By Jo Nova
Global fossil fuel use hits a new record level in 2023
We spent $1.77 Trillion dollars on the clean energy transition last year, yet our fossil fuel use is still rising and our emissions are still increasing.
The Energy Institute released their annual “Statistical Review of World Energy”. Total energy used in the world went up by 2% showing no sign of slowing down. For the first time, more coal was used in India than Europe and North America combined, a trend that is unlikely to stop soon. Despite there being more EVs on Earth than ever before, oil consumption was up 2% to above 100 million barrels for the first time. China overtook the US as the country with the largest oil refining capacity in the world last year at 18.5 million bpd. But the US overtook Qatar as the largest exporter of LNG. And global man-made emissions of carbon dioxide exceeded 40 gigatons for the first time.
Imagine what a different place the world would be if we spent that money on something useful? Just a tenth of that might provide clean water and sanitation for the poorest of the poor and stop children dying of dysentery. Instead, wealthy nations build spinning totem poles — hoping they’ll give us the perfect amount of rain 80 years from now.
Despite what they say, we are still a fossil fueled world. Coal, oil and gas made up 81.5% of the world’s total consumption of energy, down from 82% a year before.
Not much of a “transition” — renewable energy makes up only 8% of our total global energy
And despite having every data-point since 1951, the Energy Institute were careful not to draw a graph like this below showing just how irrelevant unreliable renewables are (so I did one).
Energy Institute EI, Global Energy consumption 2024
And despite ten years of rampant growth in renewable energy, and 28 UN global junkets, the trend in man-made global emissions is not slowing down.
Energy Institute EI, Global carbon dioxide emissions. 2024
The Energy Institute also apparently didn’t want people to see a graph like this one either — drawn by OWID from the Energy Institutes own 2022 data. Nothing else quite captures how fake or pointless the whole forced “Transition” is.
Headlines will presumably hail the record amount of renewable energy produced like it means something.
With great timing three professors of sorts at University College London wrote this unwitting satire at The Conversion* only two days ago:
Proving the government can strangle any hard science if it throws enough money at it. Should we make 80% of the world’s energy “taboo” or should we just discuss the pros and cons like grown ups?
REFERENCE:
The “Statistical Review of World Energy — 2024”.
*Since The Conversation banned the dangerous “climate deniers” it’s hardly a conversation. We wish them luck in overcoming their fear of alternate scientific opinions.