A Warming World Needs More Power Than Ever

One could easily find it disheartening to reflect that even with all of our countless endeavours; our energy-saving light-bulbs, our hybrid cars, our hyper-efficient appliances and our smart-metering of power usage; that our demand for energy remains inescapably on the up. The pronoun 'our' us used here, it should be said, in the global sense. Here in the UK (and in other very highly-developed jurisdictions), where reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) has been a high-level policy priority for decades, we have in the past several years achieved a modest, but consistent, reduction in our national energy usage. Moreover, the proportion of our energy generated from renewable and waste sources has undergone a steady increase over the same period (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Total UK energy consumption, 1998-2015 (Mtoe) (Source: Digest of UK Energy Statistics [DUKES], Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [BEIS], 2016)

However, globally the picture is very different. Global primary energy consumption has (a few blips caused by economic recession notwithstanding) consistently increased throughout the latter decades of the 20th century and into the first two decades of the 21st century. Moreover, the rate of increase in global energy use is showing absolutely no signs of relenting, and if anything has slightly accelerated in recent decades. A glance at Figure 2 immediately reveals the main culprit in regional terms of increasing global energy use in the past half-century.

Figure 2. Global primary energy consumption by region, 1965-2015 (Mtoe) (Source: BP, 2016)

As Figure 2 shows, between 1965 and 2015, energy consumption in the Asia Pacific region exploded from 441.32 Mtoe (million tonnes of oil equivalent) up to 5498.53 Mtoe - a staggering increase of 1145.93%. As of 2015, the Asia Pacific region is responsible for 41.82% of global primary energy consumption, up from only 11.83% 50 years ago. Of the total increase in global primary energy consumption between 1965 and 2015, the Asia Pacific region was responsible for 53.7% - well over half of the total increase in global primary energy consumption during this period, therefore, occurred within the Asia Pacific region. The reasons for this enormous increase in energy use are twofold. Firstly, the population of the Asia Pacific region increased substantially during this period, at a greater rate than in other regions - this is illustrated by Figure 3.

Figure 3. World population by region, 1965-2015 (millions) (Source: BP, 2016)

During the period 1965-2015, world population more than doubled, from 3.313 billion to 7.318 billion, an increase of around 120%. Over the same period, the population of the Asia Pacific region increased from 1.762 billion to 4.028 billion, an increase of 128.6%. Population increase therefore has undoubtedly played a role in the remarkable increase in primary energy consumption observed in the Asia Pacific region over the past half-century. However, population growth alone does not nearly account for region's explosion in energy usage over the period. The remainder must therefore be accounted for by a massive increase in energy consumption per capita - the amount of energy used per member of the population (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Global primary energy consumption per capita by region (toe) (Source: BP, 2016)

Globally, energy use per capita increase from 1.126 tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) in 1965 to 1,797 toe in 2015 (an increase of 59.6%). In the Asia Pacific region, however, the figure increase from 0.25 toe to 1.265 toe (an increase of 446%) over the same period. Remarkably, energy consumption per capita in the Asia Pacific region still lags far, far behind that of the North America and Europe and Eurasia regions (5.767 toe and 3.143 toe respectively) - if recent trends continue and the Asia Pacific region eventually catches up with more developed regions in terms of energy use per capita, the potential implications for resource consumption and GHG emissions are devastating beyond contemplation.

As if the implications of present energy usage trends in the Asia Pacific region were not adequately stark, the situation in two other global regions also merits significant concern. The Africa and South and Central America regions between them host 22.74% of the global population, yet account for just 8.63% of global primary energy consumption. In the past decades, both have exhibited gradual increases in energy consumption which are moderate in comparison to that observed in the Asia Pacific region, but which are nonetheless substantial. In South and Central America, primary energy consumption increased from 108.29 Mtoe in 1965 to 699.26 Mtoe in 2015, an increase of 545.73%, while in Africa energy consumption increased from 59.74 Mtoe in 1965 to 435 Mtoe in 2015, an increase of 628.16. These increases far outstrip population growth in each region over the same period (142.44% in South and Central America, 268.5% in Africa), illustrating that the overwhelming cause of increasing energy consumption in both regions is increasing energy use per capita (an increase since 1965 of 166.22% in South and Central America and of 97.89% in Africa). The fact, however, that the population of Africa is projected to increase from around 1.186 billion today to 4.387 billion by 2100 (an increase of 269.81% - see Figure 5) can only serve to seriously exacerbate the already-increasing demand for energy in this region.

