BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2011
Speaker: Christof Rühl
Speech date: 08 June 2011
Speech date: 08 June 2011
Introduction
Sixty years ago, the oil man Jamie Jamieson and the statistician Dusty Miller typed up numbers on oil production and consumption, handcrafted a few charts to illustrate, and called their product – for internal circulation only – “Statistical Review”. Much has happened since, but one feature surely has not changed for all these sixty years, namely the need to make sense of the numbers. We try to do this every year. The 2010 chapter starts with a simple observation.At first glance, 2010 was a year of tremendous energy consumption growth - the highest since 1973, to be precise. The growth rate of all major fuels about doubled against their ten-year average. Consumption growth was above its long term trend in every region of the world. Energy intensity – the amount of energy used for one unit of GDP – grew at the fastest rate since 1970. And so, when all the accounting is done, we have consumed more energy in 2010 than ever before in total or per capita. With the exception of nuclear every single fuel hit record consumption as well.
To explain this massive rebound is the main question posed by this year’s data crop. But there are others. One is about the role of prices in turbulent times. Are flexible prices directing our complicated global energy system well enough, or are we better off with heavier intervention? Then there is the climate complex, somewhat muted in the public debate these days, and the quest to decarbonise fuel supplies. For the first time we include data on renewable energy in the printed version of the Review this year; and we will use the occasion to have a more extensive look at what it can tell us. All, of course, while striving to apply the same objectivity and rigour that has guided this publication for 60 years.
