Postponed leap in carbon dioxide emissions : impacts of energy efficiency, fuel choices and industrial structure on the Finnish energy economy, 1800 - 2005

Abstract

This study examines the growth and composition of energy consumption in Finland in the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. It argues that among European countries, Finland was an 'odd-man out' because it industrialized by means of renewable, indigenous energy sources. Only in the 1960s in the mature phase of industrialization, the country switched from indigenous energy sources, fuel wood, wood refuse and hydropower, to imported fossil fuels. The reasons for this late transition from an energy system based on indigenous energy sources to one largely depending on fossil fuels are Finland's large wood resources and reasonable hydropower potential, which made it possible to postpone the transition.