It’s not easy being green

(Ener-) Geeeez, that’s a lot of fossil fuel!

Photo by KWON JUNHO on Unsplash

The war in Ukraine is causing unprecedented energy uncertainty, with prices (particularly for gas) soaring around the world

So, how exposed is the UK to rising fossil fuel prices and how is the switch to renewables sources progressing?

Gas has been the most common source of energy in the UK since coal production and consumption started being phased down in the 1980s

However, renewables as a combined group (wind, solar, bio-energy and hydro) became the most common source of energy for the first time in 2020 (42% of total) compared to fossil fuels (predominantly gas) at 41%

Data from the last two days shows this trend is continuing with just over half of the UK’s energy (50.5%) produced by renewables or low carbon (such as Nuclear)

This has resulted in the carbon intensity of British Energy dropping from a peak of 510 grams (of CO2 / kWh) in 2007 to 235 grams in 2021. That’s a 54% drop, although the government’s target will require this to fall further, to 100 grams, by 2030

And how does this look for other countries?

• Norway is the leader in clean energy with 45% of its total supply, on an average day, coming from renewables (ex. Nuclear), predominantly hydro-power generation
• Brazil (Biofuels) and New Zealand (Wind and Solar) come in 2nd and 3rd place with 32% and 25% respectively
• Singapore is the nation most reliant on fossil fuels (98% of total), followed by Australia (93%) and South Africa (91%)
• The Netherlands uses the most fossil fuels of any European country (90%), with half of this coming from the Groningen gas fields which are due to be phased out in the next decade
• The US, China and France have the most Nuclear power plants (93, 54 and 56 respectively) and therefore produce the most Nuclear energy
• However, Slovakia leads the way as a proportion of its entire grid coming from Nuclear with 82% of electricity generated this way in 2020, followed by France on 70%

Note: energy density statistics depend on the methodology used to calculate energy production and consumption and, therefore, vary by source

Source: BBC; My Grid; Live Energy Dashboard; Worldometers; Euro News; NEI; Wikipedia