EQ2: The consequences for people and environment of our increasing energy demand GapFill

Each country around the world uses a different amount of energy.  We can look at the  totalsecondarylimitedadded energy production or consumption by country, but is not particularly helpful as China, the USA, Russia and India dominate the top countries because they all have large populations.  China is a major manufacturer and exporter, meaning that people in other countries buy its goods – so China is effectively  importingmultiplyingexportingselling its emissions.

So that we can easily compare energy consumption between countries, we express consumption per  capitalchildadultcapita, i.e. divided by the population.

We can also express energy use in terms of GDP (gross domestic product – the value of goods and services a country produces in a year).  We call this the energy  sourceintensityproofmix.  As a country develops economically, the intensity decreases, meaning that power  usagefuelefficiencyexperience increases (the country becomes less wasteful).

The  energy mixingredientefficiencyrenewable energy is the proportion of different primary energy sources used by a country (although it can be used to show the breakdown of global energy consumption).  It is often used to represent electricity generation, and includes non-renewables, renewables and biofuels.  The greater the range of energy types available within a country, the more energy-  transitionedinsecuresecuretracked the country is, because if one source becomes unavailable through depletion or human factors, there are other sources to meet demand.

Globally, around 80% of energy is from  coalfossil fuelspetroloil, although the amount varies by country.  Some countries are totally dependent on them, while others use them very little.  These are a finite,  renewabletertiarynon-renewablesustainable resource because we are depleting them faster than they are being produced.

Electricity is a  primaryrenewablesecondarynon-renewable energy source because we need to use other primary energy sources to produce it.  Fuels and electricity sourced or generated and used within a country are  renewableinternationalnon-renewabledomestic sources, but energy can also be imported when there are insufficient supplies to meet demand.

A country may  backcorrecttransitiondegrade (change) the energy system over time; for example, switch non-renewable to renewable or increase energy efficiency.  Energy  trackspipespathwayslines are the routes for energy between the producer and the consumer.

The  secondaryrenewablephysicalnon-renewable availability will affect which types of energy resources are used – countries with large coal reserves or plentiful oil will use them because they are abundant and cheap.  The  transitioncostpathwaytransmission of energy depends on factors such as the price of importing and transporting the energy, prospecting, refinement and generation – too high, and the energy becomes unaffordable.