1 00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:16,439 Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 2 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:21,520 Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of the aud Lots podcast. 3 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:23,040 Speaker 2: I'm Tracy Alloway. 4 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:23,800 Speaker 3: And I'm Joe Whysenthal. 5 00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:26,520 Speaker 2: Joe, you know what's been missing in my life? 6 00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:27,720 Speaker 4: Go on? 7 00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:28,560 Speaker 3: Chickens? 8 00:00:28,880 --> 00:00:32,159 Speaker 2: Oh yes, actually, chickens still missing in my life. But 9 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:36,680 Speaker 2: also a comprehensive series of historical firewood prices in the 10 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:38,720 Speaker 2: US for the past three hundred years. 11 00:00:39,040 --> 00:00:41,960 Speaker 3: You know what. We have data on literally every other 12 00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:44,360 Speaker 3: commodity in the world, but I don't have a three 13 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:47,480 Speaker 3: hundred year time series on firewood prices. And I always 14 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:49,960 Speaker 3: feel like if I just had that number, then I 15 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:52,000 Speaker 3: would have the complete picture of commodities. 16 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:55,280 Speaker 2: Well, I know we're sort of joking, but this is 17 00:00:55,320 --> 00:00:57,680 Speaker 2: actually important because if you think about the US in 18 00:00:57,720 --> 00:01:01,960 Speaker 2: the seventeen hundreds or the eighteen hundreds, people used firewood. 19 00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:06,320 Speaker 2: The vast majority of America's energy consumption came from. 20 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:09,880 Speaker 3: What Wait, do you remember a couple months ago when 21 00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:12,120 Speaker 3: I was that guy who brought up wages of destruction 22 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:13,240 Speaker 3: in every chat? 23 00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:14,400 Speaker 2: Are you going to do it again? No? 24 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:16,480 Speaker 4: Oh, well you just did. 25 00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:18,679 Speaker 3: No, Now I'm going to be the guy who brings 26 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:20,759 Speaker 3: up Mobi dick in every conversation. 27 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:22,280 Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, because I've been reading. 28 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,319 Speaker 3: Mobi Dick, and so I'm really interested in energy transitions 29 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:27,839 Speaker 3: in the eighteen hundreds because of one of the things 30 00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:29,360 Speaker 3: that you know, has come up in some of our 31 00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:33,360 Speaker 3: past conversations, such as with Bob Bracketcter. Whale oil is 32 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:37,199 Speaker 3: basically the only energy source that we've completely eliminated. Every 33 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:41,160 Speaker 3: other historical energy source that we've had, we're still using 34 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:44,240 Speaker 3: it to some degree. They never totally disappear, and so 35 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:47,480 Speaker 3: I'm very interested in the phenomenon of like past historical 36 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:51,560 Speaker 3: energy transitions. People talk about the transition now, but it's 37 00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:55,440 Speaker 3: interesting to sort of examine other periods when one form 38 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:57,960 Speaker 3: of fossil fuel or other fuel like went out of 39 00:01:57,960 --> 00:01:59,919 Speaker 3: style so to speak, or became uneconomical. 40 00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:03,560 Speaker 2: Well, I have to say, as the proud owner of 41 00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:08,000 Speaker 2: a wood burning stove now and formerly a coal burning stone. 42 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:09,360 Speaker 3: You're interested in energy transition. 43 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:12,360 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, So I am very pleased to say that 44 00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:15,200 Speaker 2: we have the perfect guest. We are going to be 45 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:19,239 Speaker 2: speaking with the author of a paper that's called Firewood 46 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:23,160 Speaker 2: in the American Economy seventeen hundred to twenty ten, and 47 00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:27,720 Speaker 2: it is all about collecting historical data on firewood prices 48 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:30,320 Speaker 2: and then figuring out how that fits into the wider 49 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:34,359 Speaker 2: economy and measures of other things like output and productivity 50 00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:37,440 Speaker 2: and things like that. So we have Nicholas Muller. He 51 00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:41,400 Speaker 2: is the Luster and Judith Lave Professor of Economics, Engineering, 52 00:02:41,440 --> 00:02:45,840 Speaker 2: and Public Policy over at Carnegie Mellon. So, Nick, welcome 53 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:46,400 Speaker 2: to the show. 54 00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:48,560 Speaker 5: Thank you so much the pleasure to be here. 55 00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:53,080 Speaker 2: Why don't I start out with why firewood? And I 56 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:56,359 Speaker 2: know I mentioned that firewood was the majority of US 57 00:02:56,639 --> 00:03:00,760 Speaker 2: energy consumption for many, many years. Is it right to 58 00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:04,520 Speaker 2: think of it sort of as like oil, the eighteen 59 00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:07,880 Speaker 2: hundred's equivalent of oil powering the entire economy. 60 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:11,200 Speaker 5: Yeah. So there are two reasons why I focused on 61 00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:14,880 Speaker 5: this particular topic and a paper. One, as you said, 62 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:19,519 Speaker 5: somewhere around or before the Civil War, back before the 63 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:23,000 Speaker 5: American Revolution and the founding of the country, essentially all 64 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:26,040 Speaker 5: the energy in the US economy, whether it was in 65 00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:29,720 Speaker 5: households or firms doing primitive things, it was all coming 66 00:03:29,720 --> 00:03:33,680 Speaker 5: from firewood. And so the fact that the academic literature 67 00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:39,640 Speaker 5: and government statistics didn't really have a reasonably comprehensive time 68 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:43,400 Speaker 5: series of these prices seemed like a really big gap 69 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:46,080 Speaker 5: to me, and so that was one reason to just 70 00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:49,680 Speaker 5: set out filling that knowledge gap. The other was, prior 71 00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:52,720 Speaker 5: to being at Carnegie Mellon, I taught at Middlebury College 72 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:55,560 Speaker 5: in Vermont, and my wife and kids and I used 73 00:03:55,600 --> 00:03:58,800 Speaker 5: to get heat from firewood in a wood stove, and 74 00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:03,400 Speaker 5: so you participate in these informal markets for firewood even today. 75 00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:05,560 Speaker 5: And it got me thinking about what that must have 76 00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:09,080 Speaker 5: been like long ago. And sure enough, it turned out 77 00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:11,600 Speaker 5: to be a pretty interesting process to gather these prices. 78 00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:14,920 Speaker 2: I never thought of going to loaves to buy a 79 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:18,200 Speaker 2: bundle of firewood as participating in an informal market. I 80 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:21,839 Speaker 2: guess it is formalized nowadays, but certainly if you're a professor, 81 00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:24,000 Speaker 2: that's probably how you're thinking about it. 82 00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:26,520 Speaker 3: I used to live in Vermont, and I remember, you know, 83 00:04:26,520 --> 00:04:28,680 Speaker 3: it was not that uncommon for people to buy a 84 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:32,680 Speaker 3: court of firewood or however much they anticipated needing for 85 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:35,200 Speaker 3: the winter to heat their homes. 86 00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:35,280 Speaker 5: Et cetera. 87 00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:38,400 Speaker 3: So I get the idea that like, okay, fire was 88 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:41,400 Speaker 3: this dominant source of energy for a long time in 89 00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:44,960 Speaker 3: the American economy. What are we gained by actually having 90 00:04:45,040 --> 00:04:47,039 Speaker 3: the numbers like okay, we know it, We know the 91 00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:51,160 Speaker 3: fact about firewood's existence and prominence. What does it help 92 00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:53,160 Speaker 3: us now? And we'll get into the details, But what 93 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:55,360 Speaker 3: does it help us now to actually have some sense 94 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:56,719 Speaker 3: of the size and scale. 