Transitions of Energy Regimes

Transitions of energy regimes are phenomena that have profoundly affected economies and civilisations over the last 600 years. The shifts from wood to coal, from coal to oil and the potential change to another resource that might be pending now have influenced the ways in which we work, produce, and live. Though they are fundamentally influenced and steered by economic forces these changes have seen little analysis from the viewpoint of economic theory.

This book seeks to contribute to filling this gap. To this avail, it firstly provides insight into the historical and present transitions that have taken place. It then gives an overview of the existing economic approaches to energy regime transitions and develops a new interpretation based on evolutionary economics. For this, an approach based on complexity theory and complex adaptive systems is created and applied and the mechanisms behind regime changes are interpreted according to this framework. The analysis is supported by further research into certain aspects of transitions: Historical and present research on resource depletion is compared, the working of path dependence in the constitution and decline of the oil regime is analysed, and the role of entrepreneurship in a regime change from the oil regime towards a potential renewable energy regime is investigated. The book closes with an appraisal of energy regime transitions as a future field of research for evolutionary economics.