Global Energy Sources

Global Energy Sources

The energy we use to support the whole range of human activities comes from a variety of sources, but as you all know, fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) currently provide the majority of our energy on a global basis, supplying about 81% of the energy we use:

Figure 1. The current contributions to our global energy from different sources shows that fossil fuels account for 81% of our energy. Data from International Energy Agency (iea.org)

Credit: David Bice

The non-fossil fuel sources include nuclear, hydro (dams with electrical turbines attached to the outflow), solar (both photovoltaic and solar thermal), and a variety of other sources. These non-fossil fuel sources currently supply about 19% of the total energy.

The percentages of our energy provided by these different sources have clearly changed over time and will certainly change in the future as well. The graph below gives us some sense of how dramatically things have changed over the past 210 years:

Figure 2. This plot shows the history of global energy production from different sources. Note that as time goes on, we are getting our energy from more sources. Data from Smil (2010).

Credit: David Bice

There are a couple of interesting features to point out about this graph. For one, note that the total amount of energy consumed has risen dramatically over time — this is undoubtedly related to both population growth and the industrial revolution. The second point is that shifting from one energy source to another takes a long time. Oil was being pumped out of the ground in 1860, and even though it has a greater energy density and is more versatile than coal, it did not really make its mark as an energy source until about 1920, and it did not surpass coal as an energy source until about 1940. Of course, you might argue that the world changed more slowly back then, but it is probably hard to avoid the conclusion that our energy supply system has a lot of inertia, resulting in sluggish change.