95 00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:00,920 Speaker 5: Yeah, So I think two primary reasons. One, when we 96 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:05,880 Speaker 5: look at existing prior to this paper, existing estimates of 97 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:09,560 Speaker 5: the early American economy and gross domestic product, it had 98 00:05:09,839 --> 00:05:14,640 Speaker 5: very very sparse information on firewood prices, and they turned 99 00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:18,360 Speaker 5: out to be really low compared to the prices I gathered. 100 00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:21,839 Speaker 5: And so what that means is even with the same 101 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:26,039 Speaker 5: estimates of how much wood was consumed, those existing estimates 102 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:29,440 Speaker 5: of GDP that included that measure were really low in 103 00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:32,679 Speaker 5: that regard. So the energy cost of economic growth using 104 00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:37,440 Speaker 5: existing estimates looked much much lower than what these updated 105 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:41,960 Speaker 5: numbers suggest. Size of the economy to growth in the 106 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:47,000 Speaker 5: economy over time, especially during the early to mid eighteen hundreds, 107 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:50,880 Speaker 5: appears to be different when you use the updated series. 108 00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:55,320 Speaker 5: And then three, when you consider that the bulk of 109 00:05:55,600 --> 00:06:00,320 Speaker 5: firewood was produced in the agricultural sector, often in an 110 00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:03,800 Speaker 5: informal way, meaning just home production. But even when you 111 00:06:03,839 --> 00:06:05,919 Speaker 5: think about the wood that was hauled into some of 112 00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:10,240 Speaker 5: our newly forming cities, that was really all coming from agriculture, 113 00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:14,440 Speaker 5: and that means that when we think about existing measures 114 00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:17,880 Speaker 5: of agricultural productivity that included the sort of things you 115 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:21,400 Speaker 5: would expect livestock and crops and the like, it was 116 00:06:21,440 --> 00:06:25,719 Speaker 5: really missing this important energy commodity which was actually being 117 00:06:25,760 --> 00:06:28,479 Speaker 5: attributed or should be attributed to that sector, and so 118 00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:33,119 Speaker 5: agricultural productivity during this period would have been mismeasured as well. 119 00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:37,680 Speaker 2: So you mentioned the data gap and how significant this 120 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:40,599 Speaker 2: would be for measuring something like the growth of the 121 00:06:40,680 --> 00:06:44,200 Speaker 2: US economy in those years. I have to imagine one 122 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:47,640 Speaker 2: of the difficulties in gathering the data for something like 123 00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:52,840 Speaker 2: this is because firewood is or was still is, an 124 00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:55,520 Speaker 2: informal market, as you pointed out, and I know I 125 00:06:55,600 --> 00:06:58,479 Speaker 2: joked earlier that firewood was like the oil equivalent of 126 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:01,880 Speaker 2: the nineteenth century, but of course the big difference is 127 00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:06,920 Speaker 2: not everyone has an oil gusher in their backyard or refinery. 128 00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:10,200 Speaker 2: People in the eighteen hundreds could just go out into 129 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:13,360 Speaker 2: their land and chop down firewood, so in some respect 130 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:16,600 Speaker 2: they weren't even paying any prices for it. So I 131 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:20,360 Speaker 2: guess my question is why didn't the data exist before? 132 00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:22,960 Speaker 2: And then how did you actually go about gathering it. 133 00:07:23,520 --> 00:07:23,800 Speaker 4: Sure. 134 00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:30,440 Speaker 5: So the critical process that enabled the prices and the 135 00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:35,640 Speaker 5: price data and the records of advertisements in exchange to 136 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:39,560 Speaker 5: start showing up in a systematic way was urbanization. What 137 00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:43,560 Speaker 5: ended up happening, which this is well known in US 138 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:47,640 Speaker 5: economic history, Somewhere between the American Revolution and the Civil War, 139 00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:51,920 Speaker 5: the population started to urbanize. We were still pretty rary 140 00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:53,679 Speaker 5: and around the time of the Civil War, but people 141 00:07:53,680 --> 00:07:57,040 Speaker 5: were moving to cities. And once you moved to cities, 142 00:07:57,400 --> 00:08:01,160 Speaker 5: you lose that idea tracy that you you just mentioned, 143 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:03,520 Speaker 5: which is we all have a woodlock in our backyard. 144 00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:06,440 Speaker 5: You don't if you live in a city. And so 145 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:11,440 Speaker 5: the process of urbanization gave birth to markets for firewood 146 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:17,120 Speaker 5: that actually passed through commercial exchange. The agricultural sector was 147 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:20,480 Speaker 5: still producing the firewood, but now it was being hauled 148 00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:24,520 Speaker 5: into cities by various means and sold in I don't 149 00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:27,320 Speaker 5: want to say organized markets in the sense that your 150 00:08:27,360 --> 00:08:30,120 Speaker 5: readers might think, but in the sense that there was 151 00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:33,160 Speaker 5: some exchange, not just the use of time and labor 152 00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:37,640 Speaker 5: to procure the wood. And so that led to records 153 00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:42,360 Speaker 5: of really advertisements in that period where we started to 154 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:49,000 Speaker 5: see an abundance of data on wood by cord, by species, 155 00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:52,680 Speaker 5: by month by year that we could use software to 156 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:54,520 Speaker 5: extract from PDF images. 157 00:08:55,640 --> 00:08:56,160 Speaker 4: So what is that. 158 00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:58,800 Speaker 3: Let's talk about the data itself, because we've been talking 159 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:01,200 Speaker 3: about the why of the data and the how of 160 00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:04,400 Speaker 3: the data. But what are the top lines in terms 161 00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:05,560 Speaker 3: of what your research showed? 162 00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:10,240 Speaker 5: Yeah, so on the data gathering process. It's important to 163 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:14,199 Speaker 5: note that I'm sure as I'm talking about urbanization, urbanization 164 00:09:14,400 --> 00:09:17,000 Speaker 5: happening in the eighteen hundreds, you know, the price series 165 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:19,280 Speaker 5: go back to seventeen hundred. To actually have in an 166 00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:23,080 Speaker 5: appendix prices from the sixteen hundreds. That begs the question 167 00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:27,760 Speaker 5: where those came from, and they come from largely probate 168 00:09:27,840 --> 00:09:32,599 Speaker 5: and estate records, where when the head of household is deceased, 169 00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:36,880 Speaker 5: what would happen is legal entities would come into the 170 00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:41,400 Speaker 5: household and they would value assets, and much like they 171 00:09:41,440 --> 00:09:43,720 Speaker 5: do today, there'd be a settlement of an estate that 172 00:09:43,800 --> 00:09:46,920 Speaker 5: includes house and barn and animals and all the things 173 00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:49,320 Speaker 5: in the household. And often one of the things in 174 00:09:49,360 --> 00:09:52,800 Speaker 5: the records was five cords of firewood, or you know, 175 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:56,240 Speaker 5: ten cords of firewood, or one court, and they would 176 00:09:56,360 --> 00:09:59,400 Speaker 5: value it because they had to legally in terms of 177 00:09:59,640 --> 00:10:02,080 Speaker 5: docum minting the value of the estate. So the really 178 00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:06,040 Speaker 5: early stuff came from there. Now back to Joe's question 179 00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:09,160 Speaker 5: about what do we learn about the prices themselves and 180 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:12,800 Speaker 5: the top line numbers, there's really three patterns that come out. 181 00:10:12,880 --> 00:10:15,520 Speaker 5: There's lots of nuance, but there's three patterns that come 182 00:10:15,520 --> 00:10:20,920 Speaker 5: out in the data. From seventeen hundred to around eighteen hundred, 183 00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:24,360 Speaker 5: there's lots of noise and volatility in the price series, 184 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:27,760 Speaker 5: but there's no significant trend when you correct for inflation. 