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This paper considers how energy-related external costs change through time. It focuses on one of the key periods in the history of energy. After a period of declining coal prices and soaring consumption which fuelled the Second Industrial Revolution, the nineteenth century British economy was externalising the social costs of energy production and consumption on a massive scale. Rising from 25% in the 1820s, an estimated 60%–70% of the average social costs of coal were externalised in the 1880s, imposing damages close to 20% of GDP. The eventual decline in air pollution concentration (around 1900) occurred fifty years later than was broadly socially optimal. This experience highlights the evolution of the demand for and supply of environmental quality in the context of economic growth, and the nature of related market and government failures, implying the necessity for adaptation rather than encouraging mitigation. This experience may offer lessons for climate analysis and policy-making. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents a societal level exergy analysis approach developed to analyse transitions in the way that energy is supplied and contributes to economic growth in the UK, the US, Austria and Japan, throughout the last century. We assess changes in exergy and useful work consumption, energy efficiency and related GDP intensity measures of each economy. The novel data provided elucidate certain characteristics of divergence and commonality in the energy transitions studied. The results indicate that in each country the processes of industrialization, urbanisation and electrification are characterised by a marked increase in exergy and useful work supplies and per capita intensities. There is a common and continuous decrease in the exergy intensity of GDP. Moreover for each country studied the trend of increasing useful work intensity of GDP reversed in the early 1970s coincident with the first oil crisis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]