Ringside: Why Fossil Fuel Use Must Increase – The Numerical Reality

The Statistical Review of Global Energy, has been published every year since 2023 by The Energy Institute. For nearly 75 years before that it was published by British Petroleum. It is one of the most authoritative sources available for energy statistics. It is a terrific place, if not the place, to develop a deeper understanding of our global energy system.

Perhaps the most important table to be familiar with is “Total Energy Supply by Fuel,” found on page 14 of the most recent edition. It shows energy consumption by nation and by type of fuel.

For example, in 2024, oil, natural gas, and coal still amounted to 82 percent of total worldwide fuel consumption. Among various countries that percentage didn’t differ by much: USA 81%, China 82%, India 88%, and all of the African nations in aggregate 90%.

Another important insight that can be easily extracted from this data regards per capita energy consumption by nation. The world consumed 604 exajoules (EJ) of energy in 2024. The USA consumed 96 exajoules, or 16% of the entire world’s consumption. To calculate per capita consumption, first multiply exajoules by one billion to get gigajoules (GJ), a unit scaled to individual use, and then divide that by the population of, in this case, the USA. With 348 million inhabitants, the average American’s per capita consumption last year was 276 gigajoules.

The significance of this figure becomes evident if you work through the calculations for other nations, because the drop off is huge. China’s per capita consumption of energy is 113 gigajoules, less than half as much as America’s. India falls off considerably further, coming in at only 25 gigajoules. And the nations of Africa in aggregate register at only half as much as India, at only 13 gigajoules per person per year.

What this means for energy policy needs to be drumbeaten into every Thunbergian skull on earth, certainly including the well intentioned but semi-numerate mega-majority in the California State Legislature. China, India, and Africa in aggregate each have populations of roughly 1.5 billion people. Each of them have populations more than four times greater than the USA. Shall we calculate how many exajoules would have to be produced worldwide merely to bring worldwide energy consumption to half the level that we enjoy? It’s not hard to do. Here goes:

Not including Americans, there are 7.9 billion people in the world. Half of America’s 276 GJ per capita is 138 GJ per capita. Simply stated, the formula is:

138 (per capita US GJ/yr) x 7.9 (global pop w/o US in billions) = 1,088 exajoules.

This is how much worldwide energy production would have to increase for people everywhere in the world, per capita, to consume half as much energy as Americans currently consume.

Of course, pick a number for the US, and add that to the total. Even if we reduce our own per capita consumption by 50%, pile on another 48 EJs, to bring the global goal up to 1,136 exajoules.

This is a stunning fact. How, we must ask, if we are currently deriving 82 percent of our energy from oil, natural gas, and coal, are we going to shut that all down by 2045 or 2050 or whatever, and rely exclusively on renewables to generate 1,136 exajoules worldwide, when we only generate 604 of them today?

For the people of the world to enjoy barely more than half the amount of energy that Americans enjoy, worldwide production of energy will have to double.

It’s important to emphasize how doubling global energy production is the minimum target. Is it realistic to expect Americans to cut their energy consumption by 50 percent? Imagine the scale of the transformation this would require; the trillions in new investment, the leapfrogs in energy efficiency that today are still unrealized. Now apply the flipside of that to the rest of the world. Imagine the Chinese, the Indians, the nations of Africa, and every other emerging nation, altogether, to succeed in doubling their energy production, and imagine them doing so while at the same time they phase out their use of oil, natural gas, and coal.

It is not possible. Of all the prognostications that may fly about regarding our global energy future, this one is the most certain: nations throughout the world are not going to stop relying on fossil fuel, because their economies cannot survive without it, much less grow. Global demand for fossil fuel is going to increase for at least another generation. It will not be until the second half of this century that worldwide consumption of fossil fuel might begin to decline, and it will happen gradually.

It is commendable that California’s policymakers are encouraging alternative energy. If the storage challenges can be cost-effectively addressed, solar energy will become increasingly competitive. Geothermal, including enhanced geothermal technologies, are a huge wild card. There are many promising innovations that will make nuclear power safer and more affordable than ever. And within a decade or two we may be beaming electricity down to earth from satellite solar power stations.

All of this is great, but it will take many decades to realize.

Meanwhile, fossil fuels are where we will get most of our energy, statewide, nationally, and worldwide. If California’s state government acted to protect its fossil fuel industry with the same degree of zealotry that it incentivizes alternative energy, we might set two examples to the world. We could pioneer new energy technologies. But we could also show the world the best and cleanest ways to manage the extraction, distribution, refining, and utilization of fossil fuel.

We could allow advanced hybrid cars to compete with EVs. We could retrofit our natural gas power plants to modern designs that can achieve efficiencies of 70 percent or more. We could eliminate methane leakage by depleting our plentiful reserves of oil and natural gas. We could do this over the next few decades, when fossil fuel remains an unavoidable source for both for our own state’s prosperity, and for prosperity in the rest of the world.

Fossil fuel isn’t going anywhere. If California’s policymakers were to allow all forms of energy to compete, they would set an example that other states and nations would enthusiastically follow. That is a vision that should inspire us, instead of one that requires destroying an industry, creating unemployment, high prices, rationing, subsidies, and shortages.