185 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:33,040 Speaker 5: So that means firewood prices were basically changing at the 186 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:36,800 Speaker 5: same rate that the price indices the equivalent of a 187 00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:41,240 Speaker 5: consumer price index were changing over that period of time. Then, 188 00:10:41,559 --> 00:10:45,280 Speaker 5: from eighteen hundred to the Civil War, firewood prices started 189 00:10:45,280 --> 00:10:48,640 Speaker 5: to increase in real terms, implying that they were rising 190 00:10:48,679 --> 00:10:53,360 Speaker 5: more rapidly than inflation, often between half a percent and 191 00:10:53,480 --> 00:10:57,440 Speaker 5: one percent real per year. And then after the Civil 192 00:10:57,480 --> 00:11:01,320 Speaker 5: War up to the modern era, it really wasn't a 193 00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:04,400 Speaker 5: lot of evidence of a systematic price change until late 194 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:07,640 Speaker 5: in the twentieth century, around the energy crises that we're 195 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:10,840 Speaker 5: all familiar with. In the nineteen seventies, there was a 196 00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:14,120 Speaker 5: systematic move back to firewood in some parts of the US, 197 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:17,600 Speaker 5: and that shows up as real price increases. It probably 198 00:11:17,640 --> 00:11:19,920 Speaker 5: had to do with the oil price bikes at the time. 199 00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:24,080 Speaker 5: You have these three time periods where there's no real change. 200 00:11:24,360 --> 00:11:27,960 Speaker 5: There's rapid price appreciation between eighteen hundred and the Civil War, 201 00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:30,679 Speaker 5: and then there's not a lot of evidence of systematic 202 00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:34,440 Speaker 5: price changes afterwards. And it's that middle period that I 203 00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:38,000 Speaker 5: think is the most important for how we think about 204 00:11:38,040 --> 00:11:41,480 Speaker 5: the US economy and how we think about the ensuing 205 00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:43,480 Speaker 5: transition from biomass to coal. 206 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:47,080 Speaker 2: Well, I definitely want to talk about that transition, but 207 00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:50,560 Speaker 2: just before we do, why did prices actually increase that 208 00:11:50,679 --> 00:11:54,560 Speaker 2: quickly in that time period, Because I imagine, okay, for 209 00:11:54,960 --> 00:11:58,080 Speaker 2: prices to move you have changes in supply and demand, 210 00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:02,920 Speaker 2: but the supply of wood probably isn't changing that rapidly. 211 00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:04,840 Speaker 2: Is it all just a demand story? 212 00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:08,800 Speaker 5: Yeah, clearly the demand side is at work. The population 213 00:12:09,040 --> 00:12:14,079 Speaker 5: is growing, we're engaging in more manufacturing activities. Iron manufacturing 214 00:12:14,400 --> 00:12:16,800 Speaker 5: from the Civil War back in time to when it 215 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:21,600 Speaker 5: started relied exclusively on charcoal, so that was cut down wood, 216 00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:24,240 Speaker 5: baked the moisture and impurities out of it, and then 217 00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:27,520 Speaker 5: use the resulting carbon to produce the heat that was needed. 218 00:12:27,559 --> 00:12:31,840 Speaker 5: So things were growing, the demand side was growing. But 219 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:35,760 Speaker 5: it's my sense, and this is really from reading about 220 00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:39,160 Speaker 5: the time. I don't have an econometric or an empirical 221 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:43,040 Speaker 5: way to nail down a specific cause for the price increases, 222 00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:46,920 Speaker 5: but I think what was happening based on reading, is 223 00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:52,440 Speaker 5: that the supplies of wood were getting scarce closer to cities, 224 00:12:53,240 --> 00:12:56,720 Speaker 5: and so what ended up happening was the transport distances 225 00:12:56,840 --> 00:13:01,200 Speaker 5: and hence costs to get wood into the cities for 226 00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:06,720 Speaker 5: both consumers and firms was increasing. Concurrent with that process, 227 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:11,360 Speaker 5: the railroad network was growing, and so on the one hand, 228 00:13:12,320 --> 00:13:17,319 Speaker 5: you would imagine that increasing rail networks would reduce costs, right, 229 00:13:17,679 --> 00:13:19,640 Speaker 5: you just load up a train, you get the train 230 00:13:19,679 --> 00:13:21,720 Speaker 5: into the cities, and that would be much more cost 231 00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:24,040 Speaker 5: effective than putting it in a cart and pulling it 232 00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:26,680 Speaker 5: with a horse, or putting it in a canal. But 233 00:13:26,800 --> 00:13:30,040 Speaker 5: the other thing to remember is that locomotives until really 234 00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:34,280 Speaker 5: after the Civil War did not run on coal. They 235 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:39,199 Speaker 5: burned wood as well, and so you have this ambiguous 236 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:42,000 Speaker 5: effect of the railroads that may have lowered costs, but 237 00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:46,040 Speaker 5: then they were voracious consumers of wood themselves, and so 238 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:50,240 Speaker 5: I think it is a scarcity story. It's not a 239 00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:53,760 Speaker 5: scarcity story in the sense that the forests were gone, 240 00:13:54,160 --> 00:13:58,480 Speaker 5: but rather the forests that had been feeding urban demand 241 00:13:58,559 --> 00:14:02,839 Speaker 5: for wood were received, and that led to increases in 242 00:14:02,920 --> 00:14:07,160 Speaker 5: transportation costs to get the fuel into cities and the 243 00:14:07,160 --> 00:14:21,160 Speaker 5: demand centers. 244 00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:25,600 Speaker 3: Well, I guess the other dynamic that I'm curious about 245 00:14:25,640 --> 00:14:29,640 Speaker 3: in your story is sort of the labor side. So 246 00:14:29,680 --> 00:14:32,240 Speaker 3: if you have a bunch of people moving from rural 247 00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:35,960 Speaker 3: areas to cities, that's fewer people who are theoretically in 248 00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:39,680 Speaker 3: the business of cutting down trees. And I'm curious if 249 00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:42,240 Speaker 3: in your research, you know, was there a scarcity of 250 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:45,360 Speaker 3: labor to cut down the trees? And I'm just curious 251 00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:49,040 Speaker 3: were there technological or productivity gains that you found in 252 00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:52,560 Speaker 3: the business of cutting down trees period such that in 253 00:14:52,600 --> 00:14:56,600 Speaker 3: the mid eighteen hundreds, did that process look substantively different 254 00:14:56,640 --> 00:14:58,880 Speaker 3: than maybe earlier in the eighteenth century. 255 00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:01,880 Speaker 5: The only thing I can really say about the agricultural 256 00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:05,840 Speaker 5: labor supply is regional. And there's a table in the 257 00:15:05,880 --> 00:15:11,160 Speaker 5: paper that unpacks agricultural productivity growth in the northern areas 258 00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:14,760 Speaker 5: and the southern areas of the country. And one thing 259 00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:17,680 Speaker 5: that table shows is that I think, if I have 260 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,240 Speaker 5: it right, the rates of consumption of firewood outpace the 261 00:15:21,320 --> 00:15:25,160 Speaker 5: rate of growth of agricultural workers in the north and 262 00:15:25,360 --> 00:15:28,480 Speaker 5: kept pace in the South. And so if there is 263 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:31,880 Speaker 5: an instance where scarcity and labor supply, which would have 264 00:15:31,960 --> 00:15:35,920 Speaker 5: driven up wages, was working as a force to drive 265 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:38,680 Speaker 5: up prices, it would have been the North. And that 266 00:15:38,800 --> 00:15:43,240 Speaker 5: probably also aligns with the urbanization dimension right, because the 267 00:15:43,240 --> 00:15:47,400 Speaker 5: city's Philadelphia, New York and Boston were big, they were 268 00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:51,200 Speaker 5: growing rapidly, and so those two forces would align. On 269 00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:55,360 Speaker 5: the technology piece, I really can't say anything about harvest 270 00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,840 Speaker 5: or about felling, but what I can say is the 271 00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:04,600 Speaker 5: technology that was used to move wood around. So whether 272 00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:06,600 Speaker 5: it was going into a city or whether it's going 273 00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:10,440 Speaker 5: into a village and being sold, we know that that 274 00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:14,680 Speaker 5: had to have matured from very simple transportation means of 275 00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:20,400 Speaker 5: transportations like animals and carts, to canals and to augment 276 00:16:20,440 --> 00:16:23,280 Speaker 5: boats on rivers like the Erie Canals is an example 277 00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:27,360 Speaker 5: where we know firewood was shipped to ultimately railroads, as 278 00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:32,560 Speaker 5: I mentioned earlier, which were strategically designed to connect population centers, 279 00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:37,160 Speaker 5: which the data suggests were growing very rapidly at this time, 280 00:16:37,800 --> 00:16:41,200 Speaker 5: so there's clear technological change. It's just the funny thing 281 00:16:41,240 --> 00:16:44,760 Speaker 5: about railroads until about the Civil War is they were 282 00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:49,160 Speaker 5: both enhancing supply of firewood and demand centers, but they 283 00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:52,320 Speaker 5: were also consuming really crazy amounts of wood. I mean 284 00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:58,520 Speaker 5: there were multiple cord stashes along rail lines that were 285 00:16:58,920 --> 00:17:04,160 Speaker 5: monitored or demanned by the railroads, and they had cords 286 00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:06,720 Speaker 5: of wood, and the trains would pass by and stop 287 00:17:06,760 --> 00:17:09,520 Speaker 5: and they'd load up the hoppers with firewood that had 288 00:17:09,520 --> 00:17:12,800 Speaker 5: been felled from the surrounding surrounding area. So this was 289 00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:17,480 Speaker 5: a really significant demand side associated with that technological change. 290 00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:21,399 Speaker 2: Okay, so the technological change was mostly on the transportation side, 291 00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:24,399 Speaker 2: not like I don't know, people adding a new type 292 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:27,159 Speaker 2: of blade to their axe or something like that. But 293 00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:29,920 Speaker 2: this actually reminds me of something I wanted to ask, 294 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:34,679 Speaker 2: which is, anyone who has ever lit a wood fire 295 00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:38,919 Speaker 2: will know that not all wood is created equal. And 296 00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:43,800 Speaker 2: I certainly have been on the receiving end of bad 297 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:47,040 Speaker 2: wet wood popping in my face and things like that. 298 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:52,640 Speaker 2: Did you take into account quality of wood or different species? 299 00:17:53,240 --> 00:17:57,920 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's really neat. So much of the data does 300 00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:03,080 Speaker 5: not provide deep tales on type of wood or whether 301 00:18:03,119 --> 00:18:07,520 Speaker 5: it's seasoned or dry. However, there are some of the 302 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:12,880 Speaker 5: data provided that do report say cord of oak, cord 303 00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:16,120 Speaker 5: of hickory, cord of pine, So they do report differences 304 00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:21,600 Speaker 5: by species. And then the data for Portland, Oregon has 305 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:27,000 Speaker 5: about two decades worth that distinguishes grades of see how 306 00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:29,760 Speaker 5: the extent to which it's seasoned. So there's green cords, 307 00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:32,639 Speaker 5: there's half dry cords, and then there's fully dry cords. 308 00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:36,439 Speaker 5: And so what do those data tell us when you 309 00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:42,000 Speaker 5: try to assess differences systematic differences in price. Let's say 310 00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:45,000 Speaker 5: to start by species. There's a figure in the paper 311 00:18:45,119 --> 00:18:47,919 Speaker 5: in one of the appendices that shows there's a pretty 312 00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:54,600 Speaker 5: clear positive correlation between prices and energy content of the 313 00:18:54,600 --> 00:18:58,680 Speaker 5: species of wood. And so that kind of makes sense 314 00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:01,440 Speaker 5: that a cord of hickory or court of oak would 315 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:05,680 Speaker 5: be worth more to the consumer and in equilibrium would 316 00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:08,199 Speaker 5: have a higher market price than say a cord of 317 00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:10,959 Speaker 5: pine or a cord of a softer hardwood, And so 318 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:14,760 Speaker 5: that the data support that. The second point to make is, 319 00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:17,800 Speaker 5: even though the information on seasoning of the wood or 320 00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:21,000 Speaker 5: aging of the wood is sparse, I do observe the 321 00:19:21,119 --> 00:19:24,400 Speaker 5: month at which the prices are posted for a lot 322 00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:28,359 Speaker 5: of the data, and using that information, you can see 323 00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:31,879 Speaker 5: there's a pretty steep discount for wood marketed in the summer, 324 00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:36,840 Speaker 5: and one interpretation of that is that there's just lower 325 00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:41,359 Speaker 5: demand and that's fine. The other interpretation is that there 326 00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:46,439 Speaker 5: is storage and seasoning going on where some portion of 327 00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:50,280 Speaker 5: wood harvested and or purchased in the summer is then 328 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:53,919 Speaker 5: stored to be sold at higher spot price times in 329 00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:58,359 Speaker 5: the winter, and that would reflect systematic differences in whether 330 00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:01,680 Speaker 5: the wood is seasoned or green according to the season. 331 00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:05,879 Speaker 3: So it's like a contango effect in the firewood market, 332 00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:08,960 Speaker 3: in the firewood market, or seasonal contango, so to speak. 333 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,000 Speaker 3: I have another technological question, you know, you mentioned at 334 00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:15,120 Speaker 3: the very beginning of your time series collecting data from 335 00:20:15,119 --> 00:20:18,320 Speaker 3: probate sales and so forth, which I think inherently are 336 00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:21,240 Speaker 3: sort of like private data that most people would not 337 00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:24,680 Speaker 3: have access to unless they tried to the newspapers, which 338 00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:27,080 Speaker 3: is more important, and I think this is an interesting 339 00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:30,280 Speaker 3: story of commodities. Do you observe anything, I guess what 340 00:20:30,359 --> 00:20:33,880 Speaker 3: I would say of spreads or dispersion of prices as 341 00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:38,040 Speaker 3: transparency became more of a thing, so such that once 342 00:20:38,280 --> 00:20:42,240 Speaker 3: firewood became something that got advertised in a newspaper, are 343 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:45,679 Speaker 3: the range of prices that were transacted in a given 344 00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:49,440 Speaker 3: time period narrower than they were when this was more 345 00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:51,960 Speaker 3: private archival data that you're working from. 346 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:56,080 Speaker 5: The fascinating question. One thing As an academic, one thing 347 00:20:56,119 --> 00:21:01,240 Speaker 5: I hope is that having invested time and research assistance 348 00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:04,280 Speaker 5: time in putting together this data set, is that there'll 349 00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:07,679 Speaker 5: be multiple papers that come from this, right and the 350 00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:11,240 Speaker 5: ability to ask and answer a whole series of questions. 