Energy Consumption

So, how much energy does humanity consume?

In the following, this will be illustrated in a bottom-up way, starting with the most
basic need for a single human to survive, then to a typical (urban Scottish) domestic
household of two adults and two children, a national overview, and finally a global
view of energy production and consumption.

A single person

The most basic need of a human being is the food to survive.

According to UK guidelines, the recommended daily amount of food is 2000kcal for

women and 2500kcal for men, which is on the order of 10MJ

Keeping in mind that these are UK government guidelines, the absolute minimum to
prevent starvation is probably well below that figure, maybe a few MJ ...

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A Scottish household

The figures listed here, were obtained from the annual fuel bills for a urban household
of 2 adults and 2 children living in a 3-bedroom 19th-century flat (apartment) in a
Scottish city

(Ground plan of flat: around 12m by 10m, height of rooms: 4.5m,

two outside sandstone walls, each of area 12m by 4.5m
including 7 single-pane windows of around 2m2 each).

Their heating, cooking, and hot water is provided almost exclusively by natural gas,
with one solid fuel fire place and one small electric heater. Electricity provides almost
all of their remaining energy consumption. Lighting is largely by standard
incandescent light bulbs with only a few energy-saving lights; they own a
fridge/freezer, a washing machine, a dish washer, a TV and VHS recorder, several
radios, a PC and a few other appliances.

They own and operate a car but only drive about 3000 km per year (compared to a
UK average just over 10,000km - so this household has a hidden energy use in the
form of public transport ...)

Annual energy consumption

Fuel Energy (GJ) Cost (£)

Solid 5 50
Gas 90 450
Electricity 15 250
Diesel 10 150
Total 120 900

Dividing this by four people, we arrive at a daily energy consumption of around

30GJ/person/year (or 60GJ if we only count adults). This is actually not too far off the
UK average of about 50GJ for domestic energy.

Dividing by 365 to get the daily consumption, we get around 100MJ/person/day. This
is ten times as much as we need for our food and it does not take into account any
energy expended on travelling by public transport, energy required at work, or in the
production of any item or service bought or used by that household...

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The Energy consumed in the UK

Final (delivered) energy consumption

According to the UK government information produced by the Department of Trade

and Industry (dti), the UK consumed in the year 2000 the following amount of energy
for its different sectors:

Transport Industry Domestic Services Total

Solid fuel (PJ) 0 117 91 16 223
Liquid fuel (PJ) 2280 267 136 101 2783
Natural Gas (PJ) 0 722 1332 456 2511
Electricity (PJ) 32 409 403 341 1184
Total (PJ) 2311 1515 1961 915 6702
Total (%) 34 23 30 13

1. The 'Services' column includes public lighting and agriculture

2. The 'Electricity' row describes the electricity delivered to the customers, not
the amount of energy used to generate this electricity

With a population of about 60 million people, the total consumption per person per
year is about 110GJ, of which about a third are used for transport and a little less than
a third for domestic purposes.

Primary Energy consumption

As mentioned above, the electricity delivered did not take into account the energy
required to generate that electricity. However, since thermal power generation (i.e. by
burning a fuel and driving a steam or gas turbine) has a typical efficiency of only
30%, a substantial amount of energy not reaching the customer is hidden behind the
figure of 1184PJ delivered in 2000. The exact figure obviously depends on the
balance of types of generators, since hydroelectric generation has a typical efficiency
in excess of 80%. With a typical proportion of fuels of about a third of coal, a third of
natural gas, a little less than a third of nuclear energy, and a few % from hydropower
and other Renewables, the actual energy input into the power generation was

Fuel Energy (PJ)

Coal 1200
Liquid (oil) 100
Natural gas 1160
Nuclear 850
Others 80
Total 3390

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This then gives a primary energy consumption (where nuclear, hydro, and others are
all incorporated into 'Primary electricity':

Fuel Energy (PJ)

Coal 1697
Liquid (oil) 3147
Natural gas 3972
Primary electricity 891
Total 9707

With a population of about 60 million people, the total primary energy consumption
per person per year is then about 160GJ, of which about a quarter is used for
transport, 20% in the domestic area, 16% by industry, 10% in the service industry, and
23% is lost in the power generation and distribution.

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The World-wide primary energy consumption

The approximate global primary energy consumption in 2000 was

Fuel Quantity Energy (EJ) %

Oil 3500 million tonnes 150 35
Natural gas 2400 billion cubic metres 90 20
Coal 3100 million tonnes 90 20
Nuclear electricity 2600 billion kWh 30 7
Large hydropower 2700 billion kWh 10 2.5
Traditional biomass 50 10
New Renewables 10 2
Total 420

Numbers are rounded to give an impression of their magnitude, rather than their precise amount.
As a result, the percentages do not add up to 100...

With a population of about 6 billion people, the total primary energy consumption per
person per year is about 70GJ, which is less than half of the figure for the UK.

The wealthiest countries (comprising of the USA, Canada, Western Europe, Australia,
New Zealand, and Japan) account for 14% of the population, produced 35% of the
primary energy, and consumed 48% of the primary energy. This can also be expressed
that these countries consume over three times as much energy per person as the world
average or over five times as much as the population in the rest of the world. This is
reflected in a very similar Gross Domestic Product (GDP) distribution.

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