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the 1970s; today, with the accumulation of four decades of evidence, it
has become a top-tier concern in much of the world. Meanwhile, the
balance of global economic power, once i rmly anchored in the West, is
steadily shit ing to the East as billions emerge from poverty to modern
life. China endured much of the 1970s in the isolation of the Cultural
Revolution, which began to genuinely subside only following the death
of Mao Zedong in 1976; indeed, wholesale reform of the Chinese sys-
tem did not commence until 1979. Chinese GDP never exceeded 1 per-
cent of the global economy during that decade. Today, its share is ten
times as large, a i gure that only continues to rise.
By the time the i nancial crisis hit in 2008, the energy world had also
changed enormously. Oil was a major source of electricity in 1973, but
by 2008 its share had fallen below 1 percent. Coal-i red power steadily
declined from 1956 through the early 1970s, but in the wake of the oil
crisis the trend reversed. By 1980, coal yielded more than half of U.S.
electricity supplies; it would stay above that threshold through 2004.
Nuclear power, a fringe source of U.S. electricity in 1970, topped 20
percent by 1992 and retained its share at erward.
Renewable energy, once at the fringe, would also grow steadily if not
as strongly, even before its steep ascent over the past few years. Power
from wind and solar in the 1970s was so minuscule that the U.S. gov-
ernment did not start reporting statistics of their use until 1984. h at
year, the two would combine to deliver less than 0.0005 percent of the
U.S. electricity supply. By 2008, though, their contribution would rise by
a factor of nearly three thousand, breaking the 1 percent threshold for
the i rst time. Ethanol, relegated to the sidelines ever since Henry Ford
decided to go with more abundant gasoline for his Model T, began to
crawl back out of obscurity in the late 1970s. At i rst, it was adopted as
a replacement for lead, promising to improve engine performance with
no damaging consequences for public health. Eventually, farmers and
policymakers seized on it as a potential replacement for oil, and the U.S.
government started to subsidize its growth. Output would ultimately rise
nearly fortyfold between 1980 and 2007.
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h e U.S. oil scene did not stand still either. In 1973, when the i rst
oil crisis hit, the United States was importing barely more than three
million barrels of oil a day. By 2004, U.S. imports topped ten million
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