Pfor many scholars of the 18th centurye century, coal was going to be the “green technology” of their time: by replacing wood, it would help preserve forests. The naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788), who owned a forge in Burgundy, explained that the voracity of blast furnaces would force the use of earthen charcoal in the coming centuries, especially since, according to his theory , the Earth would inexorably cool, further increasing the need for heating.
Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-1794) envisaged another scenario: the multiplication of men would lead to the expansion of fields to the detriment of forests. The interest of coal was therefore not to preserve the forests, but, on the contrary, to be able to get rid of them and devote the surface thus freed to the cultivation of cereals. Requests for mining concessions also often refer to the future shortage of wood. Coal would have been placed by God under the ground in order to meet the needs of humanity when wood ran out. Whether savior (Buffon) or gravedigger (Condorcet) of the forests, coal was well thought of in opposition to wood, as a substitute and as its successor.
A century later, forestry experts were still worried about forest depletion. Because they noted that coal had increased the consumption of wood, for mine props, railway sleepers, house construction and even packaging. Fuelwood consumption had also increased thanks to progress in transport. However, a fantasy story of wood exhaustion and the transition to coal continues to haunt the historiography of industrialization as well as the common understanding of energy dynamics.
Jevons’ paradox
After wood, it was the turn of coal to raise concerns about its exhaustion. Particularly in Victorian England which, earlier than other nations, made it one of the foundations of its power. The scale of the debates is surprising: the English in the 1860s passionately discussed the possible exhaustion of coal expected between three and… ten centuries later! This question agitated the political arenas. The end of coal justified the reduction in public spending: could we leave the burden of debt to future generations deprived of coal? Exhaustion was also brandished against free trade: with English reserves covering only three or four centuries of national consumption, it was imperative for the survival of the Empire to tax exports.
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