Economic Development , 1996 .

[7]  W. Schivelbusch,et al.  Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century , 1988 .

[8]  M. C. Gallastegui and Ibon Galarraga.  Climate Change and Knowledge Communities , 2009 .

[9]  Roger Fouquet,et al.  Heat, Power and Light: Revolutions in Energy Services , 2008 .

[10]  Robert U. Ayres,et al.  Resources, scarcity, technology and growth , 2005 .

[11]  Tooraj Jamasb,et al.  Delivering a low-carbon electricity system : technologies, economics, and policy , 2008 .

[12]  Vaclav Smil,et al.  Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties , 2005 .

[13]  Michael Jefferson,et al.  Accelerating the transition to sustainable energy systems , 2008 .

[14]  W. Devine,et al.  From Shafts to Wires: Historical Perspective on Electrification , 1983, The Journal of Economic History.

[15]  Peter J. G. Pearson,et al.  Seven Centuries of Energy Services: The Price and Use of Light in the United Kingdom (1300-2000)1 , 2006 .

[16]  Mikel González-Eguino,et al.  The Role of Regions in Climate Change Policy , 2009 .

[17]  Catherine Mitchell,et al.  The political economy of sustainable energy , 2007 .

[18]  J. Schot,et al.  Regime shifts to sustainability through processes of niche formation : the approach of strategic niche management , 1998 .

[19]  Anil Markandya,et al.  Climate Change and Its Socioeconomic Importance , 2009 .

[20]  J. Stanislaw,et al.  Economic growth and energy consumption in the UK, 1700-1975 , 1979 .

[21]  Robert U. Ayres,et al.  Scarcity and growth revisited: Natural resources and the environment in the new millennium , 2005 .

[22]  Nuno Luís Madureira,et al.  When the South Emulates the North: Energy Policies and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century , 2008, Contemporary European History.

[23]  Anil Markandya,et al.  Literature Review of Integrated Impact Assessment Models of Climate Change with Emphasis on Damage Functions , 2009 .

[24]  Dominic Moran,et al.  Modelling the Effect of Climate Change on Environmental Pollution Losses from Dairy Systems in the UK , 2010 .

[25]  J.C.J.M. van den Bergh,et al.  Evolutionary Economics and Environmental Policy: Survival of the Greenest , 2007 .

[26]  Marshall A. Wise,et al.  Implications for the USA of stabilization of radiative forcing at 3.4 W/m2 , 2008 .

[27]  Milton Lipton.  Schurr, Netschert, et al.: Energy in the American Economy, 1850-1975 , 1962 .

[28]  Peter J. G. Pearson,et al.  Long run trends in energy services: The price and use of light in the United Kingdom (1500-2000) , 2003 .

[29]  Peter J. G. Pearson,et al.  Energy transitions in less-developed countries: analytical frameworks for practical understanding , 1988 .

[30]  F. Geels.  Technological transitions and system innovations , 2005 .

[31]  S. H. Schurr,et al.  Energy in the American economy, 1850--1975 , 1961 .

[32]  Peter King,et al.  The Production and Consumption of Bar Iron in Early Modern England and Wales , 2005 .

[33]  Giacomo Giannoccaro,et al.  Environmental Concerns in Water Pricing Policy: an Application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) , 2010 .

[34]  John Langdon,et al.  Mills in the Medieval Economy: England 1300-1540 , 2004 .

[35]  Astrid Kander,et al.  North versus South. Energy transition and energy intensity in Europe over 200 years, paper , 2007 .

[36]  Frank W. Geels,et al.  Niches in evolutionary theories of technical change , 2007 .

[37]  R. Heltberg,et al.  Fuel switching: evidence from eight developing countries , 2004 .

[38]  James C. Williams,et al.  Energy in World History , 1994 .

[39]  Niels B. Schulz,et al.  Comparison of Energy Transitions in the United States and Developing and Industrializing Economies , 2007 .

[40]  Philip Sidney Bagwell,et al.  The transport revolution from 1770 , 1974 .

[41]  Frans Oosterhuis,et al.  An Evolutionary Economic Analysis of Energy Transitions , 2005 .

