Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
British Petroleum has published its Global Energy Statistical Review for year 2021 showing dramatic pandemic caused declines in global energy use and emissions. Global energy use declined by 4.5% during the extraordinary 2020 pandemic year compared to year 2019 with global CO2 emissions dropping 6.3% in 2020 as well. These declines are the largest that have occurred in these measures since 1945 as shown below.
Declines in global oil consumption accounted for nearly three quarters of the year 2020 energy use decline.
Of the 195 global nations only one nation in the world had increasing use of all fossil fuel energy categories and increased CO2 emissions compared to year 2019 and that nation was China which saw increased total energy use climb by 2.1% with energy use of oil, natural gas and coal all increasing despite the devastating impacts of the global wide Covid pandemic.
As noted in the BP report the year 2020 global energy use changes are highlighted as follows with the graph below displaying this information.
“Primary energy consumption decreased by 4.5% last year, the first decline in energy consumption since 2009. The decline was driven largely by oil (-9.7%), which accounted for almost three quarters of the decrease. Consumption for all fuels decreased, apart from renewables (+9.7%) and hydro (+1.0%). Consumption fell across all the regions, with the largest declines in North America (-8.0%) and Europe (-7.8%). The lowest decrease was in Asia-Pacific (-1.6%) due to the growth in China (+2.1%), the only major country where energy consumption increased in 2020. In the other regions, the decline in consumption ranged between -7.8% in South and Central America to -3.1% in the Middle East.”
The world’s developing nations led by China and India are now accountable for 61% of all global energy use (a figure which continues to climb each year) with China’s energy consumption now greater than the total energy use of both the U.S. and EU combined. Additionally, the world’s developing nations are now accountable for 82% of the global use of coal fuel with this figure climbing to that level in year 2020. China alone accounts for 57% of all global coal use. Renewables represent only 5.4% of China’s total energy use and only 4% of the world’s developing nations total energy use in year 2020.
The massive global dominance of the world’s developing nations in driving the continually increasing production and consumption of coal fuel use is depicted in the diagram below from the BP report.
In year 2020 fossil fuels accounted for 86.4% of the world’s developing nations total energy use and 84.9% of China’s total energy use. Fossil fuels provided 83.1% of total global energy consumption in year 2020 while after trillions of dollars in subsidies and decades of global government mandates renewables only accounting for 5.7% of the world’s total energy use in year 2020.
Global demand for increased use of coal fuel in the post pandemic period is already occurring as demonstrated by EIA data showing a surging export boom for U.S. coal as noted below driven by global demand from the world’s developing nations that dominate all global energy use (especially coal) and emissions.
The world’s developed nations (including the U.S., EU and UK) total energy use is also dominated by fossil fuels with these fuels providing 78% of the year 2020 total energy needs of the developed nations. Renewables only accounted for about 8.3% of the developed nations 2020 total energy needs despite all the climate alarmist hype about “net zero” propaganda and all the government mandates and trillions of dollars of subsidies pushing unreliable renewables.
The U.S. year 2020 total energy consumption was also dominated by fossil fuels with these fuels providing about 81.7% of U.S. total energy needs with renewables only accounting for about 7% of U.S. total energy needs. The U.S. has been mandating use of renewables since the passage of the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) legislation in 1978 and yet after 42 years of government politicians demanding use of these unreliable energy resources they provided only 7% of total U.S. energy in year 2020.
Even in California the latest EIA energy use data shows that fossil fuels provided 72.4% of the state’s total energy use (led first by petroleum and second by natural gas) with renewables only accounting for about 12% of the state’s total energy. Wind and solar provided just 6.8% of California’s total energy use.
Oil fuel represents the most used fossil fuel in the world with that resource accounting for 31.2% of total global energy consumption. The continually increasing production and consumption of oil fuel in meeting the world’s energy needs is shown in the diagram below from the BP report.
Wind and solar accounted for only 3.9% of year 2020 total global energy consumption and only 2.7% of the world’s developing nations total energy use with these nations completely dominating global energy use and growth. These nations have no interest and zero commitments to reducing future fossil fuel energy use and resulting emissions that might interfere with these nations needed and continued economic growth.
