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Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2025. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On June 26, 2025 the Energy Institute published the latest version of the Statistical Review of World Energy. It includes data up to the end of 2024. This article covers the highlights of the review from the perspectives of climate policy and economics.
Global Energy Production and Use
In 2024 global energy consumption rose 2% from its 2023 level to 592 exajoules. Oil had the largest share (199 exajoules, or 33.6 %), followed by coal (165 exajoules, or 27.9%), and natural gas (149 exajoules, or 25.2 %). Hydrocarbon energy thus provided 86.7% of the world’s energy needs. Nuclear energy provided 31 exajoules (5.2%), hydro-electricity 16 exajoules (2.7%) and “other renewables 33 exajoules (5.6%).
Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Global carbon dioxide equivalent emissions from energy consumption alone totaled 35,491.8 million tonnes. OECD emissions were 11,072 million tonnes CO2eq and Non-OECD emissions were 24,420 million tonnes CO2eq. So, the non-OECD countries produced 68.8% of total emissions, an all-time-high share. China alone produced 11,173 million tonnes CO2eq, or 31.5% of the world’s total. The US produced 13.0%, Europe 9.9%, and Canada 1.5%.
Oil Production
Global crude oil and condensate production in 2024 totaled 82,788 thousand barrels per day. Of that amount, OPEC countries produced 28,856 thousand barrels per day (35%) and non-OPEC countries produced 53,933 thousand barrels per day (65%). The United States was the largest producer, with 16% of the total. Canada produced 6.2%.
Oil and Natural Gas Liquids Consumption
Global liquids consumption in 2024 was 104.7 million barrels per day, by far the all-time high. Consumption in the OECD countries was 46.7 million barrels per day while that in the non-OECD countries was 58.0 million barrels per day. Total liquids consumption increased from 93.7 million barrels per day in 2014 to 104.7 million barrels per day in 2024, an increase of 11 million barrels per day, or almost 12%. In other words, liquids consumption grew over the period at an annual average rate of over one million barrels per day, in spite of the significant reduction in demand and economic activity during and after the pandemic.
Natural Gas Consumption
Global natural gas consumption totaled 4,127.8 billion cubic metres in 2024, an increase of 2.5% over 2023. The OECD countries consumed 1,783.9 billion cubic metres, or 43% of the total, and the non-OECD countries accounted for 2,344 billion cubic metres, or 56.8%.
Coal Production and Consumption
Global coal production grew by 0.8% from 2023 to 2024, reaching 182.23 exajoules. Contrary to the general impression left by media accounts, coal production has increased from 165 exajoules in 2014 to 182 exajoules in 2024. The geographic pattern of coal production is quite different from that of other energy sources. 80.3% of coal production takes place in the Asia-Pacific region, and 52% in China alone. The geographic concentration of coal consumption is even more pronounced than that of its production; 83.4% occurs in the Asia-Pacific region, and 56% in China.
Electricity
Global electricity generation grew from 24,073.3 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2014 to 31,255.9 TWh in 2024, an increase of 7182.6 TWh, or 29.8%. Generation in the OECD countries was 11449.7 TWh in 2024, and 19806.2 TWh in the non-OECD countries. China has by far the highest generation, with 10,086.9 TWh, or 32.3% of the world’s total.
34% of electricity generation is based on coal, 23% on natural gas, 17% on renewables, 14% on hydro, and 9% on nuclear energy.
Very helpful, thank you. I wish the report had presented its information as Excel spreadsheets rather than with those confusing graphics which take a long time to figure out. You’re putting it into words will save people a lot of time.
Looks like Alt Energy is having a bad hair day. How anyone did the “math” on industrial wind and solar, let alone the science, and thought that this was going to replace hydrocarbons – ever – is astounding. The dispersed, fluctuating, weather dependent(!!) nature of wind and solar harkening back to our pre-industrial roots no less, is a sad story to be sure. That we would be saved by batteries at scale is equally baffling as Mark Mills has shown repeatedly in his analysis of the materials required to “electrify everything.” And still the Greens yell hurray to blowing up coal and nuclear power plants, while pursuing criminal charges against Oil and Gas CEOs for having the gall to deliver power to our very fingertips in the form of AI and travel and the freedom to decide our fate. Keep up the good fight!