Figure 5. Projected world population by region, 2015-2100 (millions) (Source: Population Division, United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs, 2015)

The consequence of massively increasing global energy consumption has inevitably been concomitant increases in global emissions of carbon dioxide, shown in Figure 6. Regional trends in energy consumption are also reflected in the relative contribution of each global region to total emissions.

Figure 6. Global CO2 emissions by region, 1965-2013 (million tonnes of carbon) (Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre, 2016)

Globally, between 1965 and 2013, global emissions of CO2 increased from 2121.36 million tonnes of carbon (Mtc) to 9136.01 Mtc, an increase of 330.61%. Striking as ever is the increase observed over the period in the Asia Pacific region, in which carbon emissions increased from 356.75 Mtc in 1965 to 4489.55 Mtc in 2013, a staggering increase of 1158.46%. The explosion in concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide which this increase in emissions has caused has unavoidable consequences for global climate. Throughout the past century and a half, mean global temperature has steadily yet significantly increased, accelerating throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the first two decades of the 21st century, as illustrated by Figure 7.

Figure 7. Global temperature anomaly, 1880-2015 (C) (anomaly from 1951-1980 mean) (Source: NASA, 2016)

With continued and increasing emissions of GHGs, global temperatures are projected to increase yet further (and at a more alarming rate) into the next century. Figure 8 shows the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projection for global temperature increase over the course of the 21st century.

Figure 8. Projected global surface temperature change (relative to 1986-2005 mean), 1900-2100, under four IPCC emissions pathways (Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2016)

As Figure 8 shows, unless dramatic measures are taken to reduce global emissions of GHGs, unprecedented changes in global temperature will occur during the 21st century. If I have somewhat bombarded the reader with figures and percentages over the course of this first blog post, it is only an attempt to forcefully illustrate the massive scale of unavoidable future increases in global energy consumption. Given that even present levels of resource consumption and GHG emissions are dangerously unsustainable (IPCC, 2016), it is of the utmost urgency that a global shift is undertaken in global energy production from fossil fuel-based methods to methods which do not cause emissions of GHGs. Given substantial projected increases in global population, and rapidly increasing energy use per capita in industrialising or newly-industrialised regions, these methods must also offer sufficient generating capacity to massively increase global energy production over the coming century. Substantial increases in energy production are vital especially in the context of industrialising and newly-industrialised countries, in which economic development and improved social wellbeing are urgent priorities (Jeffs, 2012). This blog will seek to examine the various means of sustainable energy production on offer, and to evaluate the practicality and implications of each as a replacement for present fossil fuel-based means of energy production.

References

BP (2016), Energy Charting Tool (tools.bp.com/energy-charting-tool; 27/10/2016)
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (2013), Carbon Emission Time Series Regional Data (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/CO2_Emission/timeseries/regional; 27/10/2016)
Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) (2016), Digest of UK Energy Statistics [DUKES]
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014), Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report; contribution of Working Groups I, II & III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (core writing team: R.K. Pachauri & L.A. Meyer (eds.)) Geneva: IPCC (151 pps.)
Jeffs (2012), Greener Energy Systems: Energy Production Technologies with Minimum Environmental Impact, Boca Raton: CRC
NASA (2016), Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature; 27/10/2016)
Population Division, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2015), World Population Prospects, the 2015 Revision (https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp; 27/10/2016)
United States Environmental Protection Agency (2016), Future of Climate Change (https://www.epa.gov/climate-change-science/future-climate-change; 27/10/2016)