Os consumos domésticos de energia em Portugal.

Mestrado em Economia e Políticas de Energia e Ambiente.Este trabalho pretende estudar a evolução dos consumos de energia nos lares portugueses nos últimos dois séculos. A adopção de um novo combustível por parte do consumidor ao longo do período diverge muito consoante diversos factores: a localidade ou classe económica em que o consumidor se insere, as políticas públicas, os processos de aprendizagem, o preço do produto e equipamentos, a concorrência com outros combustíveis e as crises agudas de abastecimento. Para estudar a forma como essas escolhas energéticas se efectuam ao longo do tempo escolhemos para análise períodos críticos em que se verificou concorrência entre os diversos combustíveis para as funcionalidades de cozinha e aquecimento. Esses períodos são quatro: até à I Guerra Mundial resultante do impacto em Portugal da Revolução Industrial, o período da I e II Guerra Mundial e as décadas de 50/60.The present work aims at studying the evolution of household energy consumption in Portugal for the last two centuries. The choice of an emerging fuel depends greatly on the consumeis home location, the social status, public politics, consumers training and educational background, the price of energy carrier and equipment, the competition with other energy products and the supply crisis. The analysis of time evolution of the choice of competitive fuels for cooking and heating is made taking into account four critical periods: the Industrial Revolution, the First and the Second World War and the 50/60 decades.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Without coal in the age of steam and dams in the age of electricity : An explanation for the failure of Portugal to industrialize before the Second World War

We provide a natural resource explanation for the divergence of the Portuguese economy relative to other European countries before the Second World War. First, we demonstrate that a lack of domestic resources meant that Portugal experienced limited and unbalanced growth during the age of steam. Imports of coal were prohibitively expensive for inland areas. Coastal areas industrialized through steam but were constrained by limited demand from the interior. Second, we show that after the First World War, when other coal-poor countries turned to hydro-power, Portugal relied on coal-based thermal-power, creating a vicious circle of high-energy prices and labor-intensive industrialization

The modest environmental relief resulting from the transition to a service economy

A service transition is supposed to lead to the decline of energy intensity (energy/GDP). We argue that this interpretation is overly optimistic because the shift to a service economy is somewhat of an illusion in terms of real production. Several recent studies of structural effects on energy intensity have made the error of using sector shares in current prices, combined with GDP in constant prices, which is inconsistent and ignores the different behaviour of prices across sectors. We use the more correct method of sector shares in constant prices, and make an attempt to single out the effect from the real service transition by using two complementary methods: shift share analyses in current and constant prices, and Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) for 10 developed and 3 emerging economies. A service transition is rather modest in real terms. The major driver of the decline in energy intensity rests within the manufacturing sector. Meanwhile, the transition to a service sector had a small downward impact on energy intensity in 7 of the developed countries (and no impact in the others). For emerging economies like Brazil, Mexico and India, it is the residential sector that drives energy intensity down because of the declining share of this sector as the formal economy grows, and as a consequence of switching to more efficient fuels.Structural change Environmental Kuznets curve Service transition Energy intensity Baumol's disease Decomposition

International Trade and Energy Intensity During European Industrialization, 1870–1935

Previous research suggests that there is an inverted U-shape curve for energy intensity in the long-run for Western Europe with a peak in the early 20th century. This paper tests the hypothesis that the increase of German and British energy intensity was an effect from the concentration of heavy industrial production to these countries, although the consumption of a significant share of these goods took place elsewhere. We use an entirely new database that we have constructed (TEG: Trade, Energy, Growth) to test whether these countries exported more energy-demanding goods than they imported, thus providing other countries with means to industrialize and to consume cheap-energy demanding goods. We find that the U-shape curve is greatly diminished but does not disappear. The pronounced inverted U-curve in German energy intensity without trade adjustments is reduced when we account for energy embodied in the traded commodities. For Britain the shape of the curve is also flattened during the second half of the 19th century, before falling from WWI onwards. These consumption-based accounts are strongly influenced by the trade in metal goods and fuels, facilitating industrialization elsewhere.ISSN:0921-800