The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal-Mines

William Stanley Jevons seeks to demonstrate how the supply of coal - a finite source of energy - is unsustainable, while being heavily relied upon by industrialized economies.

The Coal Question is considered the earliest work to discuss extensively the problem of energy resource depletion in an industrialized world. Writing in 1865, the author discusses how ready supplies of coal present in the British Isles is forecast to deplete in the forthcoming decades. The rise of the United States, wh...