4 Introduction
EnergyConsumption
2013
USChinaIndia
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
TonOilEqui.percapita
Oil
Gas
Coal
Figure 1.4: Bar plot of the energy consumption per capita from US, China and India.
Only the three major fuels, oil, gas and coal are included. Numbers are from 3.
As a thought experiment, let's assume India and China would reach the living
standard of the US and consume the same amount of energy per capita. The
increase in energy consumption for this scenario would correspond to almost
13000 Mtoe/year (million ton oil equivalent) or equivalent of the total primary
energy consumption of the whole world in 2013. While this example is rather
extreme, it certainly shows that these highly populated countries have a lot of
catching up to do, in terms of living standards, growth of economy and therefore
in energy consumption. The increasing oil consumption among these countries
is also evident from recent historic consumption data from BP Statistical review
of the world 2015 3, which is shown in gure 1.5.
The oil consumption for Asia Pacic, Africa and the middle east is clearly increasing.
Specically for Asia Pacic, the consumption went from 13 Mbd (million
barrels per day) to 30.8 Mbd in the period of 1989 to 2014, equivalent of
236 % increase in 25 years. In the same period the combined consumption in
North America and Europe & Eurasia actually decreased slightly. This is naturally
only valid for oil which does not give the full picture. For all regions the
consumption of natural gas has increased since 1989, however, with Asia Pacic
approximately tripling their consumption. Furthermore, coal consumption has
gone down in Europe, stagnated in North America and more than doubled in
Asia Pacic.
The above examples and graphs highlight the fact that energy is closely linked
to economic growth and living standards and that developing countries will consume
a lot more energy in the years to come. So far the population growth has
not been taken into account. From a historic perspective the human population
has been growing slowly for many years and even in the period 4000 before
common era, BCE, to 1000 common era, CE, the population only doubled ap