Global Energy Usage

A graph of the world's total primary energy supply from 1971 to 2013 by fuel shows a double in the use of oil from 1971 to 2013. This graph also shows 1971 having oil as the largest energy supply with roughly 2,500 Mtoes of energy (1 Mtoe is equivalent to the energy taken to burn 10⁶ million metric tons of crude oil). The total amount of natural gas and coal used was nearly equivalent to each other in 1971. From 1971 to 2013, there was a rise in the use of every single type of energy shown on the graph, with a sharper incline in the use of coal after 2000. This graph demonstrates a clear rise in the use of energy overall from 1971 to 2013, from roughly 5,500 Mtoes to 13,500 Mtoes (almost tripling the use in 42 years). The combination of nuclear, hydropower, other, and biofuels and waste in 2013 add up to the less than the amount of energy used by natural gas, the lowest energy of the fossil fuels depicted. The largest value of energy used by hydropower is still less than a third of the amount that natural gas was used in 1971. Non-fossil fuels add up to less than ¼ of the energy supply in 2013. The upward trend of the graph showing an increase in energy use shows energy usage will most likely continue to rise to follow this trend.

The graph from 2001 and 2002 depicts the relationship between a country's percentage of the world population, the percentage of the world’s GDP, and the percentage of the world’s consumption. When the country’s percentage of the world’s GDP is larger than the country’s percentage of the world, the graph showed the country’s percentage of world energy consumption to be larger than the population of the country. This means that as the country gains money, it also uses a disproportionate amount of energy compared to the population. The US has 4.6% of the world’s population, however it uses up 24% of the worlds energy and has 32% of the world’s GDP. Meanwhile China has 20% of the world’s population, but it has only 4% of the world’s GDP and only uses 11% of the world’s energy. The final graph also demonstrates the directly proportional relationship between a country’s GNP per capita and the energy consumption per capita. As the GNP per capita (or money that each person in the country made) increased, as did the energy consumption per capita of the country. For more developed countries like the US or Japan, the energy consumption is not larger than the percentage of the world population that they inhabit. They also demonstrate a larger GDP and GNP with their larger energy consumption. Less developed countries such as China or India demonstrate a much lower GDP and GNP and therefore also have a much lower energy consumption.

This trend can even be shown in a case basis, where my personal estimated emissions were 31 tons of carbon dioxide per year, while the world average emissions per year is simply 5.5 tons of carbon dioxide. This example of my carbon dioxide emissions while living on Northeastern’s campus in the United States shows the trend where people in developed produce more emissions and use more energy than people in less developed countries. Although my future (20 years from now) had a lower emissions than my current amount, it was still 20 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, which is almost four times the world average per person.