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Summary

Chapter 1 introduces the basic patterns in mid-nineteenth-century Mexico’s energy regime. After a brief overview of Mexico’s longer history, it presents a panoramic view of Mexican society in the 1850s and analyzes the relationship between economic activity, environmental conditions, and the country’s energy regime, which depended on the annual solar cycle. It sketches the basic contours of Mexico’s pre–fossil fuel era, providing a baseline against which the social, economic, and environmental developments examined in subsequent chapters can be gauged.

Around the 1830s, parts of Mexico began industrializing using water and wood. By the 1880s, this model faced a growing energy and ecological bottleneck. By the 1950s, fossil fuels powered most of Mexico's economy and society. Looking to the north and across the Atlantic, late nineteenth-century officials and elites concluded that fossil fuels would solve Mexico's energy problem and Mexican industry began introducing coal. But limited domestic deposits and high costs meant that coal never became king in Mexico. Oil instead became the favored fuel for manufacture, transport, and electricity generation. This shift, however, created a paradox of perennial scarcity amidst energy abundance: every new influx of fossil energy led to increased demand. Germán Vergara shows how the decision to power the country's economy with fossil fuels locked Mexico in a cycle of endless, fossil-fueled growth - with serious environmental and social consequences.

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Chapter 1 - 1850s: Solar Society

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Fueling Mexico

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Chapter 1 - 1850s: Solar Society

Summary

Fueling Mexico