Global energy transition has shown some signs of accelerating, with shares of gas and renewables in total energy mix increasing over the last few recent years, according to energy market analysts. This marks the shift from energy consumption dominated by coal and oil in the mid-20th century to gas and renewables by the mid-21st century.
Worldwide demand for gas, wind, solar, and biofuels expanded by a faster pace than energy consumption as a whole between 2014 and 2019. During the period, renewable and gas consumption increased by 12.5% and 2.9% a year, respectively. These are faster than overall energy consumption growth of 1.6%. On the other hand, oil consumption grew more slowly at a 1.4% rate, while coal demand fell by 0.5%.
Although gas and renewable contribute to larger shares in the global energy mix, coal and oil remain the world’s primary energy sources. The recent trend suggests that in the next five years, gas will likely overtake coal as the world’s second-largest energy source. Meanwhile, renewables have exceeded nuclear power and are set to pass hydro by the middle of this decade.
The rising use of renewables, however, is not expected to lower CO2 emissions because of its small generation capacity. Oil share in the global energy mix is indeed declining, but in absolute terms, worldwide oil demand increased from 56 million bpd in 1973 to 101 million bpd in 2019. Renewable energy output needs to be expanded by five times to replace coal and by seven times to replace oil.
