(Click to enlarge)
I visited the UN data website and downloaded data about the total electricity production of countries and matched it with their populations in order to obtain the electricity produced per 1000 inhabitants (for each country). I have plotted a histogram of this in the figure above.
This histogram is disturbing.
The smaller issue is that inhabitants of most countries have lesser electricity than the world average. This means that a few energy-rich countries are producing (and probably consuming) most of the world's electricity. I have marked some of the representative countries on the histogram. There is a table at the end of this post containing the parsed data in case you want to look up your own country and/or use the data (After citing the UN data source, off course).
The bigger issue is that countries with low electricity per capita (bars toward the left of the figure) are striving to move the per capita electricity production higher to improve quality of life. For example, both India and China are lower than the world average. And I have the impression that these countries are really looking to improve their citizen's living conditions. And remember, populations are increasing too (see one of my previous posts), making it necessary to pump up electricity production even faster.
Producing more electricity is a positive development. But the problems associated with increasing production are the issue here. Here are some questions:
- Where are we going to get the energy to increase electricity production so rapidly?
- What will be the environmental cost of creating so much additional capacity? I hope it is renewable energy. Hope. Hope. Hope.
- Or, does this analysis indicate that even in the next decades electricity will be a premium, for-the-well-off, limited quantity luxury given the lack of such a massive energy source?
Tough cookies.
We really need a breakthrough with some new technology here.
Here is the table containing data used in the analysis.
Country, million kWh per 1000 inhabitants (German notation: "," is the decimal point)
| Afghanistan | 0,019507403 |
| Albania | 0,529214445 |
| Algeria | 0,219150336 |
| American Samoa | 0,936753525 |
| Angola | 0,032618392 |
| Anguilla | 1,036227154 |
| Antigua and Barbuda | 0,325148424 |
| Argentina | 0,727408376 |
| Armenia | 1,07765584 |
| Aruba | 1,457768448 |
| Australia | 2,492244294 |
| Austria | 2,280999506 |
| Azerbaijan | 0,617455344 |
| Bahamas | 1,40738335 |
| Bahrain | 2,551090802 |
| Bangladesh | 0,027811644 |
| Barbados | 0,739895798 |
| Belarus | 0,819169464 |
| Belgium | 1,54779036 |
| Belize | 0,174199589 |
| Benin | 0,006949106 |
| Bermuda | 2,726961075 |
| Bhutan | 0,549439336 |
| Bolivia | 0,149749265 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 0,69957433 |
| Botswana | 0,118195712 |
| Brazil | 0,49861704 |
| British Virgin Islands | 0,454215116 |
| Brunei Darussalam | 2,030329213 |
| Bulgaria | 1,545853099 |
| Burkina Faso | 0,005598074 |
| Burundi | 0,004199119 |
| Cambodia | 0,013614697 |
| Cameroon | 0,049170704 |
| Canada | 3,765512578 |
| Cape Verde | 0,157851016 |
| Cayman Islands | 2,346954443 |
| Central African Republic | 0,010259031 |
| Chad | 0,002858379 |
| Chile | 0,798215316 |
| China | 0,386906459 |
| Colombia | 0,296546128 |
| Comoros | 0,006266434 |
| Congo | 0,025762836 |
| Cook Islands | 0,57208238 |
| Costa Rica | 0,44965969 |
| Croatia | 0,849392177 |
| Cuba | 0,379683488 |
| Cyprus | 1,34517727 |
| Czech Republic | 1,708438639 |
| Democratic People's Republic of Korea | 0,402276274 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | 0,043802793 |
| Denmark | 2,471503772 |
| Djibouti | 0,146728575 |
| Dominica | 0,353841391 |
| Dominican Republic | 0,582812306 |
| Ecuador | 0,273103278 |
| Egypt | 0,280151791 |
| El Salvador | 0,184723191 |
| Equatorial Guinea | 0,026854067 |
