Alternative liquid fuels in the UK in the inter-war period (1918-1938): Insights from a failed energy transition

- Crude oil market instability, support for a declining coal industry and militaristic needs motivated the search for alternative liquid fuels.
- Changing characteristics of energy security influenced the framing of energy and government support for alternative transport fuels.
- The state-market-led hybrid governance mode of energy policy created difficult conditions for the development of alternatives to petrol.
- Lack of state regulation of incumbent oil company cartels and access to fuel distribution infrastructure impeded emergence of new fuels.
- This analysis of failed attempts at path creation can usefully inform understanding of current energy governance and low carbon transitions.

Against a backdrop of growing interest in low carbon alternatives to petroleum derived liquid fuels, this paper analyses two early attempts to develop alternative liquid fuels to rival petrol, the incumbent fuel. We focus on two alternatives manufactured in the UK during the inter-war period (1918-1938), a power alcohol and a petrol-from-coal. Both fuels received government support during a time of rapid growth in the motor industry, fluctuating economic conditions and fears of absolute oil shortages. Governance of fuel distribution in particular had significant effects on the economic feasibility of both fuels and their ability to penetrate a market dominated by the oil industry incumbents. The paper presents a rich, complex story of how the development of these fuels interacted with fluctuating political perceptions of energy security, changes in the framing of energy and shifts in governance, in what were to become failed attempts at path creation and transition.