energy

This article presents and discusses the papers presented at the 5th IWHA Conference under the theme ‘Water, Food and the Economy’.

Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins hundreds of millions of years ago and spans the globe. Coal is a captivating narrative about an ordinary substance with an extraordinary impact on human civilization.

Vaclav Smil shows why energy transitions are inherently complex and prolonged affairs, and how ignoring this raises unrealistic expectations that the United States and other global economies can be weaned quickly from a primary dependency on fossil fuels.

Beginning in the pre-modern world, the Volga and Mississippi Rivers both served as critical trade routes connecting cultures in an extensive exchange network, while also sustaining populations through their surrounding wetlands and bottomlands. In modern times, “Mother Volga” and the “Father of Waters” became integral parts of national identity, contributing to a sense of Russian and American exceptionalism. Rivers, Memory, and Nation-Building discusses their histories, through which we derive a more nuanced view of human interaction with the environment, which adds another lens to our understanding of the past.

This article examines the energy transition in the iron industry and studies the consequence of this switch to coal-fueling technology upon forests.