World energy consumption one calls the sum of world-wide primary energy consumption. This covers ranges such as households and industry. With each progressive year this consumption grows continuously on after the recent reports more strongly than ever before. 2004 rose the world energy consumption around 4,3% to 14.6 billion tons SKE (hard coal units). That corresponds to an energy quantity of 118.858.600.000.000 KW/H (about 119,000 TWh or 432 Exajoule). This is since 1984 highest ever measured yearly growth. The coal had the largest consumption rise to register (6.3%), followed from oil (3.4%) and natural gas (3.3%). Other sources of energy had to book likewise rises, however in a substantially smaller dimension.

The oil has the largest portion (about 40%) of the world-wide primary energy, followed from coal and natural gas.

At the point of the energy consumers the industrial nations, like the USA, stand France, Canada and Germany. However countries, which are at present in the condition of the industrialization, continue to get always up. An example for this would be China. In the accompanying diagram one can reconstruct the rise of the world energy consumption.

Future, problems and solutions

The world energy consumption will presumably still more drastically rise in the future years and with it the consumption of fossil fuels. The reason for it is on the one hand the further mechanization of the industrialized countries, on the other hand the development of countries such as China and the third world. This has on the one hand the direct consequence of the further carbon dioxide output, which is responsible for the global heating up to a large extent. Alternative ones and solutions exist in

• back supply the use of regenerativ sources of energy, around the carbon dioxide output to a minimum,
• in the improvement of the efficiency of machines, thermal insulation of buildings in order to use energy more effectively,
• to complete renouncement of certain energy consumption-end technologies such as individual traffic with motor vehicles, military equipment, manned space travel, aviation as mass means of transport. This is politically not interspersable at present, could be however consequence of drastically rising energy prices,
• the intensified employment of nuclear energy, disputed in Germany; this is possible however only in use of breeder reactors on long duration.
• the development and the building of nuclear fusion reactors, whose fuel is practically for an unlimited period present. However the present Forschungsinvestitonen does not show a temporal perspective for a reactor ready for operation.

Besides all fossil raw materials are present and thus finite only in limited quantity. A further problem is peak oil, the oil promotion maximum, which can lead already soon to substantial price increases as well as bottlenecks. Therefore in particular a break will have to take place from the oil as main sources of energy in favor of of alternatives such as natural gas, fermentation gas, methane hydrate. The alternative frequently specified hydrogen is only a secondary source of energy, because it must be manufactured even only by the energetically procedure of the electrolysis.

see also

Peak oil

Related links

Covering of world requirements at primary energy by Photovoltaik

• ''''' Map of the world with necessary surfaces and source data '''''

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