The energy outlook

Abstract

from their efficiency, exploitability and availability. The energy hungry industrial nations are exceptionally vulnerable these days because of their high per capita consumption and low self-sufficiency level. Right up to our own era, fossil fuels have accounted for nearly all primary energy. One of them, coal, paved the way for the industrial revolution in the 19th century simply because it was available in large quantities and was easy to mine in some areas. Coal largely dominated the European market up to about 1960. It then began to decline in the face of competition from oil, which enjoyed its real boom only after the Second World War. The use of natural gas developed much more gradually, however, mainly because solutions to the transport problem were long in coming.