Wind and solar provided only 5.7% of the developed nations year 2020 total energy use and only 4.8% of U.S. year 2020 total energy use.
Renewables will never dominate global energy use because they are too unreliable and impose huge reliability costs on energy systems that are required to sustain the reliable flow of energy that is required to promote necessary and productive economic growth. Those who believe otherwise are completely out of touch with global energy reality and in denial regarding the huge reliability problems that are unavoidable with renewables.
These global energy use outcomes demonstrate that Biden and his Democrats, the UK and EU leaders have completely failed to create any meaningful political initiative to match their hyped speeches about world “net zero” propaganda. China and the developing nations are in complete control of all global energy use and emissions outcomes with these nations leaders oblivious to any schemes that would threaten damage to their goals to expand their economic growth and global power.
The year 2020 global energy use consumption by resource type are addressed as follows in the BP report with the graph displaying this information shown below.
“Oil continues to hold the largest share of the energy mix (31.2%). Coal is the second largest fuel in 2020, accounting for 27.2% of total primary energy consumption, a slight increase from 27.1% in the previous year. The share of both natural gas and renewables rose to record highs of 24.7% and 5.7% respectively. Renewables has now overtaken nuclear which makes up only 4.3% of the energy mix. Hydro’s share of energy increased by 0.4 percentage points last year to 6.9%, the first increase since 2014.”
China’s domination of global CO2 emissions grew even more with the increase in these emissions in year 2020 making China now accountable for 31% of all global CO2 emissions at 9,893.5 million metric tons with their total emissions now about 2.25 times the CO2 emissions of the U.S. which declined to 4,432.2 million metric tons.
The world’s developing nations further increased their dominance of all global emissions with year 2020 CO2 emissions now accountable for 2/3rds of all global CO2 emissions at 21,253.3 million metric tons. The world’s developing nations now control 61% of all global energy use and 2/3rds of all global CO2 emissions.
U.S. CO2 emissions have declined since their peak level in 2007 of 5,884.2 million metric tons by about 1.45 billion metric tons to 4,432.2 million metric tons in year 2020. EU CO2 emissions have declined since 2007 from 3,579.3 million metric tons by 1.03 billion metric tons to 2,548.8 million metric tons in year 2020.
Despite these declines global CO2 emissions have increased between 2007 and 2020 by over 1.9 billion metric tons because the world’s developing nations have increased their CO2 emissions during this period by over 4.89 billion metric tons with China alone accounting for over 2.65 billion metric tons of this total increase.
The table below presents global CO2 emissions data in the BP report updated to year 2020 outcomes. The year 2020 reduction in global CO2 emissions of just over 2 billion metric tons of CO2 results from the pandemic impacts and lower energy use during year 2020. As noted above regarding the new global coal use boom the end of the pandemic driven global economic decline of year 2020 will drive new growth in energy use through increased consumption of fossil fuels by the world’s developing nations that dominate global energy use and emissions.
The BP report also contains data regarding global electricity use which declined slightly (about 0.6%) in 2020 versus 2019. Global electricity use is again dominated by use of fossil fuels which accounted for 61.3% of total global electricity use. Renewables only provided about 11.7% of year 2020 total global electricity use with large hydro at 16% and nuclear at 10%.
The developing nations dominate global electricity use and account for about 60% of total global electricity use versus about 40% for the developed nations. The developing nations used fossil fuels for about 68.2% of their electricity with renewables only accounting for about 8.5% of their total electricity. Large hydro accounted of about 17.7% of the developing nations electricity and nuclear about 5.1%.
The developed nations used fossil fuels for about 51.3% of their total electricity with renewables representing about 16.4% of their electricity use. Hydro accounted for about 13.6% and nuclear about 17.2% of their electricity.
Comparing China and the U.S. shows that China uses about 81.5% more electricity than the U.S. with fossil fuels accounting for about 66.5% of China’s electricity compared to 60.7% fossil fuels for U.S. electricity. Renewables accounted for about 11% of China’s electricity while the in the U.S. they accounted for about 12.9%.
The BP electricity data is shown below.
