1st Edition
Economic History of the European Energy Industry Lighting up Western Europe, 19th to 21st centuries
Global climate change and the war in Ukraine have put energy back on the agenda for Europe in a way that has not been seen since the oil crisis of the 1970s. But the economics and business of supplying energy to Europe has a long and rich history going back to the nineteenth century. This book explores changes in energy markets, strategies, firms and investments during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The primary focus is on manufactured gas—the gas that was initially produced from coal distillation until new ways of manufacturing gas emerged after the Second World War.
The expert contributors to this volume draw on their extensive research and utilise primary sources to explore a wide range of issues, including technological adaptation, market regulation, energy investments (particularly the role of foreign capital), gas consumption and supply issues. The case studies are particularly drawn from Spain, France and Italy, but the authors provide a comparative and global perspective to consider the wider context. The volume closes with an epilogue that brings the story into the present day to consider current issues affecting gas markets in the EU, including war, geostrategy and pipelines.
This book will be of interest to readers in economic history, business history, energy history, the history of public utilities and modern European history more broadly.
1. Introduction
Alberte Martínez-López, Jesús Mirás-Araujo and Nuria Rodríguez-Martín
2. Energy transitions in Europe
Nuno Madureira
3. The emergence of a competitor: The impact of the development of electricity on the gas sector through Le Gaz Journal in the last third of the 19th century
José Joaquín Luque García and Alberte Martínez-López
4. Electricity and gas in Spain, between competition and complementarity
Joan Carles Alayo-Manubens and Francesc Xavier Barca-Salom
5. The rivalry between gas and electricity in France and Spain through advertising and marketing (1890-1936)
Antonio Rafael Fernández-Paradas and Nuria Rodríguez-Martín
6. The withdrawal of foreign capital from the gas industry in Spain in the first third of the twentieth century
María Vázquez-Fariñas, Mariano Castro-Valdivia and Juan Manuel Matés-Barco
7. Pre-war and war energy market in Latin Europe: Gas and electricity in Spain and France in the 1930s
Mercedes Fernández-Paradas, Carlos Larrinaga Rodríguez and Antonio Jesús Pinto Tortosa
8. How did the Second World War affect gas consumption in Western Europe?
Mercedes Fernández-Paradas, Alberte Martínez-López and Jesús Mirás-Araujo
9. More an Iberian Island than a Peninsula: Gas pipelines between France and Spain since c. 1955: Failures and achievements
Jesús María Valdaliso Gago, Patricia Suárez Cano and Carlos Alvarado-García
10. Gas supplies to France and Italy from the end of the Second World War to the present day
Andrea Giuntini and Jean-Pierre Williot
11. The Redevelopment and Repurposing of Historic Gas Site
Russell Thomas
12. Epilogue - EU, war and energy: geostrategy and gas pipelines
Pere-A. Fàbregas
Biography
Alberte Martínez-López is Professor of Economic History at the University of A Coruña (Spain), where he coordinates the Business History Study Group.
Jesús Mirás-Araujo is Senior Lecturer of Economic History at the Department of Economics of the University of A Coruña (Spain).
Nuria Rodríguez-Martín is Lecturer in Contemporary History at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain).
