A record world fossil fuel consumption

Forget the propaganda hype about renewable energy.

This is the reality. They have no intention of taking the foot off the pedal.

World Sets Record For Fossil Fuel Consumption

Forbes,

8 June, 2016

Each year in June two very important reports are released that provide a comprehensive view of the global energymarkets. The highlight of the recently released Renewables 2016 Global Status Report was that the world’s renewable energy production has never been higher. But the biggest takeaway from this year’s BP Statistical Review, released Wednesday, may be that the world’s fossil fuel consumption has also never been higher.

While global coal consumption did decline by 1% in 2015, the world set new consumption records for petroleum and natural gas. The net impact was a total increase in the world’s fossil fuel consumption of about 0.6%. That may not seem like much, but the net increase in fossil fuel consumption — the equivalent of 127 million metric tons of petroleum — was 2.6 times the overall increase in the consumption of renewables (48 million metric tons of oil equivalent).

As a result, despite the record increase in renewable consumption, global carbon dioxide emissions once again set a new all-time record high. Carbon dioxide emissions in 2015 were 36 million metric tons higher than in 2014, and marked the 6th straight year a new record high has been set. But perhaps the silver lining is that 2015 marked the 2nd straight year that the increase was smaller than the year before. Carbon dioxide emissions in 2013 were 505 million tons higher than in 2012, but then 2014 and 2015 respectively saw increases of 224 million metric tons and 36 million metric tons.

The primary reason for the slowdown in the growth of carbon dioxide emissions was the reduction in global coal consumption, but this was offset by a nearly 2 million barrel per day (bpd) increase in global oil consumption. Notably, oil consumption in the U.S. rose for the 3rd straight year, and is now at the highest levels since 2008. U.S. crude oil consumption is now back to within 6% of the all-time high consumption level set in 2005.

Global crude oil production increased by 2.8 million bpd in 2015, led by a 1 million bpd increase in U.S. production. The bulk of the rest of the world’s oil production increase came from OPEC, which cumulatively boosted production by 1.6 million bpd over 2015. BP’s definition of crude oil “includes crude oil, shale oil, oil sands and NGLs (natural gas liquids – the liquid content of natural gas where this is recovered separately).” Per this definition, the U.S. was the world’s top crude oil producer with 12.7 million bpd of oil production in 2015 (the highest production number ever recorded for the U.S.). Saudi Arabia was in 2nd place at 12.0 million bpd.