The world’s developing nations completely dominate global energy use and emissions and are unwaveringly committed to future economically driven increased use of fossil fuels for energy growth with resulting future increases of global CO2 emissions.
That will not stop because of the absurd “net zero” propaganda schemes being promoted by Biden and his Democrats, the UK and EU “leaders” who represent nothing but a completely ineffective and unrealistic minority position concerning global energy use and emissions. In essence these out of touch with energy reality “leaders” are just the proverbial “tail trying to wag the dog” and represent nothing more than a trivial nuisance to the developing nations leadership. All these incompetent “leaders” will accomplish is to destroy their economies and hand the global economic future over to the world’s developing nations to dictate the “haves and the haves nots” of our future world.
Fossil Fuels RULE! Unaffordable Unreliables drool.
1919 phyics law faked to support oil Discovery’s eliminates my 1984 windmill based on Einstine equal & opposiste reactions in its claims no other invention possiible as well as 59 % of the winds and tides values it called betz limits and greed
What?
You obviously never heard of Einstine’s Third Law 🤪
Steven, please remember that the prescription was for just two Prozac and ONLY ONE Benzedrine each day. 🙂
This is what we get when a troll-bot goes haywire…..or Steve just has a few pages stuck together….
How about a translation here?
Hey Griff – explain to me again why the US/Europe (not to mention minor contributors such as Canada, Australia, NZ, etc.) should destroy their living standards when such noble self-sacrifice it will be rendered inconsequential by China, India, Indonesia, et al? Is it some weird “equity” thing??
May I illustrate?
Your illustration is lost on me, sorry.
I don’t get your point.
Hope & Change American style.
We will not improve the lives of the poor, we will all be cut down to being poor.
Meanwhile, the elites will play on.
“And the Trees were all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw”
Good lesson in that song, for those willing to hear.
That’s the long and the short of it 😉
Guess Griff ain’t taking the bait 🙁
He is busy consulting the Guardian for what he is allowed to say in reply.
I think it’s understood that the targets of zero C02 emissions by 2050, or whenever, are unrealistic. Such targets just have the purpose of motivating the drive towards renewables. A more realistic target would be 2100, but a target of 2050 should have the effect of speeding up the transition, but unfortunately with the risk of some disastrous consequences.
Not just unrealistic.
Simply impossible !
Let’s stop mincing words – it just encourages them.
Greed rules the infinate values of winds and tides ! Windmills and in tides bigger than hover dams capable of gearing to light speeds. Of course stonewalled at patent office by the oil
Huh?
The insane are out in force.
The Tales of Mistery and Imagination
I’ve always been pretty good about imagining what might be hidden in the mist.
I’m a little confused Steven. Are you talking about dams that hover or the Hoover Dam?
REALLY????
Please clarify: is a hover dam something like a hovercraft?
ya beat me to it
Hydropower is renewable. Wind and solar linked to hydropower can conserve the perched water. Norway a good example. So wind and solar can have economic value.
The third leg is to reduce the population so there are enough hydro resources to go around. So not impossible. In fact a decent world war could reduce the global population this decade.
China has 30 years of known coal reserves at its current consumption. Australia and US reserves could extend that time horizon to the end of this century. I doubt China will be willing to pay windfall prices for coal from Australia. They are already alarmed at the price paid for iron ore. There will be a point down the track where they decide to take the resources rather than swap their high value manufactured goods for them.
All mined resources are experiencing a surge in price; reflecting the surging demand. The folly with the present push for wind and solar is the illusion that they are “renewable” sources of energy. Subsidising their use is a crime against humanity. It is disastrous waste of resources.
Why are we even trying? The goal shoul be to push CO2 higher. Having 800 or 1200ppm CO2 when the holocene ends could mean the difference in billions of lives.
Why, indeed! The human contribution of CO2 is nearly trivial, but there is no evidence that the human contribution does any harm to anybody. In fact, if anything, it encourages more plant growth, a net positive to mankind. The big scare is based on theory unsupported by empirical evidence. The “net zero” goal is foolish blather pushed relentlessly by green ideologues. There is nothing “liberal”or humanitarian about it.
