World energy supply and consumption refers to the global supply of energy resources and the consumption of those resources. The system of global energy supply consists of the development, refinement, and trade of energy. Energy supplies may exist in various forms such as raw resources or more processed and refined forms of energy. The raw energy resources include for example coal, unprocessed oil and gas, uranium. In comparison, the refined forms of energy include for example refined oil that can be used as fuel or to generate electricity. Energy resources may be used in various different ways, depending on the specific resource (e.g. coal), and intended end use (industrial, residential, etc.). Energy production and consumption play a significant role in the global economy. It is needed in industry and global transportation. The total energy supply chain, from production to final consumption, involves many activities that cause a loss of useful energy.
Total energy consumption tends to increase by about 1–2% per year. As of 2022, 80% of energy consumption is derived from fossil fuels. More recently, renewable energy has been growing rapidly, averaging about a 20% increase per year in the 2010s.
Two key problems with energy production and consumption are greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. Of the approximately 50 billion tonnes of worldwide annual greenhouse gas emissions, 36 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide was a result of energy use (almost all from fossil fuels) in 2021. Many scenarios have been envisioned to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, usually by the name of net zero emissions.
There is a clear connection between energy consumption per capita, and GDP per capita. As such, richer and more industrialized countries consume significantly more energy per person when compared to lower-income countries.
The Gulf States and Russia are major energy exporters, due to their large petroleum and natural gas reserves. Their customers include the European Union and China.
A significant lack of energy supplies is called an energy crisis.
Primary energy production
Primary energy refers to the first form of energy encountered, as raw resources collected directly from energy production, before any conversion or transformation of the energy occurs.
Energy production is usually classified as:
Fossil, using coal, crude oil, and natural gas; Nuclear, using uranium; Renewable, using biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind, tidal, wave, among others.
Primary energy assessment by IEA follows certain rulesIEA Primary energy assessment:
Fossil: based on lower heating value. Nuclear: heat produced by nuclear reactions, 3 times the electric energy, based on 33% efficiency of nuclear plants. Renewable: Biomass based on lower heating value. Electric energy produced by hydropower, wind turbines and solar panels. Geothermal power is set at more than 10 times the electric energy due to the very low efficiency of these plants. See , chapter 7 to ease measurement of different kinds of energy. These rules are controversial. Water and air flow energy that drives hydro and wind turbines, and sunlight that powers solar panels, are not taken as PE, which is set at the electric energy produced. But fossil and nuclear energy are set at the reaction heat, which is about three times the electric energy. This measurement difference can lead to underestimating the economic contribution of renewable energy.
Enerdata displays data for "Total energy / production: Coal, Oil, Gas, Biomass, Heat and Electricity" and for "Renewables / % in electricity production: Renewables, non-renewables".
The table lists worldwide PE and the countries producing most (76%) of that in 2021, using Enerdata. The amounts are rounded and given in million tonnes of oil equivalent per year (1 Mtoe = 11.63 TWh (41.9 petajoules), where 1 TWh = 109 kWh) and % of Total. Renewable is Biomass plus Heat plus renewable percentage of Electricity production (hydro, wind, solar). Nuclear is nonrenewable percentage of Electricity production. The above-mentioned underestimation of hydro, wind and solar energy, compared to nuclear and fossil energy, applies also to Enerdata.
The 2021 world total energy production of 14,800 MToe corresponds to a little over 172 PWh / year, or about 19.6 TW of power generation.
+ Largest primary energy producers (76% of world production) as of 2021, given in million tonnes of oil equivalent per year Total (MToe) Coal Oil & gas Renewable Nuclear China 2,950 71% 13% 10% 6% United States 2,210 13% 69% 8% 10% Russia 1,516 16% 78% 2% 4% Saudi Arabia 610 0 100% 0 0 Iran 354 0 99% 0 1% United Arab Emirates 218 0 99% 0 1% India 615 50% 11% 33% 6% Canada 536 5% 81% 10% 4% Indonesia 451 69% 17% 14% 0 Australia 423 64% 33% 3% 0 Brazil 325 1% 55% 42% 2% Nigeria 249 0 47% 53% 0 Algeria 150 0 100% 0 0 South Africa 151 91% 1% 8% 0 Norway 214 0 93% 7% 0 France 128 0 1% 34% 65% Germany 102 27% 3% 47% 23% World 14800 27% 53% 13% 7%
Energy conversion Nation Export minus Import in 2021 (MToe) Russia 682 Saudi Arabia 388 Australia 296 Canada 245 Indonesia 226 Norway 185 Italy -114 Turkey -118 Germany -187 South Korea -239 India -323 Japan -357 China -803
Energy resources must be processed in order to make them suitable for final consumption. For example, there may be various impurities in raw coal mined or raw natural gas that was produced from an oil well that may make it unsuitable to be burned in a power plant.
Primary energy is converted in many ways to energy carriers, also known as secondary energy:Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol.18, Energy Conversion, 15th ed., 1992 Coal mainly goes to thermal power stations. Coke is derived by destructive distillation of bituminous coal. Crude oil goes mainly to oil refineries Natural-gas goes to natural-gas processing plants to remove contaminants such as water, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, and to adjust the heating value. It is used as fuel gas, also in thermal power stations. Nuclear reaction heat is used in thermal power stations. Biomass is used directly or converted to biofuel.