351 00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:15,359 Speaker 5: One of those is price dispersion, right, and so this 352 00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:18,800 Speaker 5: idea that in a given market, or maybe across markets, 353 00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:22,480 Speaker 5: there are systematic differences in the range or spread of 354 00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:26,840 Speaker 5: prices for similar commodities. So largely that's a topic for 355 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:30,439 Speaker 5: future research. But what I will say is when you 356 00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:34,719 Speaker 5: look at the period from say eighteen hundred, just roughly 357 00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:38,280 Speaker 5: eighteen hundred to the Civil War, I do see regional 358 00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:44,000 Speaker 5: convergence in prices, So southeast, northeast, Midwest I see some 359 00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:48,159 Speaker 5: evidence of regional convergence. And the working hypothesis there is 360 00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,920 Speaker 5: that the railroads were such an effective means to move 361 00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:56,000 Speaker 5: the wood that if there were persistent price differences between 362 00:21:56,119 --> 00:22:01,320 Speaker 5: say the Midwest, which included Ohio and Pittsburgh, Michigan, and 363 00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:05,520 Speaker 5: the northeastern cities. Then the entrepreneur could put a bunch 364 00:22:05,560 --> 00:22:08,360 Speaker 5: of wood on a train in Ohio and ship it 365 00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:11,560 Speaker 5: over to New York, Philadelphia and Boston and earn money 366 00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:15,400 Speaker 5: and then therefore eventually close those spreads. And as I said, 367 00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,520 Speaker 5: I do see some evidence of that occurring as the 368 00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:21,040 Speaker 5: railroad networks. It would have been growing up to the 369 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:24,200 Speaker 5: Civil War. After the Civil War, people were basically turning 370 00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:26,399 Speaker 5: to coal, and so you know, you wouldn't see. 371 00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:29,399 Speaker 3: Much Truey, there's just like our first Stinson Dean conversation 372 00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:32,280 Speaker 3: all over again. It's just the same, like the idea 373 00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:35,000 Speaker 3: of like, you know, the degree to which you're outside 374 00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:37,080 Speaker 3: of the trucking lane or outside of the rail lane, 375 00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:39,600 Speaker 3: and these price convergence that nothing ever changes. 376 00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:43,159 Speaker 2: No, apparently not well, actually we just said that, but 377 00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:46,600 Speaker 2: something did change in the mid eighteen hundreds, which is 378 00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:51,320 Speaker 2: I guess the arrival of cheaper coal. What exactly was 379 00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,040 Speaker 2: it about coal or the development of coal that suddenly 380 00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:56,680 Speaker 2: made it a big competitor to firewood. 381 00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,879 Speaker 5: So the data show well, let me say, to be clear. 382 00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:04,880 Speaker 5: What I did for coal was to assemble existing price estimates, 383 00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:07,160 Speaker 5: So to be very clear with your listeners, I didn't 384 00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:11,000 Speaker 5: go and gather a bunch of original information on coal prices. 385 00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:15,160 Speaker 5: There were and are very good data sources stretching back 386 00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,520 Speaker 5: into the nineteenth century on anthracite by tuminous coal, and 387 00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:24,880 Speaker 5: I use those and anecdotal information, qualitative information learned from 388 00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:30,480 Speaker 5: reading that. Basically, commercial coal production really got going around 389 00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,439 Speaker 5: and just before the Civil War, maybe eighteen thirty eighteen 390 00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:37,399 Speaker 5: forty at the earliest. And I can't speak technologically to 391 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:40,560 Speaker 5: the process of extracting and shipping coal, it's just not 392 00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:42,840 Speaker 5: I don't. There are people that know a lot more 393 00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:47,240 Speaker 5: about that than I do. But as with many production processes, 394 00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:53,600 Speaker 5: it exhibited a pattern of declining cost unit costs over 395 00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,960 Speaker 5: time as production ramped up. And you see that in 396 00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:01,000 Speaker 5: the existing coal data. It's just an empirical regularity. Now 397 00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,040 Speaker 5: bear that in mind as I repeat in the mid 398 00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:09,280 Speaker 5: eighteen hundreds, as the economy is growing from eighteen hundred 399 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,240 Speaker 5: towards the Civil War. I had just mentioned that firewood 400 00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,639 Speaker 5: prices were increasing, right, So you have these contrasting patterns 401 00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,920 Speaker 5: for two energy fuels that tell us, one was getting 402 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,359 Speaker 5: cheaper while the other one was getting more expensive. So 403 00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:25,240 Speaker 5: if I stopped there and said, you know, that's the story, 404 00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:28,400 Speaker 5: that might make sense. But the other thing to mention 405 00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:32,439 Speaker 5: about firewood is it's really bulky, right. I mean, a 406 00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:35,919 Speaker 5: cord is four by four by eight and it's got 407 00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:38,720 Speaker 5: a good amount of energy stored in a dry cord. 408 00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:41,679 Speaker 5: We're embodied in a dry cord, but the same amount 409 00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,960 Speaker 5: of energy comes from a lot smaller volume of coal. 410 00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:48,040 Speaker 5: And so from a consumer point of view or from 411 00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:49,840 Speaker 5: a business point of view, if you've got to pay 412 00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:53,080 Speaker 5: for storage or you have to manage an inventory, not 413 00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:56,679 Speaker 5: only is coal getting cheaper, but it's also easier to 414 00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,439 Speaker 5: work with in that sense. And I think that it 415 00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:04,840 Speaker 5: was those two dimensions, so both literally the price and 416 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:08,240 Speaker 5: the non quantitative attributes of the fuels that would have 417 00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,080 Speaker 5: contributed to the transition. 418 00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,359 Speaker 3: The idea there's just more on any given car load 419 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:17,280 Speaker 3: of coal. There's just way more B to use than 420 00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:21,200 Speaker 3: there would be on that same car load of firewood. 421 00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:24,439 Speaker 5: Yeah, if you had a volume measures, yeah, right, so 422 00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,080 Speaker 5: four by four by eight dry firewood, four by four 423 00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:28,720 Speaker 5: bay eight of coal, you're going to get more B 424 00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:31,960 Speaker 5: to use out of coal, especially anthracite, and anthracite was 425 00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:34,000 Speaker 5: the one that was really taking off at this time. 426 00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,680 Speaker 3: I think what's interesting to me, you know, going back 427 00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,639 Speaker 3: to one of your first answers about your study is 428 00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:41,880 Speaker 3: and this gets back to a theme that we've talked 429 00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:45,640 Speaker 3: about a lot on the show, like coal didn't kill firewood. 430 00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:47,919 Speaker 3: I mean, your story is you describe it ends in 431 00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:51,320 Speaker 3: the late twentieth century. So even though we may talk 432 00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:55,320 Speaker 3: about the coal era having in large part replaced firewood 433 00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,359 Speaker 3: from an industrial standpoint, from a price standpoint, you know, 434 00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:02,160 Speaker 3: the firewood industry persisted in a meaningful sense. It sounds 435 00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:03,480 Speaker 3: like for at least another century. 436 00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:07,440 Speaker 5: Yeah. There's a really nice database that the Census put 437 00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:12,760 Speaker 5: together that by state shows the share of home heating 438 00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:16,159 Speaker 5: fuel expenditures by major fuel. It goes back to nineteen 439 00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,320 Speaker 5: forty and if you look at nineteen forty, states like 440 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,879 Speaker 5: Oregon or the state of Washington, or some of the 441 00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:24,840 Speaker 5: states in New England have appreciable shares of home heating 442 00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:28,680 Speaker 5: that's coming from wood. So nineteen forties a long time ago. 443 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:30,800 Speaker 5: I get that, But at the same time, it's not 444 00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:34,720 Speaker 5: eighteen forty, right, it's not the Civil War, and those 445 00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,880 Speaker 5: data are evidence in a sense that, yes, I would 446 00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,320 Speaker 5: agree with the fact that we really transition from a 447 00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,960 Speaker 5: biomass to a fossil economy around the Civil War, but 448 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,400 Speaker 5: I would also agree that it's not as if demand 449 00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,840 Speaker 5: for firewood was completely extinguished at that time. Clearly there 450 00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:55,879 Speaker 5: were pockets of continued significant reliance on the fuel, and 451 00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,000 Speaker 5: then we had a massive energy price shock in the 452 00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:02,399 Speaker 5: nineteen seventies, and what that clearly showed was a reversion 453 00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:04,840 Speaker 5: to reliance on the fuel as a means to hedge 454 00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:06,439 Speaker 5: against home energy costs. 