Here is a subtle hint I wrote decades ago about energy reality:
Fossil fuels comprise fully 85% of global primary energy, unchanged in decades, and unlikely to change in future decades.
The remaining 15% of global primary energy is almost all hydro and nuclear.
Grid-connected green energy is not green and does not produce much useful (dispatchable) energy. It is virtue-signalling nonsense.
Eliminate fossil fuels tomorrow and almost everyone in the developed world would be dead in about a month from starvation and exposure.
_______________
Told you so – 19 years ago:
Our 2002 Predictions – #1 and 2 were easy.
Prediction #3 for global cooling to start by ~2020 was more difficult – and also correct.
See Electroverse.net for hundreds of record-cold events all over the planet. Bundle up – it’s getting colder out there.
In 2002, co-authors Dr Sallie Baliunas, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian, Dr Tim Patterson, Paleoclimatologist, Carleton U, Ottawa and Allan MacRae, P.Eng. (now retired), McGill, Queens, U of Alberta, published:
1. “Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
2. “The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Allan MacRae published in the Calgary Herald on September 1, 2002, based on communication with Dr Tim Patterson:
3. “If [as we believe] solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
MacRae updated his global cooling prediction in 2013, based on cold events that occurred starting circa 2008 near the end of Solar Cycle 23:
3a. “I suggest global cooling starts by 2020 or sooner. Bundle up.”
________________
I like making (correct) predictions of future scientific and technical events – it is a high-risk, high reward endeavor – think of it as aggressively skiing the steep double-black runs, versus a slow descent of the bunny-hill.
The keyword though is “correct” – to make correct predictions – not the tsunami of false alarmist drivel that has spewed from global warming alarmists for the past fifty years – all of which have proved FALSE.
Does anyone seriously think that the climate doomsters are going to start making correct predictions now, after 50 years and scores of consistently failed predictions? Seriously, the odds against that happening based on past performance are huge, about 281 trillion to one.
I published this new Law in early 2020. Edit: Please delete the word “Virtually”.
“MACRAE’S MAXIM”:
“VIRTUALLY EVERY SCARY PREDICTION BY GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS IS FALSE.”
_______________
The ability to correctly predict is the best objective measure of scientific and technical competence.
Climate doomsters have a perfect NEGATIVE predictive track record – every very-scary climate prediction, of the ~80 they have made since 1970, has FAILED TO HAPPEN.
“Rode and Fischbeck, professor of Social & Decision Sciences and Engineering & Public Policy, collected 79 predictions of climate-caused apocalypse going back to the first Earth Day in 1970. With the passage of time, many of these forecasts have since expired; the dates have come and gone uneventfully. In fact, 48 (61%) of the predictions have already expired as of the end of 2020.”
To end 2020, the climate doomsters were proved wrong in their scary climate predictions 48 times – at 50:50 odds for each prediction, that’s like flipping a coin 48 times and losing every time! The probability of that being mere random stupidity is 1 in 281 trillion! It’s not just global warming scientists being stupid.
These climate doomsters were not telling the truth – they displayed a dishonest bias in their analyses that caused these extremely improbable falsehoods, these frauds.
There is a powerful logic that says no rational person or group could be this wrong, this obtuse, for this long – they followed a corrupt agenda – in fact, they knew they were lying from the start.
Best regards, Allan
try ‘impossible’
“…are unrealistic.”
So, it’s a new fake goal designed to con people into ‘speeding up’ because we only managed 6% (if that) of the way after 40 years and trillions spent…
Perhaps it’s time to re-examine the original argument.
Drill, dig, burn, repeat.
Good. More CO2 is better. Good for more crops and trees and plants and sea life.
Oz incentivized solar to the point they’re killing the profitability of new entrants-
Spot price volatility on Sunday 11th July 2021 – straight out of Angela Macdonald-Smith’s article! – WattClarity
So much for cheap solar power when you’re not seeing a rush to battery storage to tap into the higher value consumers place on power for the evening peak. Clearly the cost won’t warrant that investment so FFs make the running and consumers pay the average cost of it all.
