Energy consumption, history

The effects of trends toward lower efficiency and higher energy-consuming features and the countervailing force of policy inteiwentions is illustrated in Figurel, which displays the history of refrigerator energy consumption. 

See also Consei vation of Energy Consumption, Culture and Energy Usage Economically Efficient Energy Edison, Thomas Alva Elctricity Electricity, History of Electric Power, Generation of Power. 

Various pollution prevention case histories have been documented for nonferrous metals refining industries. In particular, the actions of the AMPCO Metal Manufacturing Company, Inc., typify industry efforts to simultaneously lessen the impact of the industrial process on the environment, reduce energy consumption, and lower production costs.1... 

Looking back in the history, energy consumption of the world is constantly increasing. The trend of energy consumption in the world is shown in Fig. 1. In this diagram, oil, coal and natural gas has the largest consumption share of world primary energy, oil, coal, and natural gas are the three main sources. 

Fig. 1 World marketed energy consumption, 1970-2025. Reference History data from Energy Information Administration (EIA), International energy annual, 2002, DOE/EIA-0219 (2002), Washington, DC, March 2004. Projection data from EIA, System for the analysis of global energy markets, 2005.

The availability of natural resources has for the most part established the history of energy consumption in the United States. This history includes four broad time spans (1) the wood period,... 

Yields of 50% and reduced energy consumption have been achieved by a history of innovation. Such innovation has included the Tomlinson black liquor recovery boiler, the Kamyr continuous digester and associated diffusion washer, multiple-effect evaporators, and low-odor concentrators. Economic advantages also have been gained by the development of systems for recovering extractives such as tall oil, fatty acids, and resin from the pulping liquor for sale as naval stores. Future innovations may focus on the lime kiln and other related systems. 

Scientific and industrial interest in oil shales has had a chequered history since, in 1694, Martin Bale was awarded a patent for the production of "oyle from a kind of stone". The production of shale oil in the 19th century became less economic when cheap crude oil reached a widening market and, with the exception of a few countries worldwide, the oil shale industry was essentially run down early this century. The energy crisis of the early 1970 s reawakened a wide interest in the possible economic production of shale oil, but the current downturn in energy consumption, with a concomitant drop in crude oil prices... 

Fossil fuels, namely oil, coal, and gas, provide 85% of all the energy used in the United States. Renewable energy sources supply just 8%, most of which comes from hydropower and the burning of biomass while only 4% comes from geothermal sources. Fig. 2 shows the history and projections of the U.S. energy consumption by fuel sources for the period of 1970-2020. 

The history of the Monsanto adiponitrile process demonstrates well the development of a synthetic process[1,23-25]. The first electrolytic process for the hydrodimerization of acrylonitrile was introduced on a 14,000 tons/year scale in 1965. The late 1970 s saw a large expansion of this process both in the UK and USA and it now produces some 200,000 tons adiponitrile/year. At least the recent cell houses are based on quite different technology to that used in the first plant and this has allowed large reductions in both capital investment and energy consumption. 

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