Tuesday, April 28, 2015

State of Non-Renewable Energy Resources at the Beginning of 2014

The latest global estimates of the reserves and resources of fossil and nuclear energy resources are published by the BGR (Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe; Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources). So I updated my previous post.
You may find there are two tables below (Due to a technical reason, I couldn't separate them entirely). The first one is in exajoules, just as the source. The second is in million tonnes of oil equivalents. At the beginning of 2014, the world had approximately 73 years' supply of non-renewable energy resources that could be economically exploited with contemporary technologies.
(According to the BGR's glossaries,
Reserves = Proven volumes of energy commodities economically exploitable at today’s prices and using today’s technology (Initial reserves: cumulative production plus remaining reserves);
Resources = Proven amounts of energy resources which cannot currently be exploited for technical and/or economic reasons, as well as unproven but geologically possible energy resources which may be exploitable in future. For coal this term is used for all in-place resources.)

State of Non-Renewable Energy Resources, at the End of 2013
Unit:EJ (= 1018 joules)

Crude oilNatural gasCoalNuclear energyTotal
conventionalnon-
conventional
conventional [1]non-
conventional [2]
hard coalligniteuraniumthorium
Reserves
9,137
7,526
20,378
606
37,646
7,1262,0117,31820817,1483,230606
Resources
13,959
24,257
489,766
9,859
537,840
6,7457,21412,09912,158438,034 [3]51,7326,6813,178 [4]
Production
in 2013
175.6
130.0
179.0
29.8
514.5




168.710.329.8
Consumption
in 2013
176.7
130.5
178.4
32.5
518.1




168.410.032.5
Reserves-to-production
ratio (years)
52
58
114
20
73




10231420
[1] including tight gas
[2] without natural gas in gas hydrates and aquifer gas (7,904 EJ)
[3] including hard coal in the Antarctic (3,825 EJ)
[4] including thorium without country allocation (62 EJ)

State of Non-Renewable Energy Resources, at the End of 2013
Unit:million toe

Crude oilNatural gasCoalNuclear energyTotal
conventionalnon-
conventional
conventionalnon-
conventional
hard coalligniteuraniumthorium
Reserves
218,233
179,755
486,720
14,474
899,159
170,20248,032174,7874,968409,57377,14714,474
Resources
333,405
579,368
11,697,860
235,478
12,846,088
161,102172,303288,980290,38910,462,2621,235,598159,57375,905
Production
in 2013
4,194
3,105
4,275
712
12,289




4,029246712
Consumption
in 2013
4,220
3,117
4,261
776
12,375




4,022239776
Reserves-to-production
ratio (years)
52
58
114
20
73




10231420
Conversion factor:

1 EJ = 23,884,589.66275 toe

Reference:
BGR. (2014). Energy Study 2014: Reserves, Resources and Availability of Energy Resources. Hannover, Germany: Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources). [Full-text at http://j.mp/FF_RR_2015]