World Energy Consumption 1970-2023 - Yearly amounts

Information on the charts

The following analysis involves data from the 66 countries that have reported on energy consumption by source for the full 54-year period. It includes the major polluters - China, US, India, Russia (which became a separate country in 1991), Japan, and Indonesia.

The units for the vertical axis of each chart are exajoules (EJ, or 1018 J). One exajoule is approximately the amount of energy currently used by Israel or Greece in a year. It is equivalent to 277.778 terawatt hours. Current world consumption is around 600 EJ per year.

NOTE 1: The fuel designated "geo" includes geothermal, biomass (which is used to make various biofuels) and "other" (which means "other renewables").

NOTE 2: As you hover over the charts, you'll see more information on the data. On a phone, drag across the charts.

NOTE 3: Click on any of the fuels in the legend to sort countries by consumption of that fuel.

Data source: Our World in Data.

Energy Consumption by Year and Fuel

Legend and Sort
World - overall (2023)

[Click any fuel to sort]

Fossil fuels (2023): 81.5%

oil (196.4 EJ)

coal (164 EJ)

gas (144.4 EJ)

Alternative sources (2023): 18.5%

hydro (39.7 EJ)

nuclear (24.6 EJ)

wind (21.7 EJ)

solar (15.4 EJ)

geo (8.7 EJ)

biofuels (4.7 EJ)

World

197019801990200020102020100200EJ

Algeria

1970198019902000201020200.511.5EJ

Argentina

1970198019902000201020200.511.5EJ

Australia

Austria

Bangladesh

Belgium

Brazil

Bulgaria

Canada

Chile

China

Colombia

Cyprus

Denmark

Ecuador

Egypt

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hong Kong

Hungary

Iceland

India

Indonesia

Iran

Iraq

Ireland

Israel

Italy

Japan

Kuwait

Luxembourg

Malaysia

Mexico

Morocco

Netherlands

New Zealand

Norway

Oman

Pakistan

Peru

Philippines

Poland

Portugal

Qatar

Romania

Russia

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

South Africa

South Korea

Spain

Sri Lanka

Sweden

Switzerland

Taiwan

Thailand

Trinidad and Tobago

Turkey

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom

United States

Venezuela

Vietnam

Copyright © Murray Bourne

Credit: Loosely based on a Tableau rendering of the same data by Brian Moore: "World Energy Consumption" (Tableau - no longer available). (Like most Tableau data visualizations, it was slow to load and unfriendly on a phone.)