New numbers report electric usage by countries involved in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) have been released for 2014.
The OECD includes 34 countries around the world. The analysis was released by the International Energy Agency, and it shows that while renewable energy sources account for a greater percentage of the total energy used than ever before, production of oil and gas was also higher than it has been since the International Energy Agency’s inception in 1974.
So, while production of oil increased by 12% and production of natural gas increased by 5% in the United States, non-hydro renewable energy sources are being used 9% more than they were before. That 9% is also the percentage of the total energy that was generated by non-hydro renewable energy sources in OECD countries in 2014.
That increase bumped the total percentage of renewable energy used to generate electricity among OECD countries to 22%. Electric usage generated from fossil fuels also fell slightly, dropping to 160 TWh (terawatt-hours).
The news is mixed, with the increase in renewable energy usage being encouraging and the increase in fossil fuel production being disheartening. However, once green technology becomes normal in society, it will eventually overtake oil and gas production as people experience the cost effectiveness and efficiency of increasingly sophisticated alternative energy technologies for electric usage.
On a related note, the total primary energy supply (TPES) is down by 1.2% in 2014. Gasoline was used 2.3% less in comparison to 2013, coal was used 1.9% less, and oil saw a 0.9% drop in use. This is suspected to be due to the mild winter which European countries are currently experiencing.
For European countries in the OECD, such as Germany, France and Italy, natural gas supply is 10% lower than the previous year. Overall, energy usage dropped by 4%. Natural gas usage has even dropped by almost a third in the Slovak Republic.
