Fossil fuels will be with us for some time to come

The original article can be read as “Schlumpfs graphic 130” in the online Nebelspalter of 4 November 2024.

The International Energy Agency (IEA, see here) says in its latest “World Energy Outlook 2024” (see here) that the consumption of fossil fuels could fall in 2030. This annual World Energy Outlook published by the IEA is the most important source for studies on global energy demand and supply as well as their impact on energy security, economic development and greenhouse gas emissions. These reports work with scenarios that model the state of the world’s energy supply up to the year 2050 based on various political requirements.

What is important:

– All scenarios in the IEA’s “World Energy Outlook 2024” predict that global energy demand will grow more slowly.
– Because the additional demand can increasingly be met with clean energy, the consumption of fossil fuels will slowly decline from around 2030, according to the IEA.
– Electricity is becoming increasingly important in the overall energy mix – the demand for electricity is growing rapidly.
– In view of the uncertain geopolitical situation, the report places great emphasis on taking uncertainties into account.

The new IEA Outlook 2024 shows that electricity consumption rose twice as fast as total energy demand between 2010 and 2023. By 2035, electricity demand will grow six times faster than total energy consumption in the baseline scenario. This acceleration in electricity consumption is primarily due to the spread of electric vehicles, the use of air conditioning systems and heat pumps, the digitalization of the economy and the expansion of artificial intelligence.

In 2023, two thirds of the additional consumption was fossil

In 2023, total annual energy demand rose by a high two percent, with declines in industrialized countries more than offset by strong increases in developing and emerging countries. Despite a record amount of clean energy being brought online in 2023 – more than 560 gigawatts of new renewable electricity capacity – two thirds of the additional demand had to be met with fossil fuels. As a result, energy-related CO₂ emissions reached a record high (see also here).

The IEA’s 2024 Outlook examines three scenarios – these are not forecasts – that serve as a framework for understanding possible energy futures. The “Stated Policies Scenario” examines how countries’ energy systems will develop if the policy measures taken to date remain effective – I refer to this as the baseline scenario.

Annual economic growth of 2.7 percent

The “Announced Pledges Scenario” assumes that all governments will implement the commitments they made in the Paris Climate Agreement as promised. And in the “Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario”, a broad portfolio of clean energy is used to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. All scenarios are based on the same economic growth rate of 2.7 percent per year and an increase in the global population from 8 billion today to 9.7 billion in 2050.

Let’s first look at the development of total energy consumption by energy source in the baseline scenario from 1950 to 2050, using a graphic published in a report by the Reuters agency on the IAE Outlook discussed here (see here): This graphic corresponds exactly to Figure 1.1 of the Outlook in terms of content, but omits the scenario comparisons, which I cannot discuss here.

The graph first shows the real development of the most important total energy sources from 1950 to 2023 (black vertical line). From 2024 to 2050, the development resulting from the conditions of the “business as usual” base scenario is then shown. All values are given in exajoules. Fossil fuels are shown in red (oil), black (coal) and yellow (gas). The clean energies are shown in green (renewables) and purple (nuclear energy) – the orange curve shows the sum of these two clean energies.

In 2023, four fifths of energy was fossil

The IEA’s outlook indicates that in the past decade (2013 to 2023), in which total energy consumption increased by 15 percent, the share of fossil fuels fell only slightly from 82 percent to 80 percent. This can be seen from the graph: in 2023, oil, coal and gas will be the dominant energy sources, far ahead of renewables and nuclear energy. It can also be seen that since 2013, renewables and gas have recorded the largest growth of all energy sources.

Three quarters could still be fossil fuels in 2030

And what does the future look like if the world continues as before? In other words, with an energy policy that relies on a strong expansion of renewables. In this basic scenario, which the graph shows from 2024 onwards, the green curve for renewables triples from 75 to 240 exajoules by 2050. Around 2040, energy generation from renewables overtakes that from oil and becomes the dominant source. At the same time, nuclear energy, which has stagnated for some time, will experience a moderate expansion from 30 to 50 exajoules.

This is offset by the development of fossil fuels, with coal declining sharply from around 2028 and oil declining moderately from around 2030, while gas remains at the level of 2025. This overall decline in the share of fossil energy from 2030 means that 75% of total global energy will still come from fossil sources in 2030 and 58% in 2050.

Much depends on China

Is this scenario realistic? Perhaps – nobody knows. But it could even be that these targets will not be fully achieved. Just think of the huge increase in coal and oil consumption following the coronavirus slump in 2020. Above all, however, the global energy future will be very much determined by India’s energy policy and, for the time being, even more so by China: The influence of Europe and the USA, on the other hand, will continue to wane.

However, if it is not certain that the goals of the “business as usual” scenario will be achieved, it does not seem particularly useful to me to show in detail what the energy world would look like in the other two scenarios: Namely, that in scenario two, in which the climate pledges of all countries are implemented, the fossil share would fall to 25 percent of total energy by 2050 and that even net zero would be feasible.

Conclusion: In the coming decades, we will probably experience an energy transition with decreasing growth rates in overall energy consumption and a sharp rise in additional electricity demand. The clean sources of new renewables (especially wind and solar) will play an increasingly important role together with nuclear energy. However, fossil fuels – especially oil and gas – will remain with us for some time to come.