BP Review 2012: Coal Use Expanding Faster than Crude Oil

The 2012 BP Statistical Review of World Energy is now available for download. It reveals that worldwide demand for coal is growing significantly faster than worldwide demand for crude oil. And that is just the beginning.

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Oil demand grew by less than 1%—the slowest rate amongst fossil fuels—while gas grew by 2.2%, and coal was the only fossil fuel with above average annual consumption growth at 5.4% globally, and 8.4% in the emerging economies.

...Emerging economies accounted for all of the net growth, with OECD demand falling for the third time in the last four years, led by a sharp decline in Japan. China alone accounted for 71% of energy consumption growth.

...Fossil fuels still dominated energy consumption with 87% market share, while renewables rose fastest but are still only 2% of the global total. The fossil fuel mix continues to change with oil, the world’s leading fuel at 33.1% of global energy use, losing share for 12 consecutive years. _GCC

In North America, natural gas is increasingly replacing coal for purposes of electrical power generation. As global natural gas prices decline, the same type of substitution should be seen in other areas which benefit from large scale tight gas deposits.

Worldwide, however, coal should continue to be in high demand for power generation and other industrial uses.

Renewables such as big wind and big solar continue to be less than impressive, as predicted. Intermittent unreliable sources of energy cannot be depended upon. No wonder a significant part of China's installed wind power capacity continues to lack connections to any power grid. I suppose the capacity looks good on paper, even if it isn't doing anything but sit and rust.

BP Statistical Review of Energy 2012 Download PDF