History of energy from 1900 to 1950

Summary: Sustained economic and political crises slowed down transitions from a coal-dominated energy regime, which remained unique to a Western industrialized core.

Around 1900, fossil fuels overtook biomass as the largest share of global primary energy. Despite this auspicious start, the adoption of energy development and the expansion of modern energy regimes beyond the West were held back by almost continuous global economic and political crises from 1914 to 1950. An exception to this period’s stagnation was the rapid electrification carried out in industrial societies. In general, this period should be seen as a continuation of the late 19th-century coal-based energy regime. World coal consumption peaked as a share of global commercial energy in the 1920s, but oil only slowly supplemented its fossil fuel cousin.

Unfavorable economic and political conditions prevented the proliferation of energy innovations. Photoelectric cells and geothermal electricity generation were invented within a year of each other (1905 and 1904, respectively). Hydropower production expanded modestly in Europe during the first half of the century as a result of fears of dams bursting and popular resistance to flooding landscapes. Italy was an exception, where “white coal” (produced by drying chopped wood over a fire) became the dominant source of energy. Importing coal was expensive (costing 800 percent more in Italy than in Britain) and militarily imprudent, given the risk of a blockade. By 1924, hydroelectricity produced 1.8 gigawatts in Italy, increasing a thousandfold over the next 15 years to fuel industrialization.

An Italian in the United States, Enrico Fermi, constructed the first nuclear chain reaction in a University of Chicago squash court in 1942. Twelve years later, the first civilian nuclear reactor came online. Rotary drilling was first successfully used at the Spindletop gusher in Beaumont, Texas, in early 1901. Howard Hughes’s invention, the rolling cutter rock bit, ensured rotary drilling’s widespread use. High-pressure cracking (1913) and catalytic cracking (1936) produced lighter distillates from intermediate and heavy compounds. Later, the fabrication of high-octane gasoline proved to be the preferred fuel for automobiles.

Despite these developments, the oil age had not begun. Mexico and Venezuela increased production to fuel British and American militaries in World War I, leaving themselves vulnerable to a glut in world supply when peace returned. German chancellor Adolf Hitler built his famous Autobahn and founded Volkswagen, but the automaker did not sell any cars to civilians during the Nazi regime. Car ownership in Germany, as in other industrialized countries at this time, remained low.

Agricultural growth in this period was generally through tilling more land rather than increasing yields per acre. Only American farmers began using tractors en masse, as most of the world’s farmers continued to rely on animal and human muscle. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), invented in 1944, was used to protect American soldiers from mosquitoes during the Pacific war, not as a pesticide for crops, although it was first marketed for that use a year later. In 1913, Fritz Haber, a German chemist, invented a process to synthesize ammonia (which can be oxidized to create nitrates), which Carl Bosch adopted for industrial use to produce artificial fertilizers as well as explosives. Despite its potential, artificial fertilizers were adopted only to a limited extent by farmers in this period. Nonetheless, the Haber-Bosch process allowed Germany, a former nitrates importer, to produce explosives during World War I.

World War I was largely a coal-powered affair, but oil proved decisive during World War II. Germany’s military strength was derived from its abundant coal resources. It possessed Europe’s largest coal deposits, augmented during 1914–18 by the rich coal streams of Belgium, Austria-Hungary, and northern France. Germany could not fully exploit this advantage, as its miners were in the trenches. Coal simply required too much manpower to extract. Germany’s dearth of oil was not a severe handicap, as planes and tanks played only a minor role in the conflict. Coal sufficed to power the engines of war: factories and trains.

In contrast, oil was indispensable in World War II. In the mid-1930s, Germany consumed only 5 percent as much oil as the United States, limiting German offensive power; it never could have more than 4,000 planes active at one time. Securing access to oil was one motivation for Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. For similar reasons, Japan attacked the American naval base in Pearl Harbor to secure its flank before conquering the oil-rich East Indies. Oil-powered warfare was more destructive than its predecessors. Austria-Hungary’s 12-inch (30.5-centimeter) M11 mortar could fire a 837-pound (380-kilogram) hard shell 5.9 miles (9.6 kilometers), but by the end of World War II the American B-29 Super Fortress bomber could deliver a 9-ton payload within its 5,592-mile (9,000-kilometer) range. Moreover, nuclear warfare had begun: Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, had a blast yield equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT.

Electrification

The rapid electrification of industrialized nations stands in contrast to the general malaise in early 20th-century energy regimes. Electricity, a highly processed form of energy based on steam turbines and transformers, offered end users energy that was clean and versatile. In 1899, only 5 percent of American-installed mechanical power was provided by industrial electrical motors, but within 30 years this percentage had climbed to 80 percent. Electricity is a necessary component in modern industrial practices, such as assembly lines or aluminum forging. Its appeal lies not only in its utility but also in its aura of modernity; Vladimir Lenin described communism as “Soviet power plus electrification.”

What is remarkable about the first 50 years of the 20th century is actually the lack of change in the world energy regime. The inchoate nature of this period is demonstrated by the world’s most modern army in 1941, the German Wehrmacht, which invaded the Soviet Union with its infantry on foot and its logistics supported by 600,000 horses. Moreover, fossil fuels remained the prerogative of a handful of Western powers and Japan: 30 percent of world population consumed 95 percent of fossil fuels in 1900. The vast majority of humanity continued to rely on muscles and the sun for energy.

Political and economic instability delayed energy development. Great powers did not expect high pre-1914 growth rates to return and therefore turned to autarky and force to ensure security, and without growth there was insufficient demand to exploit new energy technologies. These 50 years were a transitional period between 19th-century energy systems and high modernity powered by oil. Unlike oil, coal was less able to actuate rapid societal change, because it retained wood’s disadvantages of low energy density, difficulty to transport, high extraction cost, and inability to power internal combustion engines. It must be remembered that the mere existence of new energy sources and technologies (such as those related to oil) was not enough to determine an energy regime; sufficient political and economic conditions were necessary as well.

Bibliography

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