Forbes Piece: Statistical Review Finds Fossil Fuels Still Dominate The Global Energy Mix

[Note: This story was also published at Forbes.com]

Oil, natural gas and coal continued to dominate global primary energy consumption in 2022 despite focused efforts by western governments to subsidize a largely debt-funded transition to renewables and electric vehicles (EVs). The Statistical Review of World Energy, conducted by the Energy Institute, finds that fossil fuels provided 82% of primary energy consumption during 2022, the same percentage it provided in 2021, as surging energy demand offset growth in renewables and EVs.

A Persistent Dominance By Fossil Fuels

Fossil fuels’ percentage of global primary energy has remained stubbornly within a few percentage points of this level throughout the 21st century despite trillions of dollars having been poured into research, development and the build-out of a steadily-expanding “green” energy sector. This global thirst for fossil fuels has proved quite stubborn in the face of the best efforts of central planners to diminish it.

BP had conducted this annual Statistical Review annually since 1952, but decided last year to end that practice, turning it over to the Energy Institute. Per the Institute’s website, “Data compilation is being undertaken by the Centre for Energy Economics Research and Policy at Heriot-Watt University. An advisory board has also been established, bringing together respected energy thought leaders and experts to provide strategic oversight of the publication.” All the statistics contained in the report are derived from government and published data.

Global demand for crude oil rose during 2022 by 2.9 million barrels of oil per day (bopd), with OECD countries accounting for 1.4 million bopd of that growth, and 1.5 million coming from non-OECD nations. This was a drop in the rate of growth seen in 2021, when the world was coming out of the demand destruction that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Global demand during that recovery year rose by over 5%.

Perhaps most disturbingly for energy transition proponents, production of coal rose by 7% in 2022 thanks mainly to rapid consumption growth in China, India and Indonesia. Those three countries accounted for 95% of overall coal demand growth during the year. Overall, global coal consumption rose to the highest level seen since 2014.