Uses of Energy

Topics:

• Production and consumption trends

• Uses by economic sector: transportation, industry and residential/commercial

Production and consumption trends

Current global energy use by type (in percent)

Energy type	Percent use	Percent use without wood
Oil	33	38
Natural gas	17	20
Coal	26	30
Nuclear	3	4
Fuelwood	15
Hydropower	6	7
Windpower	Less than 1	Less than 1
Solar	Less than 1*	Less than 1*
Geothermal	Less than 1	Less than 1

Notes:

*solar use is intrinsically underestimated as we don't know how much passive solar energy is used in heating, for example.

Fossil fuel use is 76%, or 88% without fuelwood

Wind, solar, and geothermal total about 1%.

Production and consumption of energy is misbalanced

Production and consumption ratios:

Region/ country	Oil	Natural gas	Coal
OPEC	7	1.4	1.3
NOOE	2.7	1.2	0.9
Africa	0.4	0.4	1.4
Asia and Oceania	0.7	1.1	1.0
Latin America	0.8	0.9	1.0
North America	0.6	1.0	1.1
Western Europe	0.4	0.7	0.7
Pacific	0.1	0.3	0.9
Central Europe	0.3	0.5	1.0
Russia	1.6	1.2	1.0
World	1.1	1.0	1.0

Notes:

OPEC countries: Algeria, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela

NOOE is non-OPEC oil exporters: Developing countries whose exports of petroleum and gas account for at least 30 percent of merchandise exports: Afghanistan, Angola, Bahrain, Bolivia, Brunei, the Congo, Egypt, Mexico, the Netherlands Antilles, Oman, Syria, Trinidad & Tobago, and Yemen

Pacific: Australia, Japan, and New Zealand.

Only OPEC and Russia have exports exceeding imports for all fossil fuels

Oil is the least balanced fossil fuel

Western Europe and Pacific countries have net imports for all fossil fuels

Focus on the oil imbalance

The industrialized countries consume most of the oil (more than 50%), but produce less than a quarter of the oil.

Consider what is needed to make up for an energy "gap" should imports be cut off:

North America

Oil imports are about 13,000 petajoules per year

Export of coal is about 2,500 petajoules per year

Energy gap is about 10,500 petajoules per year

Example: current nuclear energy production is about 2,000 petajoules per year, so this would have to increased by 500% (5 times) to make up the gap (imports only!).

Western Europe

Oil imports are about 14,500 petajoules per year

Coal imports are about 3,500 petajoules per year

Natural gas imports are about 2,500 petajoules per year

Energy gap is about 20,500 petajoules per year… this is nearly twice that of North America's energy gap.

Example: current nuclear energy production is about 2,500 petajoules per year, so this would have to increased by 1000% (10 times) to make up the gap (imports only!).

Trade deficit and oil

Oil and autos have become the largest component of our trade deficit.

Current Trade Deficit:

Driven both by population increase and by increase in the per capita energy use.

This is partly balanced by the amount of energy needed to produce goods, or the energy intensity.

Industrialized countries are more efficient than developing countries in energy use.

This does not balance the high per capita energy use of industrialized countries, however.

Energy use per person

Countries/Region	Energy use in petajoules		Popu-lation in millions	Energy use per person*		Energy use per person relative to North America
OPEC	12200	506			24		12.3
NOOE	7000	233			30		9.9
Africa	5000	497			10		29.5
A&O	50000	3069			16		18.2
LA	8000	358			22		13.3
NA	82000	314			261		1.1
WE	50000	416			120		2.5
Pacific	19000	164			116		2.6
Central Europe	15000	128			117		2.5
Russia	55000	328			167		1.8
Total	303200	6013

*Energy use per person is in petajoules per million people

How energy is used

Four sectors:

• Industry
• Transportation
• Residential/commercial
• Agriculture

Agriculture is generally small, 2 to 5% of total energy use.

In industrialized countries, the "big 3", transportation, res/comm and industry, are about even.

In developing countries, industry uses most of the energy.

Worldwide, the distribution is approximately

40% industry

20% transportation

40% residential/commercial

 

Note that individuals in industrialized countries have direct control over about 1/3 of the energy used…

• Half of transportation is for private vehicles
• Half of res/comm is energy for homes

Choices made by individuals, such as the type of auto driven, the use of solar energy in the home, etc., play a major part in how efficiently energy is used.

Trends in energy use

General trends with time: