Energy consumption in England and Italy, 1560-1913. Two pathways toward energy transition

What is it about?

The displacement of the centre of the European economy from the Mediterra-nean to the Atlantic and the beginning of North-South divergence in Europe has been discussed on the basis of data on real wages, urbanisation rates and, more recently, estimates of GDP for a number of European countries. The pur-pose of the present article is to contribute to this line of research with the elaboration of yearly series of total energy consumption in Italy and England for the long period 1560-1913. New data on energy services, energy intensity and, finally, social savings from the use of energy is also presented and discussed both for Italy and England. This new data allows us to specify that en-ergy played a central role. Yet it was relatively late that its importance as a pro-vider of mechanical work developed fully; that is from 1830 onwards in England and from the end of the nineteenth century in Italy.

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