No stopping fossil fuels.

• Author: Kumar, Supriya
• Position: The World Today

COAL, NATURAL GAS, AND OIL account for 87% of global primary energy consumption, as the growth of worldwide energy use continues to slow due to the economic downturn, according to a "Vital Signs" report by Worldwatch Institute. The relative weight of these energy sources keeps shifting, although only slightly. In a recent 12-month period, natural gas increased its share of energy consumption from 23.8% to 23.9%; coal rose from 29.7% to 29.9%; and oil fell from 33.4% to 33.1%. The International Energy Agency predicts that, by 2017, coal will replace oil as the dominant primary energy source worldwide.

The shale revolution in the U.S. is reshaping global oil and gas markets. The U.S. is producing oil at record levels, and is expected to overtake Russia--if it has not already done so--quite soon as the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas combined. Consequently, the U.S. is importing decreasing amounts of these two fossil fuels, while using rising levels of domestic natural gas for power generation. This has led to price discrepancies between the U.S. and European natural gas markets that, in turn, have prompted Europeans to increase their use of coal power. Coal consumption, however, was dominated by China, which, for the first time, accounts for more than half of the world's coal use.

Global natural gas production grew by 1.9%, dominated by the U.S. (with 20.4% of the total) and Russia (17.6%). Other countries accounted for less than five percent each of global output.

Coal remains the fastest-growing fossil fuel globally, although, at 2.5%, the increase in consumption was weak relative to the 4.4% average of the last decade. China upped its coal use by 6.1 %; India, 9.9%. Coal use by members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) declined by 4.2%, as an 11.9% drop in U.S. consumption outweighed increases of 3.4% in the European Union and 5.4% in Japan.

Oil remains the most widely consumed fuel worldwide but, at a growth rate of 0.9%, it is being outpaced by gas and coal for the third consecutive year. The OECD's share declined to 50.2% of global consumption--the smallest share on record and the sixth decrease in seven years. This reflects declines of 2.3% in U.S. consumption and 4.6% in EU consumption. By contrast, usage in China and Japan rose by five percent and 6.3%, respectively.

Conversely, global oil production grew by more than twice as much as consumption--2.2%, or 100,100,000 tons. This...