I posted some highlights on my X silo. A few more people will know. To resist is futile…
Great you did all the work, I reposted it: https://x.com/catandman/status/1940475082297704686
With an X length summary…. :
Energy Review 2024:
Global energy consumption rose 2% from 2023. Oil had largest share at 33.6 %, coal 27.9%, natural gas 25.2 %. Nuclear energy 5.2%, hydro 2.7%,“other renewables” 5.6%.
Hydrocarbons supplied 86.7% of all energy.
We run on Hydrocarbons
The Energy Institute made a major change to their report this year by replacing the Primary Energy (PE) consumption with the Total Energy Supply tables on a country basis. The Total Energy Supply (TES) values are not the energy produced by a country, rather it is the total energy required to meet its consumers’ demand. The methodology section says “TES is a measure of the total amount of energy that a country needs to supply to meet its final end-use demand. It reflects the energy that is either produced domestically or imported, minus what is exported or stored.” The Excel file accompanying the 2025 report does have tables of PE. The PDF file doesn’t show the PE values.
The fossil fuels values are the same in the PE and TES methods. They both show the fossil fuel energy used by the consumers in each country including energy conversion losses and transmission losses. The nuclear and renewable values are quite different. The PE method used in the 2024 report reports the renewable energy as the amount of fossil fuels that would be required to generate the same amount of electric energy as the renewable source by grossing up the electricity produced by the assumed efficiency of a fossil fuel power generating plant. Therefore, the primary energy of global wind was reported for 2023 in the 2024 report as the wind power produced of 8.371 EJ divided by an assumed average fossil fuel power plant efficiency of 38.5% which is 21.745 EJ. The PE of global solar power of 2023 was reported in 2024 as 15.351 EJ which is the solar energy produced of 5.910 EJ divided by 38.5%. Modern natural gas fired power plants actually have efficiencies of about 55%. Global 2023 nuclear power PE was reported as 24.567 EF, which is the nuclear electricity produced of 9.856 EJ divided by an assumed fossil fuel power plant efficiency of 40.12%. The global 2023 hydro power PE reported in 2024 was 39.65 EJ which is the power generation of 15.26 divided by a fossil fuel efficiency of 38.5%.
Using the TES methodology the nuclear energy is the electricity generation divided by 33.00%, which is much lower than the 40.12% used last year with the PE method. The hydro, wind and solar TES is equal to the gross electrical output.
Using the TES methodology, the global wind and solar and hydro values are the gross electrical output of the facilities. Nuclear power TES is the energy delivered to the turbines, not the electrical output. The assumed efficiency is much different than the fossil fuel efficiency. The 2023 global nuclear TES reported in the 2025 report is 21.6% greater than the 2023 nuclear PE given in the 2024 report due to the reduction in the efficiency from 40.12% for a fossil fuel power plant to only 33.00% for a nuclear plant.
The 2023 global total PE was reported in 2024 was 619.63 EF. The 2023 and 2024 global total TES reported in 2025 was 580.28 EJ and 592,22 EF, respectively, an increase of 2.1% in 2024. But the global energy of 2024 is less than the global energy of 2023 report last year by 4.4% because of the methodology change. The reported 2024 renewable TES is less than the 2023 renewable PE reported in 2024 by 35.28%.
I edited my previous comment to show that the fossil fuel equivalent efficiency used for the 2023 nuclear primary energy (PE) of 40.12% in last year’s report is much higher than the nuclear efficiency used for the 2023 total energy supply (TES) in the 2025 report of 33.00%. This is because many natural gas fired power plants are combined cycle with efficiencies of 55% or higher. Nuclear power plants are only simple cycle.
Question: Why can’t nuclear power plants be combined cycle?
AI Answer: Nuclear reactors, particularly the most common type (light water reactors), have lower operating temperatures compared to gas turbines due to the temperature limitations of the materials used in nuclear reactors.
Question: Why does the Energy Institute’s 2024 report use 40.12% efficiency for nuclear power while wind, solar and hydro uses 38.5% efficiency. The methodology section of the 2024 report says the efficiency used was 41%, which doesn’t seem to be correct. The efficiencies I presented are the electricity generated in TWh converted to EJ, divided by the TES in EJ for each source type.
The 2025 report assumes the following efficiencies to convert gross electricity produced to total energy supply;
10% for geothermal
33% for nuclear, biomass and concentrating solar
100% for hydro, solar PV, wind, ocean, tidal and wave.
In my opinion, using 10% efficiency for geothermal is very misleading, as the TES is 10 times the electricity generated.