[42]  Aline Chiabai,et al.  Analysis and Use of Information and Communication Tools in Economics of Climate Change , 2009, EnviroInfo.

[43]  S. Pachauri,et al.  The household energy transition in India and China , 2008 .

[44]  Mikel González-Eguino,et al.  Carbon leakage and the future of Old Industrial Regions , 2010 .

[45]  H. J. Dyos,et al.  British transport : an economic survey from the seventeenth century to the twentieth , 1970 .

[46]  R. H. Silsbee,et al.  Energy transitions. , 1980, Science.

[47]  Valentina Bosetti,et al.  Linking Reduced Deforestation and a Global Carbon Market: Impacts on Costs, Financial Flows, and Technological Innovation , 2009 .

[48]  Robert U. Ayres,et al.  The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material Prosperity , 2009 .

[49]  Anil Markandya,et al.  The Costs of Drought: the Exceptional 2007-2008 Case of Barcelona , 2009 .

[50]  Nebojsa Nakicenovic,et al.  Dynamics of energy technologies and global change , 1999 .

[51]  Peter J. G. Pearson,et al.  Policy Processes for Low Carbon Innovation in the UK: Successes, failures and lessons , 2006 .

[52]  M. E. Falkus.  The British Gas Industry before 1850 , 1967 .

[53]  John Langdon,et al.  Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation: The Use of Draught Animals in English Farming from 1066 to 1500. , 1987 .

[54]  John Langdon,et al.  Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation: The Use of Draught Animals in English Farming from 1066-1500 , 1988 .

[55]  M. Daunton,et al.  State and Market in Victorian Britain: War, Welfare and Capitalism , 2008 .

[56]  M. Rubio,et al.  Energy Transition and CO 2 Emissions in Southern Europe: Italy and Spain (1861-2000) , 2008 .

[57]  Michael G. Pollitt,et al.  UK Renewable Energy Policy Since Privatisation , 2010 .

[58]  F. Geels,et al.  Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways , 2007 .

[59]  Mikel González-Eguino,et al.  Optimal Investment in Energy Efficiency under Uncertainty , 2009 .

[60]  Maxine Berg,et al.  Technological Revolutions in Europe : historical perspectives , 1998 .

[61]  Timo Myllyntaus,et al.  Postponed Leap in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: The Impact of Energy Efficiency, Fuel Choices and Industrial Structure on the Finnish Energy Economy, 1800-2005 , 2009 .

[62]  C. Freeman,et al.  As Time Goes By: From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution , 2001 .

[63]  John Garrard,et al.  Democratisation in Britain: Elites, Civil Society and Reform Since 1800 , 2001 .

[64]  Astrid Kander,et al.  Energy Transition and Energy Intensity in Europe over 200 Years , 2006 .

[65]  Peter J. G. Pearson,et al.  Towards improved policy processes for promoting innovation in renewable electricity technologies in the UK , 2007 .

[66]  Sara Lærke Meltofte Trærup,et al.  The Health Impacts of Climate Change: A Study of Cholera in Tanzania , 2010 .

[67]  F. Geels.  Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study , 2002 .

[68]  Alberto Longo,et al.  The Internalization of Externalities in the Production of Electricity: Willingness to Pay for the Attributes of a Policy for Renewable Energy , 2006 .

[69]  R. E. Jones,et al.  The Economic History of World Population. , 1979 .

[70]  Robert Gross,et al.  Technologies and innovation for system change in the UK: status, prospects and system requirements of some leading renewable energy options , 2004 .

[71]  Timothy J. Foxon,et al.  Achieving the G8 50% target: modelling induced and accelerated technological change using the macro-econometric model E3MG , 2008 .

[72]  Peter J. G. Pearson,et al.  A Thousand Years of Energy Use in the United Kingdom , 1998 .

[73]  Frank W. Geels,et al.  Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: theory, findings, research agenda, and policy , 2008, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[74]  Peter Jupp.  The Governing of Britain, 1688-1848: The Executive, Parliament and the People , 2006 .

[75]  Kathleen Biddick,et al.  Horses, oxen and technological innovation : the use of draught animals in English farming from 1066 to 1500 , 1988 .