| Eritrea | 0,036892038 |
| Estonia | 1,702729723 |
| Faeroe Islands | 1,804792034 |
| Falkland Islands (Malvinas) | 3,025210084 |
| Fiji | 0,199264292 |
| Finland | 3,139151247 |
| French Guiana | 0,728790884 |
| French Polynesia | 0,442041685 |
| Gabon | 0,325406584 |
| Gambia | 0,018552543 |
| Georgia | 0,977777798 |
| Germany | 1,51273341 |
| Ghana | 0,065320583 |
| Gibraltar | 1,202749141 |
| Greece | 1,20759618 |
| Greenland | 1,844280122 |
| Grenada | 0,304075563 |
| Guadeloupe | 0,937493585 |
| Guam | 3,274604022 |
| Guatemala | 0,162208554 |
| Guinea | 0,022771058 |
| Guinea-Bissau | 0,01315024 |
| Guyana | 0,415837246 |
| Haiti | 0,023772922 |
| Honduras | 0,212566084 |
| Hungary | 0,856203515 |
| Iceland | 5,200654647 |
| India | 0,126738013 |
| Indonesia | 0,116874477 |
| Iran (Islamic Republic of) | 0,639435492 |
| Iraq | 0,300043035 |
| Ireland | 1,518598487 |
| Israel | 1,541832479 |
| Jamaica | 0,425354403 |
| Japan | 2,168335174 |
| Jordan | 0,389966498 |
| Kazakhstan | 1,231640364 |
| Kenya | 0,034242581 |
| Kiribati | 0,032607632 |
| Kuwait | 4,02037037 |
| Kyrgyzstan | 0,710476911 |
| Lao People's Democratic Republic | 0,08121598 |
| Latvia | 0,940571111 |
| Lebanon | 0,601385281 |
| Liberia | 0,054622645 |
| Libyan Arab Jamahiriya | 0,865970274 |
| Lithuania | 1,330189073 |
| Luxembourg | 3,631083653 |
| Madagascar | 0,012230063 |
| Malawi | 0,01376068 |
| Malaysia | 0,829451232 |
| Maldives | 0,165934635 |
| Mali | 0,0098182 |
| Malta | 2,28753381 |
| Marshall Islands | 0,303244006 |
| Martinique | 1,000262695 |
| Mauritania | 0,058047217 |
| Mauritius | 0,554314346 |
| Mexico | 0,490100396 |
| Mongolia | 0,322392649 |
| Montserrat | 1,776830135 |
| Morocco | 0,172225006 |
| Mozambique | 0,115377076 |
| Myanmar | 0,024954518 |
| Namibia | 0,034659007 |
| Nauru | 0,989021857 |
| Nepal | 0,022551405 |
| Netherlands | 1,3307455 |
| Netherlands Antilles | 1,126657796 |
| New Caledonia | 1,528705938 |
| New Zealand | 2,168356638 |
| Nicaragua | 0,099770455 |
| Niger | 0,007916051 |
| Nigeria | 0,041604152 |
| Niue | 0,612745098 |
| Oman | 1,189848435 |
| Pakistan | 0,123101766 |
| Palau | 2,583594177 |
| Panama | 0,508432302 |
| Papua New Guinea | 0,117468448 |
| Paraguay | 1,25604174 |
| Peru | 0,228699463 |
| Philippines | 0,185003073 |
| Poland | 0,844522287 |
| Portugal | 1,269159686 |
| Puerto Rico | 1,370991383 |
| Qatar | 3,553189833 |
| Republic of Korea | 1,389956686 |
| Romania | 0,876196974 |
| Russian Federation | 1,619416414 |
| Rwanda | 0,004223616 |
| Saint Helena | 0,625097672 |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis | 0,407016973 |
| Saint Lucia | 0,40932771 |
| Saint Pierre and Miquelon | 4,254648598 |
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 0,29377943 |
| Samoa | 0,157741576 |
| Sao Tome and Principe | 0,032760677 |
| Saudi Arabia | 1,420230761 |
| Senegal | 0,048341849 |
| Seychelles | 1,110695412 |
| Sierra Leone | 0,008771297 |
| Singapore | 2,347562131 |
| Slovakia | 1,624096551 |
| Slovenia | 1,496430224 |
| Solomon Islands | 0,02963471 |
| South Africa | 0,835171394 |
| Spain | 1,888334973 |
| Sri Lanka | 0,126093294 |
| Sudan | 0,030204543 |
| Suriname | 0,859729307 |
| Swaziland | 0,122718045 |
| Sweden | 3,694381387 |
| Syrian Arab Republic | 0,398277093 |
| Tajikistan | 0,678298553 |
| Thailand | 0,52931205 |
| The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia | 0,767583489 |
| Timor-Leste | 0,042163059 |
| Togo | 0,007694068 |
| Tonga | 0,080514488 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 1,118059532 |
| Tunisia | 0,326482221 |
| Turkey | 0,532316671 |
| Turkmenistan | 0,811252681 |
| Turks and Caicos Islands | 0,163538984 |
| Uganda | 0,010743706 |
| Ukraine | 1,119794335 |
| United Arab Emirates | 3,827701301 |
| United Kingdom | 1,358755508 |
| United Republic of Tanzania | 0,01426794 |