Great article. Facts are hard to ignore. And in spite of the dominance of fossil fuels, we are not running out, not for a very long time. We live the best lives people have ever had and our climate is benign, and shows no signs of the catastrophe the end of times cult keeps predicting.
Exactly the point I’d like griff, et. al., to acknowledge. However, griff and loyD’oh and the others are largely superfluous. What about Nick, someone who’s posts I think add value.
Way back in the day the Enviros had the whole “Peak Oil” disaster scenario thing going. But back then America was still too Christian and too well educated to fall for something as contrived as “Global Warming/Climate Change”…not so today
We have the best times ever for the 1%. The others in the western world have been on a steady decline for decades.
Until recently, living standards for everyone has been going up.
Some have been going up faster than others, but that’s only a problem when you spend your lives upset that others have more than you do.
GlowBULL Warming Idiots on Ice
And now you know why they put those warnings on plastic bags not to put your head in them. Some people have no sense.
Also why you are not allowed to call those Styrofoam packing nuggets “peanuts” anymore.
Soon we will simply be not allowed Styrofoam packing nuggets. Problem solved!
Exactly why the communists want a forever revenue stream via a “carbon tax”. PS. LLNL Energy Flow Chart for 2020 clearly shows, despite Cali’s vigorous virtue signaling, nearly identical results.
I remember being taught that fusion power would be 30% of our power usage by now.
I remember being taught that by a science teacher at school, I think he said its about twenty years away and now it’s only forty years off. Progress? Think my numbers are right these are very old memories.
I remember being taught that all the oil in the world would be pumped dry by 1980.
ITER, the big government funded fusion research project, is a billion dollars over budget and 11 years behind schedule. Meanwhile, there are a handful of small private entrants that may succeed in the next few years. They include EMC2, General Fusion, Helion, Laser Boron, LPPF, TAE Technologies, and Tokamak Energy to name a few. Some of them (unlike the ITER effort) have concepts that do not include high energy neutrons that create radioactive waste. We only need one of them to succeed.
Stages of Fusion
1) Scientific breakeven – where the energy produced is greater than the energy invested.
2) Engineering breakeven – where the electricity produced is greater than the electricity invested in operations. Accounts for the low conversion efficiency from the heat produced by Fusion to electricity.
3) Economic breakeven – where the value of energy produced exceeds the cost (capital, fuel, operations).
Nobody has achieved stage 1, by far the easiest stage. Each stage is successively harder and as of now there isn’t even a credible plan to achieve stage 3.
Fusion might not be at stage 1, but Ruinables won’t make it past stage 2 … despite the hopes, dreams and laws passed by those that wish it so 😀
True enough. So it makes sense to focus on the stage 0 technology? Both should be abandoned.
Your definition of succeed is what exactly?
An elaborate and exorbitant science project to generate more energy than is input for a few seconds is not the definition of commercialization.
My definition of success is commercialization, as in power economically tied to the grid. I agree there is no way the big government funded science projects (ITER and the National Ignition Facility NIF) will lead to commercial power plants. I refer instead to the several small commercial projects that do not rely on the taxpayers.
I’m not so sure that the private projects are entirely free of taxpayers’ OPM, but to the extent that they are, I encourage them to burn their money ensuring full employment for physicists.
There’s probably nothing I would rather be wrong about than this.
Renewables like solar and wind are niche suppliers for someone who wants to live off-gird. Beyond that, it is rather useless. Intermittent, not scalable or dispatchable.
These green energy freaks are irrational, illogical and down right utterly stupid. Damn sick of listening to this constant drumbeat about climate change and we only have 9-12 years or else we cease to exist. Take a flying leap off a cliff and good riddance. A bunch of rubbish.
Wind power works for purifying and desalinating water, because once the work is done, it’s done no matter how intermittent. Solar power works for cooling and freezing things because the times when you need the most cooling is when the sun is out. Otherwise, just use conventional sources.
devastating impacts of the global wide Covid pandemic.
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It wasn’t devastating for china. They closed their borders to Wuhan while telling the rest of the world the virus wasn’t contagious. They used this time to buy up PPE around the world and called other countries racist for closing their borders. 400 thousand workers left Wuhan for Iran and Italy during this time and the pandemic went global.
