Before addressing the notion of the energy transition, let’s go back to the Industrial Revolution. Prior to this revolution, all primary energies used were renewable. Agriculture was done by manual labor or animal traction, mills powered by wind or water were used for forges and refining foodstuffs, particularly grains, and transportation was powered by animal traction or sailboats. Naturally, everything took more time and effort. At the time, it was difficult to generate mechanical energy from heat.

It all began with the invention of the steam engine, which allowed steam to be transformed into motion. The depletion of forest resources in England led the British to use coal as fuel. Coal, with a much higher calorific value than wood, allowed for much more powerful machines to emerge in the early 19th century. These machines enabled the rise of more efficient industrial sectors in all areas: textiles, metallurgy, construction, transportation, and agriculture, reducing the manual labor burden and industrial dependency on forceful tasks, shortening transit times, and facilitating trade. This liberation of labor, previously used mainly in agriculture, allowed for a tertiarization of activities and urban densification. More people were assigned to administrative tasks, whose demand exploded proportionally with the intensification of trade, as well as research and development. This period also saw an intensification of our knowledge of the world and improvements in techniques in all fields.

The discovery of oil, initially for the creation of high-performance lubricants and later as a source of energy through the combustion engine (in the second half of the 19th century), greatly facilitated transportation. Easily transportable, refined oil in the form of gasoline, diesel, or kerosene became dominant in mobility, enabling vehicles to achieve greater autonomy. Ford’s application of Taylorism allowed for the emergence of personal automobiles, within the broader spectrum of the consumer society in which we now live. Finally, the widespread use of electricity as an energy vector allows everyone to easily use controllable energy in a wide range of manufactured devices that we can no longer do without.

In a sense, an energy transition has already occurred in the past: from renewable energies to fossil energies. It enabled unprecedented development, resulting in the emergence of our modern, tertiary, urbanized society, much wealthier, with a much longer and more comfortable life expectancy. The rise of capitalism, Western democracies, and the emancipation of women are consequences of this energy transition.

Did you know that, in pre-industrial France, the indoor comfort temperature was only 13 degrees? That 98% of the population was born, lived, and died within a 10 km radius?

All these advances are the result of the discovery of these dense, abundant, and cheap energy sources. To illustrate my point, here is the evolution of global energy consumption. You will see that new energy sources discovered and exploited never completely replace those already in use but are added to them. And even if it seems that renewables are gaining ground, remember this: we have never extracted as much coal globally as in 2023.