455 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,320 Speaker 2: I think you mentioned the two thousand and eight financial 456 00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,560 Speaker 2: crisis as well saw demand for firewood go up and 457 00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:15,960 Speaker 2: maybe prices from what I remember. But that's such a 458 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:20,000 Speaker 2: fascinating data point because a it illustrates just how bad 459 00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,679 Speaker 2: the crisis actually was that people had to turn to 460 00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,480 Speaker 2: firewood because they couldn't afford to heat their houses in 461 00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,040 Speaker 2: other ways. But then it also goes to the point 462 00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,280 Speaker 2: that firewood is Lindy, I guess yeah. 463 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:36,640 Speaker 5: It's a very interesting phenomenon to consider the link between 464 00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:45,000 Speaker 5: social and let's say geopolitical disruptions and consumer habits that 465 00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:50,320 Speaker 5: influence things like fuel choice or carbon emissions. The financial 466 00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:53,200 Speaker 5: crisis is one. The energy crisis is another. I have 467 00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:57,440 Speaker 5: a related working paper that demonstrates that US carbon intensity 468 00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:01,600 Speaker 5: defined as tons per dollar GDP, peaked in nineteen seventeen, 469 00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,840 Speaker 5: and that's the year right before World War One ended 470 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:08,960 Speaker 5: and the Spanish flu outbreak happened, which were two both 471 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,879 Speaker 5: demand and supply shocks working in the same direction. If 472 00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,399 Speaker 5: you go back even further, the Civil War is really 473 00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:20,480 Speaker 5: the flipping point here for the relationship between household income 474 00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:24,280 Speaker 5: and demand for firewood. And that's shown in one of 475 00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:26,960 Speaker 5: the figures in the paper, where the income elasticity, the 476 00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,720 Speaker 5: percentage change in income is associated with the percentage change 477 00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:35,640 Speaker 5: in consumption of firewood, flipped from a positive number. As 478 00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,440 Speaker 5: we got more wealthy, we used more firewood to a 479 00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,520 Speaker 5: negative number. As we got more wealthy, we actually used 480 00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,280 Speaker 5: less firewood as we transitioned to coal. And those all 481 00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:49,120 Speaker 5: are lining up on significant geopolitical or social periods like 482 00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,120 Speaker 5: recessions and wars and things of that nature. 483 00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:10,680 Speaker 3: Is there a moby dick for firewood? Is there a novel? 484 00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,320 Speaker 3: You know, like I've read about the whaling industry and 485 00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:15,760 Speaker 3: then I read a novel about it. Is there a 486 00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:18,400 Speaker 3: story that I could read that will sort of give 487 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,120 Speaker 3: me a feel for the you know, the early eighteen 488 00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:22,560 Speaker 3: hundred's firewood industry. 489 00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:24,600 Speaker 2: Is there a book that Joe is going to read 490 00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:28,160 Speaker 2: and then talk incessantly about for the next three months. 491 00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:29,520 Speaker 5: So have you read cod? 492 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,320 Speaker 3: I've heard of it. Yes, that's a nonfiction though, right. 493 00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,400 Speaker 5: It's nonfiction. And then the same author wrote a book 494 00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,520 Speaker 5: called Salt. Okay, yeah, all about cod, All about salt. 495 00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,640 Speaker 5: There should be a book, okay, title firewood or wood 496 00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,320 Speaker 5: or something. The closest thing I said I can suggest 497 00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,960 Speaker 5: is a paper by I believe it's Arthur Cole in 498 00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:53,600 Speaker 5: nineteen seventy and the title is something like the Mystery 499 00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,640 Speaker 5: of Fuel Wood Pricing in the United States. And it 500 00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:02,080 Speaker 5: is largely qualitative, and it's actually asking one of the 501 00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:06,320 Speaker 5: questions that this paper tries to answer, which is, we 502 00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,840 Speaker 5: were utterly reliant on this energy source and yet there 503 00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:15,120 Speaker 5: is no systematic evidence of how prices behaved from the 504 00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:19,120 Speaker 5: Revolution to in his case, nineteen seventy, and why is that? 505 00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:22,280 Speaker 5: And so it's a great read. It's not you know, 506 00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,520 Speaker 5: two dens and academic. It's more written like something that 507 00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,720 Speaker 5: would be a pleasure to read than just purely an 508 00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:29,520 Speaker 5: academic piece. 509 00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,600 Speaker 3: I'll have to check it out. So I'm curious. You know, obviously, 510 00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:36,640 Speaker 3: the quote energy transition unquote is something that we think 511 00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,080 Speaker 3: about now and talk about a lot now, you know, 512 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:44,000 Speaker 3: and the trajectory of oil demand, the trajectory of natural 513 00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,360 Speaker 3: gas demand, and so forth, all of which are highly uncertain. 514 00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,560 Speaker 3: Other than filling in the historical record for this important 515 00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:54,320 Speaker 3: thing and sort of reorienting our understanding about agricultural productivity 516 00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,640 Speaker 3: and GDP, et cetera, would you say there are any 517 00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:01,160 Speaker 3: takeaways from your research that sort of speak more directly 518 00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,840 Speaker 3: or speak directly to some of the energy debates that 519 00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:05,760 Speaker 3: we're having right now. 520 00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,320 Speaker 5: Yeah. So I think there are three ways in which 521 00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:12,120 Speaker 5: there's a plausible connection between the conclusions in this paper, 522 00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,760 Speaker 5: and I don't want to say just the US, but 523 00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,480 Speaker 5: globally some of the issues related to energy in the environment. 524 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,040 Speaker 5: The first I kind of mentioned already, which is often 525 00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:26,680 Speaker 5: energy transitions are associated with some seemingly exogenous source of 526 00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:30,640 Speaker 5: social upheaval. So in two thousand and eight, two thousand 527 00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:37,360 Speaker 5: and seven, US carbon emissions in levels peaked. Now it's 528 00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,920 Speaker 5: just really interesting that that again happened in a year 529 00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:46,240 Speaker 5: after which the US economy really did not do well 530 00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:48,400 Speaker 5: for a number of years. And I'm just talking about 531 00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,000 Speaker 5: carbon emissions. I'm not talking about GDP or anything in 532 00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,880 Speaker 5: the sort. When we go back to eighteen sixty, we 533 00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:59,960 Speaker 5: see this same pattern happening with what primary fuel can 534 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,640 Speaker 5: consumers and firms are turning to in order to produce 535 00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:09,520 Speaker 5: and use energy. So financial crisis, recession, massive dislocation in 536 00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:14,000 Speaker 5: the economy associated with the Civil war and its associated effects. 537 00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,760 Speaker 5: So there's that energy transition happening in periods of upheaval. 538 00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:22,920 Speaker 5: Two is just the notion of resource scarcity. We're talking 539 00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:27,080 Speaker 5: in this paper about renewable resources. We're talking in this 540 00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,920 Speaker 5: century at this time about non renewable resources and the 541 00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:35,480 Speaker 5: continued reliance on coal, oil, and gas. What that means 542 00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:40,800 Speaker 5: for sustainability and how we think about growth and the 543 00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,880 Speaker 5: sustainability of growth and development as we consider reliance on 544 00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:49,920 Speaker 5: different energy sources. And then the third, the Biden administration 545 00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:54,880 Speaker 5: had taken the very important step of using tools that 546 00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,920 Speaker 5: we have for almost a century use to measure output, 547 00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:03,560 Speaker 5: so the National Come in Product Accounts GDP. It had 548 00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:08,360 Speaker 5: used those tools to then measure and estimate the value 549 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:13,160 Speaker 5: of things like ecosystem services and pollution, damages, and natural resources. 550 00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:18,560 Speaker 5: And what this paper shows is that prior to the 551 00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:22,960 Speaker 5: process of urbanization and firewood sort of entering markets, as 552 00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:26,600 Speaker 5: we discussed a moment ago, energy was coming from the 553 00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,560 Speaker 5: natural world and it was not being properly accounted for 554 00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,560 Speaker 5: in our market economy, nor in our expost efforts as 555 00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,320 Speaker 5: economists to try to measure the market economy. And so 556 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:41,480 Speaker 5: it's this idea that natural capital, as economists call things 557 00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:45,719 Speaker 5: like trees and fish and ecosystems natural capital, is an 558 00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:50,200 Speaker 5: important contributor to economic growth and development, often depending on 559 00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:53,240 Speaker 5: where countries are in their growth stage. But in this 560 00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:57,160 Speaker 5: case we're talking about a very large contribution to what 561 00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:00,240 Speaker 5: was at the time early eighteen hundreds to middle eighteen 562 00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,800 Speaker 5: hundreds a rapidly growing economy. So three things, the transition, 563 00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:08,120 Speaker 5: resource scarcity, and how we value natural capital. 564 00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:11,520 Speaker 2: I guess there's also the aspect of the informal economy 565 00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:13,840 Speaker 2: as well, right, and this is a debate that still 566 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,640 Speaker 2: comes up today, which is how do you value the 567 00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:20,279 Speaker 2: work that people are doing just without being paid. Right, So, 568 00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,040 Speaker 2: if you're a caregiver for a family member or something 569 00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:27,000 Speaker 2: like that, that's something that clearly is producing an economic 570 00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:31,240 Speaker 2: outcome but is not necessarily covered in the official GDP 571 00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,920 Speaker 2: statistics and things like that. What lessons can we learn 572 00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:37,560 Speaker 2: I guess when it comes to the informal economy and 573 00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:38,680 Speaker 2: how we actually measure that. 574 00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:43,399 Speaker 5: So a couple things. Fifty plus years ago, one of 575 00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,520 Speaker 5: my advisors when I was getting my PhD, a guy 576 00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,080 Speaker 5: named Bill Nordhouse, who won the Nobel Prize and shared 577 00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:52,840 Speaker 5: the Nobel Prize for Economics in twenty eighteen, wrote a 578 00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:57,879 Speaker 5: paper with James Tobin, also a Nobel Prize winner, on 579 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:02,560 Speaker 5: this exact topic. Right, so how do we improve measures 580 00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:06,520 Speaker 5: like GDP to take into account natural capital which I 581 00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:09,160 Speaker 5: just mentioned, but also home production and the value of 582 00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:13,799 Speaker 5: leisure time? And so home production is central to the 583 00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:18,560 Speaker 5: valuation conundrum that is associated with firewood produced on the 584 00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,759 Speaker 5: home in the home, often used in the home, at 585 00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:27,000 Speaker 5: times marketed through the formal economy, and then increasingly done so, 586 00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,360 Speaker 5: so it raises those issues in a very central way. 587 00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,400 Speaker 5: I will say that some of the online discussions of 588 00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:37,279 Speaker 5: this paper that I've been made aware of raise a 589 00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,239 Speaker 5: very important point, which is, you know, if you're going 590 00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,120 Speaker 5: to compare the value of firewood production and consumption to 591 00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:49,160 Speaker 5: existing measures of GDP, which is largely the within market 592 00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:54,200 Speaker 5: version of economic output. Then you should also measure all 593 00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:57,560 Speaker 5: the valuable things that happen in the home cleaning, cooking, 594 00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:01,600 Speaker 5: mending clothes, construction, wucking homes and barns, and all the 595 00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:05,040 Speaker 5: things that happened back in this historical period. And that's 596 00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:09,120 Speaker 5: absolutely true. The right measure would include all those things. 597 00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,000 Speaker 5: I would just consider that the effort to measure firewood 598 00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,279 Speaker 5: is an effort to push the boulder up the hill 599 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:19,240 Speaker 5: right to get us from measuring GDP in the strictly 600 00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:23,440 Speaker 5: market sense towards that measure that includes these other important 601 00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:25,200 Speaker 5: determinants of social welfare. 602 00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,040 Speaker 2: I have just one more question, and it sort of 603 00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:31,000 Speaker 2: follows very nicely from the point you just made. But 604 00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:33,840 Speaker 2: do you think this type of research, this type of 605 00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,600 Speaker 2: data gathering would have been possible, say, ten years ago. 606 00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,400 Speaker 2: I know you mentioned that you use software to word 607 00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:44,400 Speaker 2: scrape a bunch of documents, old documents that would have 608 00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:48,680 Speaker 2: been uploaded into a library system or a central database 609 00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,360 Speaker 2: or something like that. Could you have done this just 610 00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:52,439 Speaker 2: ten years ago? 611 00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:56,680 Speaker 5: So aspects of it probably, but it would have been 612 00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,680 Speaker 5: much more laborious because the data sources probably would have 613 00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,759 Speaker 5: been on microfilm or something like that, and so the 614 00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,800 Speaker 5: hours required to gather a certain number of price quotes 615 00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:12,040 Speaker 5: would have been considerably higher. But twenty years, fifteen or 616 00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:16,479 Speaker 5: twenty years, I don't really think so. I mean, there's 617 00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,719 Speaker 5: a bunch of I don't even know quite how to 618 00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,279 Speaker 5: properly refer to them. So archives maybe is the best 619 00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,239 Speaker 5: way to put it. That are fully online. They are 620 00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:32,319 Speaker 5: made available through university subscription services, and they're literally images 621 00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:37,120 Speaker 5: of very old texts, the Probate records, for instance, that 622 00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:41,240 Speaker 5: comprise the very early price series. We're all in those sources. 