[p2p-research] Comparing US and European Fossil Fuel Use

[Ryan]

  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: Comparing US and European
Fossil Fuel Use via Early Warning by Stuart Staniford on 6/22/10
Commenter Mister Moose reacted to yesterday's piece by noting that
Europe is famously densely settled and with good public transport,
accounting for its lower oil usage. However, what is striking is that
European natural gas and coal usage are even more dramatically lower
than the US. These next paired pictures show the composite fossil fuel
usage (click for larger versions in a separate window). When I first
made this, I couldn't quite believe it. I had to go back and double
check my formulas to make sure this effect is real: it is.

Another way of looking at the data is to compute the ratio of US usage
to European usage for each fuel. Those ratios are as follows:


As you can see, the disparity in NG and coal is even larger than that
of oil. Furthermore, Europe is shifting away from coal and towards NG
relative to the US.

I imagine these effects primarily reflect politico-cultural
differences. Europe has been more energy conscious for a long time, and
in particular has long been committed to trying to do at least
something about climate change, which the US has not been. The
differences show up in the numbers.
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to Early Warning using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your
favorite sites
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100622/af2b67a7/attachment.html>