ECONOMIC REPORT 2013
61
The world’s energy landscape continues to
spring its surprises. Just a few years ago, who
would have considered that North America
may well return to self-sufficiency in oil by the
end of the current decade or shortly thereafter,
just as ten years ago who foresaw its coming
self-sufficiency in gas, with the likelihood of
future exports of LNG rather than imports?
These dramatic changes in one of the world’s
largest markets, driven entirely by technical
advances, have turned many assumptions
about energy policy on their head. Instead
of ever rising prices for fossil fuels, as often
assumed, the price of gas has been low for
the past four years in North America and this,
in turn, has driven down the price of coal
around the world, as surplus American coal has
been exported.
In Europe and Germany in particular, this
has led to a significant increase in coal
consumption for power generation purposes,
thus threatening the EU’s projected reductions
in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, at least in
the short term.
Elsewhere, coal’s use in power generation has
meant that almost half of the rise in energy
demand worldwide over the past ten years
has been met by coal, expanding faster than
all renewable energies combined, with China
king of the coal consumers and India following
on a similar trajectory, but from a lower
starting point. In end use terms, electricity
demand is growing the fastest, hence the
increase in coal consumption, and this is likely
to continue as non-OECD countries continue
to develop rapidly. The contrast between the
energy requirements of OECD and non-OECD
countries is illustrated vividly in Figure 42.
8. Energy Policy and Security of Supply
Figure 42: A Tale of Two Worlds – Energy Demand in OECD and Non-OECD Countries
0
100
200
300
400
500
2000
2020
2040
0
100
200
300
400
500
2000
2020
2040
Non OECD
Quadrillion British Thermal Units
Other Renewables
Oil
Quadrillion British Thermal Units
OECD
Coal
Gas
Source: ExxonMobil 2013 Outlook for Energy
Source: ExxonMobil
3 Outlo k fo Energy