Outside of Wuhan from chinas own numbers they have suffered almost no deaths from the virus. A smaller fraction of the deaths as compared to many many much smaller countries.
While the world economy shrank China grew. Reselling all the PPE they bought up back to the world in return for a kings ransom.
Otherwise termed a successful test run.
The subtle war. Look at how well China has infiltrated the UN.
“The world’s developing nations led by China and India”. At what point do nations stop developing? This is nothing but an attempt to legitimize their use of fossil fuels by using the “developing nation” narrative. As well, if AGW were true, what difference would the source make?
They stop developing when they start to replace their infrastructure on purpose by something less effective and less profitable (e.g. coal, gas, and nuclear by wind and solar, but also education by propaganda, and manufacturing by “service”).
From the above article:
“Fossil fuels provided 83.1% of total global energy consumption in year 2020 while after trillions of dollars in subsidies and decades of global government mandates renewables only accounting for 5.7% of the world’s total energy use in year 2020.”
Left unsaid—but clearly evident from the second graph in the above article showing World Consumption (of energy in exajoules) over time—is the fact that the percentage of energy consumption provided by renewables has been essentially constant over the last 3 years . . . again, despite “trillions of dollars in subsidies and decades of global government mandates”.
If renewables are so favorable an energy resource, why ain’t they working as such?
Nothing wrong with underdeveloped countries catching up to prosperity with power supplies .
But crazy hardly describes the western world going back to the caves .
“Global energy use declined by 4.5% during the extraordinary 2020 pandemic year compared to year 2019 with global CO2 emissions dropping 6.3% in 2020 as well.”
Larry, something doesn’t add up with the CO2 decline figure (6.3%). The natural emissions, ocean outgassing and bio, account for 95% of global CO2 emissions to the atmosphere and total manmade retained (half of emissions, the other half is sequestered in ocean and land bio – the Great Greening etc) makes up 5% of the atmosphere. If global FF emissions fell by 4.5%, that’s only a small fraction of 1% drop in total CO2 contained in the atmosphere. Indeed the Keeling curve shows no obvious sign of such declines.
Fully agree with you. In fact the the Keeling curve showed the increase in CO2 with El Nino in 2016 and absolutely no decrease during the pandemic. Even now this increase has not returned back as when previous El Nino occurred. This can be seen very easily using the slider on the graph site given below.
So easy to see at their site:
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/graph.html
The 6.3% global CO2 emissions decline is referring on the the human contribution. It was total energy use that went down 4.5%, not FF use. Since hydro use stayed stable, FF went down by more than 4.5% to create the 6.3% drop in human CO2.
As you pointed out, that 6.3% reduction in human caused CO2 emissions didn’t have any noticeable affect on the overall amount in the atmosphere. Climate cultists will say that’s because CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 100 years, and the ineffectiveness of the covid slowdown at reducing the total just proves that much more needs to be done.
Another wake-up call for the eco-geeks , but they’d much rather continue with their pipe-dreams.
The statement is wrong. Renewable power will not be unreliable. The error is applying the term “renewable” to intermittent weather dependent generators.
Hydropower is renewable. Managed forests are renewable. If fusion power existed on earth it would be renewable.
Eventually fossil fuel sources will be depleted so there will need to be a replacement.
China and India have the capacity to deplete known coal reserves this century. Fossil fuels will enjoy increasing demand and higher costs until there is an alternative.
The problem is applying “renewable” to costly, resource intensive energy production units that require constant renewal of subsidies, and that are not sustainable.
And yet, even though Seattle is the only place cloudier than Michigan, Consumers Energy has submitted a plan to our Public Service Commission to replace fossil fuel fired electric generation with solar.
Blackouts are the future.
Maybe Greta can sail to Shanghai and scowl at Xi Jinping, call him out, see how that goes?
To busy scowling at those who won’t destroy her?
Now break out electricity generation and look at usage and trends there…
Completely different picture.
What cannot be generated, cannot be used.
Point being is what you asking for is the point of the article.
And there I was thinking Griff had missed the party.