Infographic: The Global Transition to Green Energy
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Visualizing the Global Transition to Green Energy

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Green Energy transition

Visualizing The Global Transition to Green Energy

A fully green future could be closer than you think. With each passing year, the steadily declining price of renewable energy makes it increasingly competitive against fossil fuels.

Today’s infographic from Raconteur breaks down the material shift towards renewable energy, and where in the world it’s taking place.

Time to go green

A recent United Nations report estimates that renewables must make up 70% to 85% of electricity by 2050 to combat the dire effects of climate change.

The good news? Embracing renewable energy is becoming easier on the wallet. Most renewable energy sources are becoming cheaper and quicker to produce, and it’s speeding up widespread adoption.

Cost of electricity per energy source ($ per KWh)20102017
Concentrating solar power$0.33$0.22
Offshore wind$0.17$0.14
Solar photovoltaic$0.36$0.10
Biomass$0.07$0.07
Geothermal$0.05$0.07
Onshore wind$0.08$0.06
Hydro$0.04$0.05

The price of solar photovoltaic cells are projected to dip dramatically over this seven-year period, as solar panel infrastructure moves away from being an experimental technology, and into a trusted energy source easily replicated at scale. Solar also received the most new investment by energy type in 2017, up 18% from the previous year.

Of course, it won’t happen overnight. Even as the world continues to electrify, coal will still make up almost one-third of the world’s energy mix in 2040, while renewables will only be at 25%.

Nevertheless, concentrated efforts to curb our reliance on coal are signals that the fossil fuel is on its way out, and new investment in green energy sources is on the rise in most regions.

The Renewables Race

Itโ€™s perhaps not surprising that China is leading the change in renewable growth. The nation tops the list of spenders, spending more on green energy than the United States and Europe combined.

New Investment by Region2016 ($ billion)2017 ($ billion)% Change
China$96.9$126.631%
Europe$64.1$40.9-36%
United States$43.1$40.5-6%
Other Asia and Oceania$35.7$31.4-12%
Other Americas$6$13.4124%
Middle East & Africa$9$10.111%
India$13.7$10.9-20%
Brazil$5.6$68%
Total$274$279.82%

In places where a consistent and reliable source of energy is hard to come by, people are looking to clean energy as a way to leapfrog ahead of using the carbon-intensive electricity grid entirely.

Take Ethiopia for example: the $4 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project along the Nile River will help meet the areaโ€™s rising energy demands. Once completed, it will be the largest dam on the continent and generate around 6,450 MW of power.

This trifecta of innovation, investment, and falling costs could be the answer to bolstering renewable energy infrastructure for decades to come – and it will be interesting to see the ultimate pace at which green energy supply comes online, and what that means for the world.

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Energy

Visualizing the Scale of Global Fossil Fuel Production

How much oil, coal, and natural gas do we extract each year? See the scale of annual fossil fuel production in perspective.

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The Scale of Global Fossil Fuel Production

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email every week.

Fossil fuels have been our predominant source of energy for over a century, and the world still extracts and consumes a colossal amount of coal, oil, and gas every year.

This infographic visualizes the volume of global fossil fuel production in 2021 using data from BPโ€™s Statistical Review of World Energy.

The Facts on Fossil Fuels

In 2021, the world produced around 8 billion tonnes of coal, 4 billion tonnes of oil, and over 4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.

Most of the coal is used to generate electricity for our homes and offices and has a key role in steel production. Similarly, natural gas is a large source of electricity and heat for industries and buildings. Oil is primarily used by the transportation sector, in addition to petrochemical manufacturing, heating, and other end uses.

Hereโ€™s a full breakdown of coal, oil, and gas production by country in 2021.

Coal Production

If all the coal produced in 2021 were arranged in a cube, it would measure 2,141 meters (2.1km) on each sideโ€”more than 2.5 times the height of the worldโ€™s tallest building.

China produced 50% or more than four billion tonnes of the worldโ€™s coal in 2021. Itโ€™s also the largest consumer of coal, accounting for 54% of coal consumption in 2021.

Rank Country2021 Coal Production
(million tonnes)
% of Total
#1๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ณ China 4,126.050%
#2๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ India 811.310%
#3๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฉ Indonesia 614.08%
#4๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ U.S. 524.46%
#5๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ Australia 478.66%
#6๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡บ Russia 433.75%
#7๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ South Africa 234.53%
#8๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช Germany 126.02%
#9๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Kazakhstan 115.71%
#10๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ฑ Poland 107.61%
๐ŸŒ Other 600.97%
Total8,172.6100%

India is both the second largest producer and consumer of coal. Meanwhile, Indonesia is the worldโ€™s largest coal exporter, followed by Australia.

In the West, U.S. coal production was down 47% as compared to 2011 levels, and the descent is likely to continue with the clean energy transition.

Oil Production

In 2021, the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia were the three largest crude oil producers, respectively.

Rank Country2021 Oil Production
(million tonnes)
% of Total
#1๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ U.S. 711.117%
#2๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡บ Russia 536.413%
#3๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Saudi Arabia 515.012%
#4๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Canada 267.16%
#5๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ถ Iraq 200.85%
#6๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ณ China 198.95%
#7๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ท Iran 167.74%
#8๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ช UAE 164.44%
#9 ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ท Brazil156.84%
#10๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ผ Kuwait 131.13%
๐ŸŒ Other 1172.028%
Total4221.4100%

OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia, made up the largest share of production at 35% or 1.5 billion tonnes of oil.

U.S. oil production has seen significant growth since 2010. In 2021, the U.S. extracted 711 million tonnes of oil, more than double the 333 million tonnes produced in 2010.

Natural Gas Production

The world produced 4,036 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2021. The above graphic converts that into an equivalent of seven billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to visualize it on the same scale as oil and gas.

Here are the top 10 producers of natural gas in 2021:

Rank Country2021 Natural Gas Production
(billion m3)
% of Total
#1๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ U.S. 934.223%
#2๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡บ Russia 701.717%
#3๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ท Iran 256.76%
#4๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ณ China 209.25%
#5๐Ÿ‡ถ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Qatar 177.04%
#6๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Canada 172.34%
#7๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ Australia 147.24%
#8๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Saudi Arabia 117.33%
#9๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ด Norway 114.33%
#10๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ฟ Algeria 100.82%
๐ŸŒ Other 1106.327%
Total4,036.9100%

The U.S. was the largest producer, with Texas and Pennsylvania accounting for 47% of its gas production. The U.S. electric power and industrial sectors account for around one-third of domestic natural gas consumption.

Russia, the next-largest producer, was the biggest exporter of gas in 2021. It exported an estimated 210 billion cubic meters of natural gas via pipelines to Europe and China. Around 80% of Russian natural gas comes from operations in the Arctic region.

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