ABSTRACT
The interest in keeping track of energy use came surprisingly late in Denmark. The Danish Statistical Office was throughout the 20th century compiling hundreds of datasets on the number of newspapers and magazines sold, on consumption of cucumber and pumpkin, on turnover in flower shops, and so on, but until 1959 not a word on energy supply or its use. Other countries, such as the USA, had detailed energy supply and consumption data from the start of the 20th century (US Department of Commerce, 1975). The earliest serious Danish effort seems to have been at the start of World War II, when the Danish government wanted to ration the coal obtained by the limited wartime import options. A few large industries were asked how much coal they used to burn, and the available coal was then distributed among them according to these fixed ratios. After the war, the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (1947) saw it as interesting to map the variations in energy supplies that had been taking place between 1938 and 1944. The coal import was found have declined threefold during the war, and the oil import to nearly zero (the few operating automobiles were converted to use coke or wood gasifiers; see Fig. 10.49). Indigenous sources such as peat, wind and hydropower were unable to replace the lost imports over the limited time horizon. On the demand side, half of the energy use supplied was unaccounted for, as available data only covered industry and central energy conversion plants, and the efficiency of these applications often had to be guessed.
