China overtakes U.S. as world’s biggest energy user
July 21st, 2010China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest consumer of energy, according to data from Paris-based International Energy Agency. The IEA said China consumed the equivalent of 2.25 billion tons of oil last year, slightly above U.S. consumption of 2.17 billion tons. The measure includes all types of energy: oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable energy sources.
This chart is posted at The Daily Reckoning:
As this chart posted at The Daily Reckoning shows, China has a long way to go to catch up with U.S. per capita energy consumption:
40% of the world’s population – China and India – uses two barrels of oil per person per day. In the US, we use 25.
China dismissed the IEA’s analysis, saying the IEA data on China’s energy use is unreliable. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said in a report in February that China’s energy consumption last year stood at 3.1 billion tons of standard coal equivalent, or 2.132 billion tons of oil equivalent. Even by China’s reckoning, China is fast approaching U.S. energy consumption levels.
In June, China consumed approximately 9.4 million barrels each and every day. Of this total, they imported 5.44 million barrels. Between them, China and India together now consume about 28 million barrels-per-day, nearly 33% of the world total.
But while China’s oil consumption is rising and China is busy locking up future oil supplies around the world, U.S. oil consumption is declining – and improved efficiency has nothing to do with it. Oil consumption has likely peaked in the United States because our economy is trashed and likely to remain so. In 2007, the last year before the crash, American oil consumption often exceeded 21 million barrels per day. Those days are over. U.S. consumption is now bouncing around 19 mbd, a decline of ~10%.