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UK Was Once Bigger Exporter of Coal (which helps explain

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发表于 8-29-2018 15:59:30 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
why Industrial Revolution started here)

Economist: "It [UK] was also easily the biggest exporter of energy. No fewer than a million people worked in the coalmines."

Note:
(a) Obviously it means UK was biggest exporter of coal.
(i) The short answer is

Richard P Rothwell and Joseph Struthers (eds), The Mineral Industry, its statistics, technology and trade in the United states and other countries to the end of 1900. Vol 9. New York and company London: The Scientific Publishing Co, 1901, at pages 136-144 (particular the graphic in page 143 whose cation is "The World's Production of Coal in Metric Tons")
https://books.google.com/books?i ... %201900&f=false
("Coal and Coke[:] * * * the [coal] production [in United States] in 1900 was 243,414,163 metric tons (268,315.433 short tons) * * * The world's production for 1899 was 723,617,836 metric tons * * * In England the coal production of 1900 was 225,181.300 long tons. * * * American competition was not seriously felt by English mone owners. There was a good demand in France and a fair one in Germany for English coal, though exports to other countries, notably South America, felt American competition more severely. * * *  The French output in 1900 was 33,270,385 metric tons * * * The production in 1900 [in Germany] was 149,551,058 metric tons * * * The total production in Russia in 1899 was 12,800,000 metric tons, and for the first half of 1900, 7,806,455 tons. * * * the situation in China. In that country, where the wretched government has prevented the development of great natural resources, the uprising [Boxer Rebellion] against foreigners completely stopped whatever mining operations were underway in the disturbed provinces and interfered with industry generally")

The quotation talked about coal only, not coke.

A bigger picture:
Historical Coal Data: Coal Production, Availability and Consumption 1853 to 2017. UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Jan 22, 2013.
https://www.gov.uk/government/st ... ity-and-consumption

(ii) Douglas A Irwin, Explaining America's Surge in Manufactured Exports, 1880-1913. Review of Economics and Statistics, 85: 364-376 (2003).
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/003465303765299873
https://www.dartmouth.edu/~dirwin/docs/Surge3wp.pdf
(abstract: "The United States became a net exporter of manufactured goods around 1910 after a dramatic surge in iron and steel exports began in the mid-1890s. This paper argues that natural-resource abundance fueled the expansion of iron and steel exports in part by enabling a sharp reduction in the price of U.S. exports relative to other competitors. The commercial exploitation of the Mesabi iron ore range, for example, reduced domestic ore prices by 50% in the mid-1890s and was equivalent to over a decade's worth of industry productivity improvement in its effect on iron and steel export prices. The nontradability of American ore resulted in its distinctive impact on the pattern of U.S. trade. The results are consistent with Wright's (1990) finding that US manufactured exports were natural-resource-intensive at this time")

* Mesabi Range
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesabi_Range
(Discovered in 1866, it is the chief iron ore mining district in the United States; section 1 Name
(iii) As a reference:
Coal Explained; Coal imports and exports. Energy Information Agency (EIA), US Department of Energy, undated
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.php?page=coal_imports
(in the right column: graphic caption: "US coal production, consumption, and net exports, 1950-2017.

(b) "The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 347 AD or earlier. They had depths of up to about 800 feet (240 m) and were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles. * * * In 1846 the first oil well in the world was drilled in [Baku )capital of Azerbaijan, on Caspian Sea); in 1861] Baku produced about 90% of the world's oil. * * *  Edwin Drake's 1859 well near Titusville [90-mile air distance north of Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania is popularly considered the first modern well"  en.wikipedia.org for "history of the petroleum industry"

