Energy & Transportation

Although hydropower and geothermal power are in very different stages of development, the market for these forms of electricity generation is increasing. These two sources are not subject to the variability that plagues wind and solar energy. Their greater reliability can thus be harnessed to provide baseload power. Hydropower is the older and more mature of the two technologies. Global consumption and installed capacity of hydropower continued to increase in 2011, reaching 3,498 terawatt-hours (TWh) and 970 gigawatts (GW) respectively. Total consumption has now increased each year between 2003 and 2011. But in 2011 the growth rate slowed, registering only a 1.6 percent increase from the previous year.

Emerging from the global economic recession, investments in renewable energy technologies continued their steady rise in 2011. Total new investments in renewable power and fuels (excluding large hydropower and solar hot water) jumped 17 percent—reaching $257 billion, up from $220 billion in 2010. In a year marked by falling costs for renewable energy technologies, net investment in renewable power capacity was $40 billion greater than investment in fossil fuel capacity. (Through the first half of 2012, however, total investment fell behind the impressive pace set the previous year, attracting slightly under $108 billion compared with nearly $125 billion in the first half of 2011.)

A recent projection places the total value of conventional global fossil fuel subsidies between $775 billion and more than $1 trillion in 2012, depending on which supports are included in the calculation. In contrast, total subsidies for renewable energy stood at $66 billion in 2010, although that was a 10 percent increase from the previous year. Two thirds of these subsidies went to renewable electricity resources and the remaining third to biofuels.

In 2011, global wind power capacity topped out at 238,000 megawatts (MW) after adding just over 41,000 MW. This means that the global capacity grew by 21 percent in 2011—lower than the 2010 rate of 24 percent and markedly lower than the 2009 rate of 31 percent. Nonetheless, the world now has four times as much installed wind power capacity than in 2005, just seven years ago.

Acknowledging that many people in developing countries do not have access to affordable, reliable, and safe sources of energy, the United Nations General Assembly designated 2012 to be the International Year for Sustainable Energy for All. Expanding access to modern energy services for lighting, heating, refrigeration, cooking, water pumping, communications, and other services is essential for reducing poverty, improving health and education, increasing incomes, and enhancing rural livelihoods. It will be difficult to achieve a number of the internationally endorsed Millennium Development Goals without improving energy access.

Global installed nuclear generating capacity has declined in 2011, falling to 366.5 gigawatts (GW). As of October 2011 there were 433 nuclear reactors in operation around the world, compared to 441 at the beginning of the year. Just over 5.1 GW of installed capacity has been added since the beginning of 2010, with new connections to the grid in China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and South Korea. Over that same period, nearly 11.5 GW of installed capacity has been shut down in France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. More than 8.4 GW of installed capacity was shut down in Germany alone in 2011.

Global energy intensity, defined as worldwide total energy consumption divided by gross world product, increased 1.35 percent in 2010. Since the global financial crisis in 2008, worldwide energy consumption has grown faster than the global economy for two years in a row, as many countries started implementing massive stimulus packages to push their national economies out of recession.

After falling 1.5 percent between 2008 and 2009 due to the global financial crisis, global oil consumption recovered by 3.1 percent in 2010 to reach an all-time high of 87.4 million barrels per day. About one third of this growth came from China, which now uses over 10 percent of the world’s oil. The United States, Brazil, Russia, and the Middle East accounted for an additional 48 percent of the increase. Meanwhile, consumption in the European Union decreased for the fourth consecutive year, falling 1.1 percent. The gap in oil consumption between countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries narrowed, with the two groups respectively accounting for 52.5 and 47.4 percent of total oil consumption in 2010.

Following a precipitous plunge in 2008 and 2009, the world’s auto industry saw production and sales soar in 2010.

Global fossil fuel consumption subsidies fell to $312 billion in 2009 from $558 billion in 2008, a decline of 44.1 percent. The reduction is due primarily to changes in international energy prices as well as in domestic pricing policies and demand, rather than because the subsidies themselves were curtailed. The number also does not include fossil fuel production subsidies that aim at fostering domestic supply, which are estimated at an additional $100 billion globally per year.

Global use of coal fell by just under 0.5 percent in 2009 to 3,278 million tons of oil equivalent (mtoe) from the all-time high of 3,286 mtoe in 2008, interrupting the trend of rapid growth—an average of 4.3 percent annually—that has defined global coal markets over the last decade.

In 2008, the latest year with available data, the traveling public flew 4.28 trillion passenger-kilometers on airplanes, a 1.3 percent increase from 2007.

An estimated 7,300 megawatts of new solar photovoltaic power capacity was installed in 2009—20 percent more than was added in 2008.

For the second year in a row, global nuclear generating capacity has dropped slightly, reaching 370.9 gigawatts at the end of 2009.

Global biofuel production topped 81 billion liters in 2008, an increase of more than 36 percent over the previous year.

Solar thermal heating worldwide expanded by 19 gigawatts of thermal equivalent (GWth) with the highest annual growth rate since 1995 to reach 147 GWth2 (210 million square meters) of capacity in 2007.

Production of passenger cars and light trucks declined from 70.9 million units in 2007 to 68.1 million in 2008, and the London-based IHS Global Insight Automotive Group expects output to drop dramatically to 59.8 million in 2009.

Bicycle production was up 3.2 percent in 2007 to 130 million units, a continuation of the upward trend that has characterized production for most of this decade.

Between 2001 and 2006, production of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) in China—which accounts for roughly 85 percent of global output—tripled from 750 million to 2.4 billion units.

According to Global Insight, global passenger car production in 2007 rose to 52.1 million units from 49.1 million the previous year.

World production of biofuels rose some 20 percent to an estimated 54 billion liters in 2007.

Global demand for oil reached 85.7 million barrels per day in 2007, a modest 1-percent increase over the 84.9 million barrels consumed daily in 2006.