section_path: Contemporary science and technology/Energy
section_name: Energy
paragraph_text: Energy
  
  The growing world population and rising standards of living has caused a vast increase in demand for energy development, both to power vehicles such as personal cars as well as on public electrical grids. In particular, petroleum oil has been in ravenous demand across the world. Many of the cheapest and easiest sources of oil to access were largely drained in the 19th and early 20th centuries, leading to a hunt for new sources of oil. The value of oil has spilled over into politics as well, as " petrostates " with access to oil found a source of vast revenue that did not require traditional government revenue-raising measures, such as tariffs or income taxation. The rising cost of oil led to the 1970s energy crisis and various adaptations in energy conservation to better conserve oil, such as more efficient engines and better insulation. It has also led to concerns of " peak oil," that the rising extraction costs of oil will eventually lead to massive shortages and a large disincentive to burn oil except when absolutely necessary (such as in the case of aviation fuel), although oil continues to be one of the most popular sources of energy.
  
  Other fossil fuels have continued a prominent role in the world's energy production. Coal energy, usually credited as helping kickstart the Industrial Revolution, has declined somewhat in prominence, but it started from a commanding large slice of the sources of energy. Even if diminished, coal is still a popular and common style of power plant; it made up a huge proportion of South Africa and India's power grid from 1945 to the present, for example. That said, increasing price, as well as concerns both over the air pollution generated when it is burnt and the landscape destruction when it is mined (such as mountaintop removal mining), have caused setbacks for the coal industry. Natural gas has grown in its proportion of the market, especially as Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has enabled it to be transported over longer distances than was previously feasible.
  
  An entirely new form of energy creation dawned in the 1950s and 1960s: nuclear power for peaceful purposes and the construction of nuclear power plants. Hopes that atomic energy would be " too cheap to meter " in the 1950s proved overly optimistic, however. Atomic energy grew to be a large part of several nations energy generation strategies, especially nuclear power in France. Nuclear power continues to be controversial. Concerns include its association with nuclear weapons, financial cost, disposal of radioactive nuclear waste, and fears of safety from reactor meltdowns, especially after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. An anti-nuclear movement arose that was skeptical of atomic energy and has discouraged many projects. Nuclear proponents counter that nuclear energy produces no air pollution compared to traditional fossil fuel plants, and can provide a steady supply of energy regardless of external conditions unlike solar and wind energy. With the supply of Russian natural gas disrupted in 2022, France is looking to reactivate some of its older decommissioned nuclear plants, for example.
  
  Various forms of renewable energy have grown in prominence in the contemporary era. Wind energy, while used on a small scale for centuries, has seen growth with large distributed groups of windmills used to produce energy for the grid. Solar power has also grown in prominence, with around 4% of the world's overall energy production in 2021 (compared to a much smaller slice before). While these energy sources are considered to be much less environmentally impactful than fossil fuels, concerns have been raised over the various rare earth metals used in the production of batteries and solar, which can require destructive mining techniques to gather.