623 00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:45,560 Speaker 5: I didn't go to records in Salem, Massachusetts. I found 624 00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:50,239 Speaker 5: it all online. And that is a reserve of information 625 00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:54,400 Speaker 5: or data that would not have been possible to collect 626 00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:59,200 Speaker 5: prior to communities efforts to digitize and make public that information. 627 00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:03,000 Speaker 5: So I guess my answer, the short version of my 628 00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:05,759 Speaker 5: answer is would it have been possible ten years ago 629 00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:09,800 Speaker 5: some small version of it, Yes, at much higher time expense, 630 00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:12,640 Speaker 5: But fifteen or twenty years ago, I don't think so. 631 00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,760 Speaker 2: I find this so interesting because now I'm thinking about 632 00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:19,240 Speaker 2: all the new data sources that we're going to find 633 00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:23,000 Speaker 2: thanks to digitization and AI and all of that. Stuff 634 00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,680 Speaker 2: and impact on how we understand the economy. But we're 635 00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:29,160 Speaker 2: going to have to leave it there. Nicholas Mueller, thank 636 00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,960 Speaker 2: you so much for coming on all thoughts. Really enjoyed 637 00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:33,760 Speaker 2: speaking with you and really enjoyed the paper. 638 00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:34,279 Speaker 5: Thank you. 639 00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:35,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, that was great. 640 00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:36,160 Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me. 641 00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:50,640 Speaker 4: It's been a pleasure, Joe. 642 00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:53,279 Speaker 2: I love that conversation. I love doing these sort of 643 00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,480 Speaker 2: single topic episodes because it just opens up all these 644 00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,400 Speaker 2: avenues that you haven't necessarily thought that much about before. 645 00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,319 Speaker 3: Totally. Well, there's a lot in there, you know, one 646 00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:04,600 Speaker 3: place to start, I mean there's there is a lot. 647 00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,360 Speaker 3: The idea of like railroads is this source of like 648 00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:11,560 Speaker 3: price convergence. It's very intuitive, obviously, right, but it's still 649 00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:15,040 Speaker 3: interesting to see, like how often this pattern gets repeated 650 00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,840 Speaker 3: over and over again through commodity history. Obviously these days, 651 00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:21,120 Speaker 3: you know, the story is much more with natural gas 652 00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:24,319 Speaker 3: pipelines and the attempts to arbitrary spreads between you know, 653 00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,200 Speaker 3: there's not one unified natural gas price the way there 654 00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:30,479 Speaker 3: is an oil precisely because of these transportation networks. Maybe 655 00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,399 Speaker 3: there will be at some point with enough pipelines. That's 656 00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,640 Speaker 3: one story that you see repeated over and over again 657 00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:36,520 Speaker 3: throughout commodities. 658 00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:36,920 Speaker 4: Yeah. 659 00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,239 Speaker 2: I also just think the point about the energy transition, 660 00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:43,920 Speaker 2: which we've discussed with Bob Brackett before, as you mentioned 661 00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:46,960 Speaker 2: this idea that we have a notion in our minds 662 00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:50,319 Speaker 2: often that like suddenly a new commodity comes on the 663 00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:53,880 Speaker 2: scene and everyone switches over really quickly. But actually we 664 00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,080 Speaker 2: have lots and lots of historical examples of the process 665 00:39:57,120 --> 00:39:59,440 Speaker 2: taking a lot longer than you would think. And I 666 00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:02,799 Speaker 2: think bo use the example of mercury, and now we 667 00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:05,880 Speaker 2: have another example in the form of firewood. 668 00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:09,600 Speaker 3: I certainly was not expecting to hear that part about 669 00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:12,759 Speaker 3: yet another firewood price bike in the nineteen seventies, Like 670 00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:16,120 Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, Like in my mind, it's like, okay, 671 00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:20,320 Speaker 3: the story probably ends somewhere around the late eighteen hundreds, 672 00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:22,640 Speaker 3: and so the fact that one hundred years later and 673 00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:25,319 Speaker 3: then you know, another thirty or forty years later, it's 674 00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,359 Speaker 3: visible again. I also think maybe, like, weren't there some 675 00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:32,400 Speaker 3: stories about using fireword like in twenty twenty two after 676 00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:36,000 Speaker 3: Lasha's invasion of Ukraine. I can't remember for sure, but 677 00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:38,600 Speaker 3: I feel like I remember hearing some stories about parts 678 00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:42,960 Speaker 3: of Europe, you know, burning fire burning wood again for heat, 679 00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:47,520 Speaker 3: So yeah, it's it's really hard to actually fully ever 680 00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,600 Speaker 3: displace the commodity, except with oil to bad. 681 00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,000 Speaker 2: I have to say my personal preference when it comes 682 00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:56,759 Speaker 2: to B two us now that I've done coal and 683 00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:01,520 Speaker 2: wood has to be wood, truly renewable resource that won't 684 00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:06,160 Speaker 2: coat your entire house like a dusty black film. So yeah, 685 00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:07,000 Speaker 2: go would go? 686 00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:07,400 Speaker 5: Would? 687 00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,319 Speaker 4: All right? Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. 688 00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:11,880 Speaker 2: This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 689 00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:15,160 Speaker 2: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway and. 690 00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,719 Speaker 3: I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. 691 00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,480 Speaker 3: Follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman armandesh Ol Bennett 692 00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:25,120 Speaker 3: at dashbot at Keilbrooks at Keilbrooks. More Odd Lots content 693 00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:27,480 Speaker 3: go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots. We're the 694 00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:30,400 Speaker 3: daily newsletter and all of our episodes, and you can 695 00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:33,279 Speaker 3: chat about all of these topics, including energy in our 696 00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:36,520 Speaker 3: discord Discord dot gg slash odd Lots. 697 00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,560 Speaker 2: And if you enjoy odd Lots, if you like it 698 00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:42,040 Speaker 2: when we talk about historical prices of firewood, then please 699 00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,279 Speaker 2: leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform, 700 00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,319 Speaker 2: And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can 701 00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,759 Speaker 2: listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All 702 00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:53,960 Speaker 2: you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on 703 00:41:54,040 --> 00:42:14,240 Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening 704 00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:00,719 Speaker 2: in