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Last Gasp

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Key Concepts in Energy

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Abstract

This chapter examines the evidence on the vigorous and imaginative responses from older industries whenever their profit margins were threatened by competition from replacement technologies. The concept used to account for such processes in which threatened technologies display an extraordinary growth in efficiency just before they enter into abrupt and terminal decline is “the last gasp.” The overview of the switch from wood–charcoal to coal–coke technologies in the sector preceding the large-scale iron and steel industry here provides a way to test the “last gasp” model. This reveals how, within the time frame for “transition,” one might expect either the effective substitution of the older energy carrier or the incentive to its expansion. The same is to say that the course of action that leads to destruction through innovation and decreases in cost also unleashes creative market mechanisms.

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  1. Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Nuno Luis Madureira

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  1. Nuno Luis Madureira
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Correspondence to Nuno Luis Madureira .

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Madureira, N.L. (2014). Last Gasp. In: Key Concepts in Energy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04978-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04978-6_5

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