Electricity generators are driven by steam or gas turbines in a thermal plant, or water turbines in a hydropower station, or wind turbines, usually in a wind farm. The invention of the solar cell in 1954 started electricity generation by solar panels, connected to a power inverter. Mass production of panels around the year 2000 made this economic.
Energy trade
Much primary and converted energy is traded among countries. The table lists countries with large difference of export and import in 2021, expressed in Mtoe. A negative value indicates that much energy import is needed for the economy. Russian gas exports were reduced a lot in 2022, as pipelines to Asia plus LNG export capacity is much less than the gas no longer sent to Europe.
Transport of energy carriers is done by tanker ship, tank truck, LNG carrier, rail freight transport, pipeline and by electric power transmission.
Total energy supply
Total energy supply (TES) indicates the sum of production and imports subtracting exports and storage changes. For the whole world TES nearly equals primary energy (PE) because imports and exports cancel out, but for countries TES and PE differ in quantity, and also in quality as secondary energy is involved, e.g., import of an oil refinery product. TES is all energy required to supply energy for end users.
+ Total energy supply and primary energy (in Mtoe) TES PE China 3,650 2,950 India 927 615 Russia 811 1,516 Japan 400 52 South Korea 298 151 Canada 289 536 Germany 286 102 Saudi Arabia 219 610
+ World TES history (in million tons of oil equivalent) Year TES 1990 8,700 2000 9,900 2010 12,600 2019 14,400 2020 13,800 2021 14,500
The tables list TES and PE for some countries where these differ much, both in 2021 and TES history. Most growth of TES since 1990 occurred in Asia. The amounts are rounded and given in Mtoe. Enerdata labels TES as Total energy consumption.
25% of worldwide primary production is used for conversion and transport, and 6% for non-energy products like lubricants, asphalt and petrochemicals. In 2019 TES was 606 EJ and final consumption was 418 EJ, 69% of TES.Key world energy statistics 2021 p.6,34 Most of the energy lost by conversion occurs in thermal electricity plants and the energy industry own use.
Discussion about energy loss
There are different qualities of energy. Heat, especially at a relatively low temperature, is low-quality energy of random motion, whereas electricity is high-quality energy that flows smoothly through wires. It takes around 3 kWh of heat to produce 1 kWh of electricity. But by the same token, a kilowatt-hour of this high-quality electricity can be used to pump several kilowatt-hours of heat into a building using a heat pump. It turns out that the loss of useful energy incurred in thermal electricity plants is very much more than the loss due to, say, resistance in power lines, because of quality differences. Electricity can also be used in many ways in which heat cannot.
In fact, the loss in thermal plants is due to poor conversion of chemical energy of fuel to motion by combustion. Otherwise chemical energy of fuel is not inherently low-quality; for example, conversion of chemical energy to electricity in batteries can approach 100%. So energy loss in thermal plants is real loss.
One way to account for this difference and to compare them is via the substitution method. High quality energy is measured according to the amount of low-quality energy that would be needed to produce it.
Final consumption
Total final consumption (TFC) is the worldwide consumption of energy by end-users (whereas primary energy consumption (Eurostat) or total energy supply (IEA) is total energy demand and thus also includes what the energy sector uses itself and transformation and distribution losses). This energy consists of fuel (78%) and electricity (22%). The tables list amounts, expressed in million tonnes of oil equivalent per year (1 Mtoe = 11.63 TWh) and how much of these is renewable energy. Non-energy products are not considered here. The data are of 2018.Data and Statistics. 2018. International Energy Agency. The world's renewable share of TFC was 18% in 2018: 7% traditional biomass, 3.6% hydropower and 7.4% other renewables.GSR 2020 report Fig.1 p.32
In the period 2005–2017 worldwide final consumption of coal increased by 23%, of oil and gas increased by 18%, and that of electricity increased by 41%.
Fuel comes in three types: Fossil fuel is natural gas, fuel derived from petroleum (LPG, gasoline, kerosene, gas/diesel, fuel oil), or from coal (anthracite, bituminous coal, coke, blast furnace gas). Secondly, there is renewable fuel (biofuel and fuel derived from waste). And lastly, the fuel used for district heating.
The amounts of fuel in the tables are based on lower heating value.
The first table lists final consumption in the countries/regions which use most (85%), and per person as of 2018. In developing countries fuel consumption per person is low and more renewable. Canada, Venezuela and Brazil generate most electricity with hydropower.
+ Final consumption in most using countries and per person (as of 2018) FuelMtoe of whichrenewable ElectricityMtoe of whichrenewable TFC pptoe China 1,436 6% 555 30% 1.4 United States 1,106 8% 339 19% 4.4 Europe 982 11% 309 39% 2.5 Africa 531 58% 57 23% 0.5 India 487 32% 104 25% 0.4 Russia 369 1% 65 26% 3.0 Japan 201 3% 81 19% 2.2 Brazil 166 38% 45 78% 1.0 Indonesia 126 21% 22 14% 0.6 Canada 139 8% 45 83% 5.0 Iran 147 0% 22 6% 2.1 Mexico 95 7% 25 18% 1.0 South Korea 85 5% 46 5% 2.6 Australia 60 7% 18 21% 3.2 Argentina 42 7% 11 27% 1.2 Venezuela 20 3% 6 88% 0.9 World 7,050 14% 1,970 30% 1.2
The next table shows countries consuming most (85%) in Europe.