My father, Gerry Foley, who has died aged 88, was an expert on energy use and conservation, first as a civil engineer and then as a senior research fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London.
His first book, The Energy Question (1976), challenged the prevailing 1970s notion that existing patterns of energy production and consumption could continue indefinitely, and he followed up with studies on coal, oil, gas and nuclear power, as well as one of the first books on global heating, Global Warming: Who Is Taking the Heat? (1991).
