Status,Daten und Entwicklungen der globalen Energieversorgung

Global energy consumption is growing. The growth in energy consumption is now covered roughly equally by renewable energy resources and fossil energy resources. Nevertheless, crude oil, natural gas and coal continue to form the backbone of energy supplies. This means that the dependency of energy supplies on fossil energy resources will continue for the foreseeable future. In Germany as well, there is no end in sight of the country decreasing its high dependency on imports of fossil energy resources despite the high growth rate of renewables—and due in part to the decline in domestic production and the withdrawal from nuclear power generation. Crude oil, natural gas, hard coal and lignite with a share of around 80%, still make the largest contribution to the German and global primary energy consumption.All of the renewables together cover around 17% of global energy consumption. Despite the almost inexhaustible potential, making energy generation from renewable sources available at a large scale and commensurate with demand is still in its infancy. By way of contrast, very large reserves of fossil energy resources have already been developed for many years, and are being used in growing quantities. The global comparison of already produced and therefore consumed energy resources and the still existing reserves and resources, reveal that large non-depleted energy potential still exists in all regions around the world. Whilst the potential hardly appears to be touched in Austral-Asia, in the CIS and North America, only a small portion has been produced to date even in Europe. This wealth in resources is primarily attributable to the large deposits of coal found on all continents, which, unlike conventional crude oil and natural gas, are not restricted to a few special regions. Although the Middle East is an extremely important region for crude oil and natural gas, the minor coal reserves in the area mean that its overall potential is comparatively small.