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Even if we tried to be extremely frugal in our use of energy and each person's requirement was maintained at a constant level, the fact that the world's population has risen would mean that our total energy requirement would have risen also. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that energy demand is ever increasing as indicated below:
The present use is over 10,000 million tonnes of oil equivalent ( Mtoe) per annum and this is expected to rise to about 20,000 Mtoe by 2040. In terms of power we presently use 1.7 x 1013 Watts as given in the diagram on page 1. Clearly, a doubling of this power is very serious as it approaches a level similar to that due to geothermal energy ( 3.2 x 1013) or sunlight conversion through photosynthesis (4 x 1013). At such levels, the onset of severe climate changes must be expected.
We may well note that the graph on page 47, Future Scenarios by David Holmgren does NOT forecast an ever increasing energy availability.
It suggest that a peak of approximately12,000 Mtoe will occur at about the year 2015 and, thereafter, our energy supply will reduce . On page 2 we have oil availability forecasts and the above curve closely mirrors the blue curve in those forecasts. Following these forecasts we therefore have only five years or so before we run into a world energy deficit. Now, in the financial world it is easy to "print money" in deficit situations but in the energy world we cannot "print energy" so a scarcity is bound to occur. Thus, there will not be a long wait to see if these forecasts are correct. For the short-term future Europe will be dependent on pipe-lines from the east:
As expected, the western world has a larger per capita energy use than other parts of the world and a full list is given in http://earthtrends.org. Note, if this site will not open a Google search on "percapita energy use" will give a host of sites.
A few examples are given below:
More recent data regarding energy per capita, in kWh, is given in New Internationalist , Dec 2010. (1 toe = 12.4 kWh)
Canada 96,000 kWh ( 7.7 toe), US 89,000 kWh (7.2 toe), China 19,000 kWh (1.5 toe), EU 48,000 kWh (3.87 toe) ,
Nepal 3.500 kWh (0.28 toe), Tanzania 4,000 kWh (0.32 toe)
It is somewhat hypocritical, as a westerner, to dictate to other countries that they should reduce their energy consumption; even if China and India doubled their consumption , their per capita use would still be less than that in, say, the UK. It can only be left as a wish that world energy consumption is curtailed in some orderly manner.
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