Before analysing GDP and energy demand it is necessary to give a few definitions. The descriptions of the following terms may not be universally agreed but they are essentially those that I used in my first posting although they have been modified to emphasise the approach that I will use in my next posts. For a given region:
- Energy demand (E) =
Population (P) x Wealth (W) x Return (R)
- Wealth is GDP/person.
- Return is the GDP returned for each unit of energy employed.
World energy demand is simply a sum over each of the world's regions as follows. In my original work in 1989 I considered two regions, North and South, which was a convenient and politically correct way to categorise the developed (rich) and developing (poor) nations of the world. Twenty five years on and it is now more useful to group nations by continent:
- America
- Europe
- Africa
- Asia
Current and predicted populations for each continent have been considered in an earlier post.
My next post will consider a misconception about the efficiency with which energy generates a return in GDP.
