World energy consumption

World energy consumption is the total energy produced and used by the entire human civilization. Typically measured per year, it involves all energy harnessed from every energy source applied towards humanity's endeavors across every single industrial and technological sector, across every country. It does not include energy from food, and the extent to which direct biomass burning has been accounted for is poorly documented. Being the power source metric of civilization, world energy consumption has deep implications for humanity's socio-economic-political sphere. Institutions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the European Environment Agency (EEA) record and publish energy data periodically. Improved data and understanding of world energy consumption may reveal systemic trends and patterns, which could help frame current energy issues and encourage movement towards collectively useful solutions. Closely related to energy consumption is the concept of total primary energy supply (TPES), which – on a global level – is the sum of energy production minus storage changes. Since changes of energy storage over the year are minor, TPES values can be used as an estimator for energy consumption. However, TPES ignores conversion efficiency, overstating forms of energy with poor conversion efficiency (e.g. coal, gas and nuclear) and understating forms already accounted for in converted forms (e.g. photovoltaics or hydroelectricity). The IEA estimates that, in 2013, total primary energy supply (TPES) was 1.575 × 1017 Wh (= 157.5 PWh, 157,500 TWh, 5.67 × 1020 joules, or 13,541 Mtoe) or about 18 TW-year. From 2000–2012 coal was the source of energy with the total largest growth. The use of oil and natural gas also had considerable growth, followed by hydropower and renewable energy. Renewable energy grew at a rate faster than any other time in history during this period. The demand for nuclear energy decreased, in part due to nuclear disasters (Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986, and Fukushima in 2011). More recently, consumption of coal has declined relative to renewable energy. Coal dropped from about 29% of the global total primary energy consumption in 2015 to 27% in 2017, and non-hydro renewables were up to about 4% from 2%. In 2011, expenditures on energy totaled over US$6 trillion, or about 10% of the world gross domestic product (GDP). Europe spends close to one-quarter of the world's energy expenditures, North America close to 20%, and Japan 6%. World total primary energy supply (TPES), or 'primary energy' differs from the world final energy consumption because much of the energy that is acquired by humans is lost as other forms of energy during the process of its refinement into usable forms of energy and its transport from its initial place of supply to consumers. For instance, when oil is extracted from the ground it must be refined into gasoline, so that it can be used in a car, and transported over long distances to gas stations where it can be used by consumers. World final energy consumption refers to the fraction of the world's primary energy that is used in its final form by humanity. Also one needs to bear in mind that there are different qualities of energy. Heat, especially at a relatively low temperature, is low-quality energy, whereas electricity is high-quality energy. It takes around 3 kWh of heat to produce 1 kWh of electricity. But by the same token, a kilowatt-hour of this high-quality electricity can be used to pump several kilowatt-hours of heat into a building using a heat pump. And electricity can be used in many ways in which heat cannot. So the 'loss' of energy incurred when generating electricity is not the same as a loss due, say, to resistance in power lines In 2014, world primary energy supply amounted to 155,481 terawatt-hour (TWh) or 13,541 Mtoe, while the world final energy consumption was 109,613 TWh or about 29.5% less than the total supply. World final energy consumption includes products as lubricants, asphalt and petrochemicals which have chemical energy content but are not used as fuel. This non-energy use amounted to 9,723 TWh (836 Mtoe) in 2015. The United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) regularly publishes a report on world consumption for most types of primary energy resources. For 2013, estimated world energy consumption was 5.67 × 1020 joules, or 157,481 TWh. According to the IEA the total world energy consumption in past years was 143,851 TWh in 2008, 133,602 TWh in 2005, 117,687 TWh in 2000, and 102,569 TWh in 1990. In 2012 approximately 22% of world energy was consumed in North America, 5% was consumed South and Central America, 23% was consumed in Europe and Eurasia, 3% was consumed in Africa, and 40% was consumed in the Asia Pacific region.