Population, Economic Growth, and Energy Demand, 1985-2020

Abstract

On the basis of assumptions about population growth economic growth and the elasticity of energy demand estimates for the worlds primary energy demand in the years 2000 and 2020 were derived. Primary energy is defined as encompassing solid liquid and gaseous fossil fuels; hydroelectricity; and nuclear electricity. A coefficient of elasticity of energy demand was derived for 5 regions--US Canada Australia and New Zealand; USSR and Eastern Europe; European members of OECD (excluding Turkey) and Japan; China; and all other countries--from the ratio of growth in primary energy consumption to growth in gross domestic product. The analysis suggests that world nuclear generating capacity will be 600-675 million tons oil equivalent (TOE) in the year 2000 and 1050-2475 MTOE in 2020 while hydropower energy demand is to be satisfied fossil fuel consumption in 2020 will have to be 44-65% higher than 1986 levels. Such an increase is technically and economically possible but would involve a comparable increase in carbon dioxide emission and thus accelerate the greenhouse effect. Stabilization of carbon dioxide emission would require the maximum attainable rate of deployment of nuclear power plants the ocean disposal of carbon dioxide from all fossil-fueled power plants or reductions in economic growth--none of which is a feasible alternative. Although solar energy has unlimited potential it is at an early stage of development and thus will not have a major impact on the period under consideration. The index of the degree of inequality in per capita energy consumption among the worlds regions is expected to decline from 0.55 in 1985 to 0.45 in 2020. If all regions had the same energy consumption this coefficient would be 0.