an industry/economic sector that requires a large amount of machinery/equipment/etc. – relative to the amount of labor (or land) that it requires. The energy industries (ie, oil production; oil refining; coal mining; electric power generation; etc.) require large amounts of capital equipment [per unit of output]. Historically, coal mining was a labor-intensive industry requiring a large labor force [to dig the product – using hand tools]. Today, however, this is no longer the case – because modern strip-mining machinery can dig more coal/hour than several dozen miners (who are using hand tools).
