Insights from the evolution of transport technologies, 1800–2020

My colleague Bernardo Tostes is the lead author on my latest article: Insights from the evolution of transport technologies, 1800–2020: Energy use, transitions, and efficiency published in Applied Energy.

We (well, mostly Bernardo!) developed a model of transport-related energy consumption from 1800 to (nearly) today. We demonstrate how increasing efficiency has not, in the past, led to reduced energy consumption. Furthermore, we find that the quality of energy services was an important driver of past transitions, a factor to be explored when adopting new technologies.

The paper is published as open access and is available to anyone by clicking the link above.