Before the 1980s, however, production gains were largely matched by population growth, so that productive capacity was unable to outdistance essential consumption needs significantly, particularly in agriculture.
That's a problem because it means construction of new fossil fuel-burning power plants is outdistancing the rate at which old ones are being taken offline.
Having outdistanced their lines of communication, the brigade waited in the village under shellfire for three hours for their supply trains to reach them.