Worth repeating: China overtakes U.S. as world’s biggest energy user
Belatedly, the U.S. Department of Energy recognized a news release put out on July 20 by the International Energy Agency that talks about China’s new rank as the world’s top energy consumer. It’s worth repeating: “China’s rise to the top ranking was faster than expected as it was much less affected by the global financial crisis than the United States,” according to the agency, which points out that China has much more room for growth. “Since 2000, China’s energy demand has doubled, yet on a per capita basis it is still only around one-third of the OECD average.” Scary, particularly when the country relies on coal for about 70 per cent of its energy.
The U.S. today consumes about a quarter of the energy produced in the world. If China’s per-capita use was as high as that in the United States (or Canada for that matter), it would consume a majority of global energy. China’s own national energy administration, however, put out a statement today insisting that it’s still No. 2 behind the United States. “IEA’s data on China’s energy use is unreliable,” a Chinese official said.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
August 12th, 2010 at 8:49 am
Wow, and this is a country that claims the water consumption in Beijing has been flat for years
(http://www.economist.com/node/15211690 — article is behind a paywall)
I’ll believe the IEA. I won’t believe any information that comes from the Chinese government or from any of their state-controlled enterprises. I don’t know why anyone does.