Energy: Resources, Access & Demand

Three Kinds of Energy

Modern life runs on energy — for lighting, transport, factories, heating and the internet. Energy resources fall into three groups. Non-renewable resources are finite stocks of fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas, formed from buried organic matter over hundreds of millions of years. Once burned they are gone for our purposes. Renewable resources flow continuously from the natural environment: solar, wind and hydroelectric power (HEP). They will not run out on human timescales. Recyclable resources sit between the two: nuclear fuel can be reprocessed, and biofuels (ethanol from sugar cane, biodiesel from rapeseed) regrow if managed sustainably.

Environmental Costs of Extraction

All energy carries an environmental cost. Mining coal scars the landscape and produces acidic waste water; the Appalachian region in the United States lost mountain tops to surface mining. Drilling for oil risks spills — the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico released around 4.9 million barrels and killed marine wildlife from Louisiana to Florida. Burning fossil fuels emits CO₂, the largest cause of climate change. Renewables are not impact-free either: HEP dams like China’s Three Gorges flooded ancient towns and displaced 1.3 million people. Wind farms use large areas of countryside and can affect bird flight paths. Solar farms need cleared land. The trade-offs are unavoidable, but renewables emit far less CO₂ over their lifetime.

Why Access Varies

Access to energy is not evenly distributed. Three factors shape what countries can use. Physical resources: oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Norway sit on huge reserves; sunny countries like Spain and Morocco have strong solar potential; mountainous countries like Norway and Switzerland have ideal HEP terrain. The UK has comparatively poor solar but excellent offshore wind because of its windy continental shelf. Geology and accessibility: oil and gas are hard to extract from deep ocean or remote Arctic basins. Technology and capital: high-tech extraction (deep-water drilling, nuclear) needs wealthy economies. Rich countries can also import what they lack — the UK imports gas from Norway and the United States.

Energy Use Per Capita

Energy use per person varies enormously. The United States uses around 78,000 kWh of total energy per person per year; the UK around 32,000; India around 6,000; Ethiopia under 1,000. Three causes drive these gaps. Economic development: wealthy economies have more cars, larger homes, factories and electronic devices. Reliance on traditional fuels: in low-income countries, hundreds of millions still cook on wood, charcoal or dung — counted as ‘energy use’ only loosely, but a major source of indoor air pollution. Sectoral mix: countries with heavy industry (steel, cement, chemicals) use far more energy per unit of GDP than service-led economies. Norway and Iceland have unusually high per capita figures because of energy-intensive aluminium smelters powered by HEP.

Why Oil Demand Keeps Rising

Energy security — reliable, affordable supply — is a major political concern. Oil sits at the centre of the global economy: it powers most cars, lorries, ships and aircraft, and is the raw material for plastics and fertilisers. Demand keeps rising mainly because emerging economies are buying more vehicles. China overtook the United States as the world’s largest car market in 2009; India’s middle class is repeating the pattern now. Per capita GDP and per capita oil use have moved closely together in every fast-industrialising country since 1950.

Oil Supply: Concentrated and Political

Oil reserves are unevenly distributed. About half lie in the Middle East — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates. Russia, Venezuela, the United States and Canada hold most of the rest. Twelve major exporters coordinate through OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) which can raise or cut production to influence prices. Conflict shifts supply: the 1973 Arab oil embargo quadrupled global prices in months; the 1990 Gulf War, the 2003 Iraq invasion and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine all caused price spikes. Economic cycles matter too: the 2008 financial crisis cut prices from $147 to $40 a barrel as demand collapsed; the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 briefly drove US prices below zero.