Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
had to import most of that fuel, like France or Sweden,
remained relatively low; their energy use surged only
after WW II with large imports of crude oil. Japan
followed a similar pattern.
In 2003, Canadian TPES, with primary electricity con-
verted at the prevailing rate for thermal generation, aver-
aged 450 GJ per capita, and the U.S. mean was about
360 GJ per capita. In contrast, Western Europe averaged
160 GJ, ranging from 117 GJ in Portugal to 197 GJ
in France, and the Japanese mean was 185 GJ per capita
(EIA 2005b). With overall mean conversion efficiency of
about 40%, the North American mean prorated to about
145 GJ of useful energy, a flux roughly 15-fold higher
than during the last decades of the biomass era. The rates
of the world's most populous modernizing countries re-
main far behind the affluent rates. In 2003, China aver-
aged less than 40 GJ, India less than 15 GJ, and Nigeria
less than 10 GJ per capita. Brazil surpassed 50 GJ, still
below the global mean of 70 GJ per capita. But because
of a highly skewed consumption pattern this global mean
is largely irrelevant. Only three countries, Argentina,
Croatia, and Portugal, have consumption rates close to
it, whereas the modal (most frequent) national mean is
below 20 GJ per capita, and affluent countries average
above 120 GJ per capita (fig. 9.7).
In 2003 the absolute range was from less than 1 GJ
per capita for the poorest African countries to 450 GJ for
Canada. This comparison leaves aside anomalous rates
for such countries as Qatar or the United Arab Emirates,
or such territories as Gibraltar or the U.S. Virgin Islands,
where extraordinarily high consumption reflects, respec-
tively, the cost of hydrocarbon processing for global
export and ship refueling. Needless to say, all these mea-
sures are just statistical abstractions dividing a country's
total commercial primary energy use by its population.
Because the poorest people in the poorest countries do
not directly consume any fossil energies or primary elec-
tricity (their only links to modern energies are indirect,
via purchases or donations of tools, clothes, or food
imported during famines), the difference in modern en-
ergy consumption between a subsistence pastoralist in
the Sahel and an average Canadian may easily be larger
than 1,000-fold.
Another way to convey this great global disparity is by
contrasting the shares of populations with those of TPES.
Although post-1950 economic development reduced the
relative gap between haves and have-nots, the disparities
are unacceptably large. In 1950 industrialized countries
consumed about 93% of the world's commercial TPES;
by 1985 the rich world containing one-quarter of global
population consumed about 82% of all primary energy;
and in 2005 its share fell to just over 60% versus about
15% for population. The United States alone, with 5% of
world population, used about 22% of total energy, and
the G8 countries, with 12% of the world's population,
consumed about 46% of the world's energy. In contrast,
the poorest one-quarter of humanity (sub-Saharan Africa,
Nepal, Bangladesh, most of rural India) consumes less
than 3% of the world's TPES. Few other comparisons il-
luminate more starkly the existential chasm separating
the two worlds (fig. 9.7).
This gap is even greater with respect to the most flexi-
ble form of energy. At the turn of the twentieth century,
average per capita electricity consumption in affluent
countries was about 10 MWh, the global mean (once
again, a rather unrevealing figure) was nearly 2.5 MWh;
the world's poor countries averaged just 1 MWh; the
least developed nations not even 100 kWh; most sub-
Saharan countries below 50 kWh; and some two billion
people (nearly one-third of humanity) had no access to
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