Abstract
THIS fourth Year book, produced with aid of a grant from Unesco, covers the disturbed period of the Second World War when comparisons between countries in respect of output became creasingly difficult, by reason of both the scarcity of information and widespread territorial changes. The successive tables are concerned mainly with fuels and other sources of power. Table 2, concerned with resources of solid fuels, is little changed from that of Year-Book No. 3, except in the important cases of Canada and China, the estimates for which are heavily reduced. In respect of coal output, the lengthening lead of the United States (more than 800 million tons annually) and the difficulty of the British fields in maintaining production at little more than 200 millions have been confirmed by the Second World War. In water-power, the recently increased capacity of Sweden is remarkable, even in a world of vigorous hydro-electric development. The most serious gaps in the tables are left by the absence of figures concerning U.S.S.R. output ; in petroleum production, for example, there are no figures later than for the year 1936. By following the practice of placing the Soviet Union, as a whole, for statistical purposes, within Europe, the fact that its mineral wealth is preponderantly within Asia is, unfortunately, concealed.
Statistifcal Year-Book of the World Power Conference
No. 4: Data on Resources and Annual Statistics for 1936–1946. Edited, with Introductory and Explanatory Texts, by Frederick Brown. Pp. 212. (London: World Power Conference, 1948.) 45s. net.
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FITZGERALD, W. Statistifcal Year-Book of the World Power Conference. Nature 164, 378 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164378b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164378b0