Long-term Energy Growth (LEG) Network
Coalbrookdale by Night, 1801, by Philip James de Loutherbourg
The Energy, Growth and Pollution network has since 2003 linked together historians working on the history of energy use and its consequences for the economy and environment in Europe from c.1500 to the present.
Power to the people!
In 2013 Princeton University Press will publish a major volume arising from the group's research, Power to the people: energy in Europe in the last five centuries, co-authored by Astrid Kander, Paolo Malanima and Paul Warde. For the first time this book provides figures on energy consumption for much of Europe reaching back over several centuries and including traditional (wood, animal power, food) as well as modern energy carriers (coal, oil, natural gas). It shows that although the path of modern economic development has vastly increased our energy use, it has not been a story of ever-rising and continuous consumption. Energy history has been profoundly shaped by a series of revolutions, closely associated with new 'carriers' such as coal, oil and electricity and the new technology to exploit them, from steam engines and motor vehicles to ICT. It shows how modern economic growth has taken on different relationships with energy based on these technologies, and how this has led in turn to varied but interconnected energy histories of different countries.
Methods and database
The LEG's work is based on assembling an international dataset developed with a common methodology for quantifying energy inputs into the economy. In association with the publication of Power to the people, this website will make the full dataset and associated methodological essays available. We hope this will be the means to both improving our current data and stimulating further research around the world.
Other areas of study conducted by the group include the relationship between energy consumption and income levels in the long-term (energy intensity); CO2 emissions and energy use; prospect for climate change mitigation; energy carrier transitions; and the relationship between technological change and energy consumption.
Countries currently covered by the group's work include Sweden, Italy, Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany. The EGP also collaborates with other scholars working in the field of energy history.
In addition, Astrid Kander and Paul Warde are developing a major new project on historical accounting of energy in trade.
The Group receives support from the Global Euronet and the Centre for History and Economics.
People
The Group consists of the following researchers:
Kerstin Enflo (Lund)
Publications
National datasets
Warde, Paul, Energy consumption in England and Wales, 1560-2000, CNR, (2007)
Lindmark, Magnus, Estimates of Norwegian energy consumption 1835-2000 (Working paper, 2007)
Malanima, Paolo, Energy consumption in Italy, 1861-2000, CNR (2006).
Kander, Astrid, Economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Sweden 1800-2000, Lund Studies in Economic History, 2002.
Energy and economic growth
Kander, Astrid; Gales, Ben; Rubio, Mar; Paolo Malanima, "North versus South: Energy transition and energy intensity in Europe over 200 years", European Review of Economic History 11/2, (2007)
Kander, Astrid & Schön, Lennart, "The energy-capital relation, Sweden 1870-2000", Structural Change and Economic Dynamics (2007)
Kander, Astrid, Schön, Lennart & Enflo, Kerstin, In Defense of Electricity as a General Purpose Technology, ISSN: 1654-3149, Working Paper 2007)
Kander, Astrid & Lindmark, Magnus "Energy consumption, pollutant emissions and growth in the long run -Sweden through 200 years“, European Review of Economic History 8/3, (2004)
Malanima, Paolo, Energia e crescita nell’Europa preindustriale, Roma, La Nuova Italia Scientifica, (1996).
Bartoletto, Silvana "Energy and Economic Growth in Europe. The Last Two Centuries" in B. Chiarini, P. Malanima (eds), From Malthus' Stagnation to Sustained Growth, Rivista di Politica Economica, April-June 2010-2011.
Rubio, M.d.M, Yañez. C, Folchi, M and Carreras, A. 'Modern energy consumption and economic modernisation in Latin America and the Caribbean between 1890 and 1925' UPF Economics & Business Working Papers Nº 1061 (November 2007)
Energy and agrarian society
Kander, A., & Warde, P., Number, Size and Energy Consumption of Draught Animals in European Agriculture (Working paper, March 2009).
Kander, A., & Warde, P., ‘Energy availabilty from livestock and agircultural productivity in Europe c.1815-1913: a new comparison.’ The Economic History Review (2011), pp. 1-29.
Tello, Enric, Cussó I X, & Garrabou, E., "Social metabolism in an agrarian region of Catalonia (Spain) in 1860-1870: Flows, energy balance and land use", Ecological Economics, 58 (2006)
Warde, Paul, Ecology, economy and state formation in early modern Germany (Cambridge, 2006)
Malanima, Paolo, ‘Energy systems in agrarian societies: the European deviation’ in Cavacciochi, Simonetta (ed), Economia e energia secc. XIII-XVIII (2003)
E.A. Wrigley, 'Energy constraints and pre-industrial economies', in Cavaciocchi, Simonetta, (ed.), Economia e energia secc. XIII-XVIII (2003)