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BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018: “…two steps forward, one step back

The annual BP statistical review of modern world energy production published in June this year gave a lot of unexpected surprises.
First of all, the company notes a significant increase in global primary energy consumption, which grew by 2.2% in 2017. This is much more than in the previous year (1.2%) and significantly more compared to its average for the last 10 years (1.7%). Annual growth in European countries averaged 2.1%, with Turkey (9.5%) and Hungary (5.8%) showing the highest results ​​in this region.
Another important fact is that coal production grew by 3.2% for the first time since 2013, driven largely by the USA, China, India and Russia. Furthermore, global coal consumption increased by 1%. Another significant indicator is the increase by 1.6% of global carbon emissions from energy consumption, again for the first time since 2013 (for Europe as a whole emissions increased by a horrifying 2.5%). Thus, there is an unpleasant return to carbon energy, which as expected earlier is not going to give up its position.
Commenting on these facts, the BP researches characterized them as “... two steps forward, one step back”, but without seeing any serious reasons for pessimism. According to the authors, three years of steady growth could not lead to interim adjustments of the energy landscape. Moreover, there are reasons to stay optimistic; the share of coal in the total consumption of primary energy has dropped to 27.6%, which has not been observed since 2004. The total consumption of renewable energy sources grew by 17%, with more than half provided by wind power and more than a third by solar energy. For European countries, the average was 12.5%. Among countries where the renewable energy consumption growth exceeded the global average were Norway, Turkey, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Other interesting and important statistical data of the BP review are:
- the total growth of oil reserves decreased slightly compared to last year, while global oil production rose by 0.7%;
- global natural gas reserves increased insignificantly by 0.2%, and its production by 4%;
- global energy production through nuclear energy increased by 1.1%, while in Europe it decreased by the same 1.1%;
- global electricity production grew by 2.8%, in Europe it only grew half as much;
- In Europe, Turkey, Portugal, Romania and Spain showed the largest increase in carbon dioxide emissions.