| United States of America | 3,558514712 |
| Uruguay | 0,629035396 |
| Uzbekistan | 0,440301803 |
| Vanuatu | 0,055719101 |
| Viet Nam | 0,140517355 |
| Western Sahara | 0,131690083 |
| Zambia | 0,196892977 |
| Zimbabwe | 0,178739129 |
1 comment:
Electricity has emerged as the preferred mode of consumption of energy across the world. This has brought into sharp focus various technologies involved in the production, conveyance and consumption of electricity.
Hydro-electricity is by far the most preferred mode of production as it is cheap and clean as well as a renewable source of energy. However, as the easy availability of flowing water sources for generation has diminished, the world has increasingly shifted to production of thermal and even nuclear power. Thermal power has certain advantages in production as we can better control the generation of this electricity. This becomes necessary as typically power consumption fluctuates not during day and night but also across seasons. For example in much of North America and Europe consumption increases during the winter due to heating requirements. This is precisely the time when production from hydro recourses drops as waters freeze.
The emergence of thermal power as the preferred mode of production has brought into focus the issue of availability of fuels for this purpose. Typically coal has been used the world over for this purpose- though oil rich countries of the middle east has not hesitated to use their vast oil resources for this purpose.
India and China two of the biggest consumers of electricity have both fallen back on the coal resources, as their oil and gas resources are very limited. Coal is a difficult material to handle as it pollutes the atmosphere and coal mining can be dangerous and also has ecological consequences. China's experience in this regard is typical its rapid pace of economic development has meant that China has had to fall back on mining even its small and technically unsafe mines. This has resulted in a great increase in industrials accidents involving deaths and injuries to workers.
Our search for safer and cleaner methods of generating energy have so far shown only limited results. One interesting variation on this theme is Canada's attempts to exploit its vast resources of tar sands. A large amount of oil appears in association with sand in certain part of Canada. Theoretically (and even practically) technologies are available for extraction of oil from these sands. However, recent attempts by the government of Canada to extract oil from tar sands have met with opposition from environmentalists on various grounds.
Nuclear power has been talked about as the fuel of the future. Here again the basic technologies are already available, and in fact a number of plants are being run successfully in countries like US, Great Britain and France. However, the efforts to generate more power from this source received a serious set back after accidents at the Chernobyl plant in Russia and the three mile long island in the USA. The fact is that due to safety considerations nuclear power remains a practical non-starter over much of the world including India.
In my humble opinion in the field of electricity generation we pay all our attention to generation of electricity to the exclusion of losses in electricity during transmission and consumption. If we could improve the quality of transmission equipment and bring down these losses to below 5% as against almost 30% in some cases present it is possible to enhance availability of electricity even without further generation. Similarly, we must also concentrate R&D effort on the power consumption efficiency of all electrical gadgets in use- especially bulbs and other household electrical gadgets. These are some of my views on the subject.
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