1955 Forecast: World Energy Usage 60 Times Our Actual Usage

In a 1951 report for the Atomic Energy Commission, Palmer C. Putnam, inventor of the one of the world’s largest wind turbines and the DUKW amphibious transport vehicle, made some seemingly reasonable predictions about the the world energy system.
He noted the world’s “illiterate subsistence-farming populations” were “in demographic transition” to urbanized, higher-energy lifestyles. Meanwhile, “everything [...]