His central thesis was that the supremacy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland over global affairs was transitory, given the finite nature of its primary energy resource.

No chemical or mechanical operation, perhaps, is quite impossible to us, and invention consists in discovering those which are useful and commercially practicable.... Jevons further argues that coal is the source of the UK's prosperity and global dominance.

Even before the peak was reached, high extraction costs could cause the UK to lose the competitive advantage it currently enjoyed in manufacturing and shipping.

British coal production did in fact peak in 1913, but at 292 million tons, about half the amount Jevons' extrapolation suggested.

For the present our cheap supplies of coal, and our skill in its employment, and the freedom of our commerce with other wide lands, render us independent of the limited agricultural area of these islands, and take us out of the scope of Malthus' doctrine.

But long-continued progress in such a manner is altogether impossible — it must outstrip all physical conditions and bounds; and the longer it continues, the more severely must the ultimate check be felt.

This modification of Malthus's theory did not alter the conclusion that unrestrained population growth would inevitably surpass the nation's ability to expand its resources.

Moreover, because the primary resource was non-renewable, the fall would be more dramatic than Malthus envisioned: A farm, however far pushed, will under proper cultivation continue to yield forever a constant crop.

Like many innovations that followed, such as improved methods for smelting iron, greater economy broadened usage and led to increased energy consumption.

Whatever, therefore, conduces to increase the efficiency of coal, and to diminish the cost of its use, directly tends to augment the value of the steam-engine, and to enlarge the field of its operations.

Similarly, although he deplored the wasteful practice of burning away low quality coal at the mine site, he did not support conservation legislation.

An alternative that he did consider practical was tightened government fiscal policy, based on using tax revenue to reduce the national debt.

He reviewed biomass, namely timber, and commented that forests covering all of the UK could not supply energy equal to the current coal production.

He also mentioned possibilities for geothermal and solar power, pointing out that if these sources did become useful, the UK would lose its competitive advantages in global industry.

In particular, Jevons proposed applying the current wealth to righting social ills and to creating a more just society: We must begin to allow that we can do today what we cannot so well do tomorrow....

Reflection will show that we ought not to think of interfering with the free use of the material wealth which Providence has placed at our disposal, but that our duties wholly consist in the earnest and wise application of it.

According to the US Department of Energy, global fossil fuel consumption in 1970 was 200 Quad BTU, or 7.2 billion tons coal equivalent.

[12] Studies by Dave Rutledge of the California Institute of Technology,[13] and by the Energy Watch Group of Germany[14] indicate that global coal production will also peak within the current generation, perhaps as soon as 2030.