Abstract
The use of fossil fuels as the main source of energy for most countries has caused several negative environmental impacts, such as global warming and air pollution. Air pollution causes many health problems, causing social and economic negative effects. Worldwide efforts are being made to avoid global warming consequences through the establishment of international agreements that then lead to local policies adapted to the development of each signing nation. In addition, there is a depletion of nonrenewable resources which may be scarce or nonexistent in future generations. The preservation of resources, which is a common goal of the Circular Economy strategy and of sustainable development, is not being accomplished nowadays. In this work, the calculation of indicators and mathematical and statistical analysis were applied to clarify and evidence the trends, provide information for the decision-making process, and increase public awareness. The fact that European countries do not possess abundant reserves of fossil fuels will not change, but the results of this analysis can evolve in the future. In this work, fossil fuel energy consumption, fossil fuel depletion, and their relationship with other variables, such as energy dependence and share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption, were analyzed for 29 European countries. Furthermore, it was possible to conclude that many European countries still depend heavily on fossil fuels. Significant differences were not found in what concerns gross inland consumption per capita when the Kruskal–Wallis test was applied. It was possible to estimate that by 2050 (considering Jazz scenario) it will only remain approximately 14% of oil proven reserves, 72% of coal proven reserves and 18% of gas proven reserves. Given the small reserves of European countries on fossil fuels, if they need to use them, they will fast disappear.
Highlights
Most countries’ energy systems, either developed or in development, are based on fossil fuels [1,2].In spite of their qualities, e.g., good operational control in thermal plants [3], their use has many problems which have been analyzed and addressed in many studies [4]
Fossil Fuel Energy Consumption and Other Variables. Another stage of this work was to analyze the relationship of fossil fuel energy consumption (FFEC) and fossil fuel reserves (FFR) with other variables such as energy dependence (ED, calculated as the percentage of imports in total energy consumption) and share of renewable energy (SRE) in gross final energy consumption
One of the conclusions of this work is that many European countries are still heavily dependent on fossil fuels
Summary
Most countries’ energy systems, either developed or in development, are based on fossil fuels [1,2] In spite of their qualities, e.g., good operational control in thermal plants [3], their use has many problems which have been analyzed and addressed in many studies [4]. Besides the environmental and health problems, fossil fuels are unevenly distributed, which increases the concerns about energy security due to their key role in today’s energy production systems [10] They are nonrenewable resources which raises the problem of their availability for this and future generations. A Kruskal–Wallis test was applied to assess the effect of several factors on gross inland consumption per capita
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