(c) Oil and World Power. Encyclopedia of New American Nation, undated
http://www.americanforeignrelati ... nd-world-power.html
(The United States dominated world oil production in the first half of the twentieth century. U.S. fields accounted for slightly more than 70 percent of world oil production in 1925, around 63 percent in 1941, and over 50 percent in 1950. * * * In addition to being blessed with a thriving and productive domestic oil industry, five [except BP and Royal Dutch Shell] of the seven great oil corporations (the so-called Seven Sisters) that dominated the international oil industry from the 1920s to the 1970s were American companies * * * The United States Navy had emerged from World War I second to none, thus providing the United States with the capability of securing access to overseas oil-producing areas. * * * World War II and the Cold War reinforced traditional U.S. determination to maintain an economic and strategic sphere of influence in Latin America. Securing the Persian Gulf, which emerged as the center of the world oil industry following World War II, was more difficult for several reasons, including the region's distance from the United States, the involvement of rival great powers, and the dynamics of regional politics. Great Britain had emerged as the leading power in the Middle East following World War I. Following World War II, the United States gradually assumed Britain's role as the main guarantor of Western interests in the Middle East.  Oil became an important element in military power in the decade before World War I when the navies of the great powers, led by Great Britain and the United States, began to switch from coal to oil as their source of power. * * * Although [in World War I] the surface fleets of the great powers played a relatively minor part in the fighting, German submarines wreaked havoc on British and French shipping and helped bring the United States into the war. * * * [also in WWI] Britain and France were able to draw on overseas sources of supply from Iran, Mexico, and the United States, while the Germans were limited to oil from Romania. * * * In addition to being a tremendous military asset, access to ample supplies of oil provided the United States with important advantages in the industrial transformation of the first half of the twentieth century. By the 1890s, the United States had overtaken Great Britain as the leading industrial power in the world, and by the 1920s, the U.S. economy was larger than the combined economies of the next six great powers (Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Soviet Union, and Japan).  Cheap and plentiful supplies of oil were a prerequisite for the automobile industry, which played a central role in the U.S. economy from the 1920s to the 1960s. * * * The Soviet Union was the only other great power that possessed significant quantities of oil within its borders. The Russian empire had been the world's leading oil producer in 1900, accounting for more than half of world production. Soon thereafter a combination of geological and political problems caused output to plummet. Soviet oil production recovered rapidly in the 1920s, and by 1939 the Soviet Union was the second-largest oil producer in the world, far behind the United States and slightly ahead of Venezuela. Although the Soviets reentered exports markets briefly in the late 1920s, by the end of the 1930s almost all Soviet oil production was being devoted to internal uses.  The other great powers (Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan) lacked indigenous oil reserves * * * [before and during World War II] Production in the Far East was not great * * * Convinced that oil was essential to fuel his ambitions, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler moved to promote the development of a synthetic fuel industry in Germany shortly after taking power in 1933. By the outbreak of World War II, coal-derived synfuels accounted for nearly half of Germany's peacetime oil needs. The process of extracting oil from coal was complicated and expensive, and the huge installations required massive amounts of steel and were very vulnerable to air attack. Therefore, obtaining access to oil that did not depend on sea routes subject to interdiction by enemies remained an important part of Nazi expansionist strategy.  Germany received large quantities of oil from the Soviet Union under the terms of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, and in November 1940 gained assured access to Romanian oil when Romania was forced to adhere to the Tripartite Pact. These supplies were inadequate for Germany's needs, leading Hitler to look to the conquest of the rich oil fields of the Caucasus as a way to gain oil for Germany's highly mechanized military machine. Thus, the desire to gain assured access to oil was an important factor in Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941.  Obtaining access to oil was also a key factor behind Japan's decision to attack the United States. By the end of the 1930s, Japan was dependent on the United States for 80 percent of its oil needs. Most of the rest came from the Netherlands East Indies, where Shell and the Standard-Vacuum Oil Company, a jointly owned subsidiary of Standard Oil (New Jersey) and Socony-Vacuum, controlled production. The Netherlands East Indies possessed the largest reserves in East Asia, and control over its oil would go a long way toward meeting Japan's oil needs. * * * The United States entered World War II with a surplus production capacity of over one million barrels per day, almost one-third of U.S. production in 1941. This margin enabled the United States, almost single-handedly, to fuel not only its own war effort but that of its Allies * * * [during WWII] The Soviets were able to retain control of the vital Caucasian oil fields, and rushed new fields in the Volga-Urals region, safely removed from the fighting, into production. These successes helped Soviet forces attain the mobility necessary to repel the German invaders and go on the offensive. * * * Germany was able to hang on as long as it did only because the absence of a second front until the summer [June 6 Normandy landings] of 1944 kept oil requirements at manageable levels. In the late summer of 1944, the Allied bombing campaign began belatedly targeting synthetic fuel plants. By the end of the war, the German war machine was running on empty.  The Japanese gained control of the Netherlands East Indies in 1942, but many of the oil facilities had been sabotaged and took time to restore to full production. More importantly, transporting oil from the East Indies to Japan proved increasingly difficult * * * Soviet expansion into eastern and central Europe as a result of World War II left the Soviet Union in control of almost all of Europe's known indigenous oil reserves as well as important sources of coal in Poland and the Soviet zone of Germany. * * * Finally, for many years after World War II the Soviets lacked sufficient oil to fight a major war. Hit hard by wartime damage, disruption, transportation problems, equipment shortages, and overuse, Soviet oil production dropped after the war, and the Soviet Union was a net importer of oil (mostly from Romania) until 1954. Exclusion of the Soviets from the Middle East retained oil for Western recovery, and kept the Soviets short of oil")
(i) The 1913 Treaty of Gulistan in the wake of Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813, provided for the irrevocable cession of Baku. Wikipedia.
(ii) Charles R Viale, Prelude to War: Japan's Goals and Strategy in World War II. Defense Technology Information center (DTIC), US Department of Defense, May 1988
www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a202272.pdf
("Eighty percent of the 100,000 barrels of oil Japan consumed each
day came from California")

I always wondered which state in United States supplied oil to Japan prior to World War II. Texas and east coast seemed too far away. There is no need to read the rest of this report.

(d) Although US produced and exported lots of oil in the first half of last century, wither was little from the hindsight of our times. That is, the absolute amounts were small.
(i) US Monthly Crude Oil Production Exceeds 10 million Barrels Per Day, Highest Since 1970. EIA, Feb 1, 2018 ("US monthly crude oil production (Jan 1920-Nov 2017)" )
https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/issuestrends/
(a graphic whose heading reads: "US monthly crude oil production (Jan 1920-Nov 2017)" )
(II) US Crude Oil Exports Increased and Reached More Destinations in 2017. EIA, Mar 15, 2018
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=35352
(a graphic whose heading reads: "US crude oil exports (1920-2017) )

It said "export," not "net export."
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