Primary energy consumption worldwide has continued to rise at an average annual rate of 0.94% over the last five years, mainly driven by non-OECD countries, which are also increasing their consumption of fossil fuels.
Less conventional analyses are needed to understand the complexity of this issue. In the brief review presented below, the contribution of energy to growth will be examined, as well as the share of fossil fuels in the current energy mix.
This highlights the enormous challenge posed by the goal of decarbonisation.
To go beyond these facts alone, the broad outlines of an energy strategy are proposed.

In a nutshell

• Global primary energy consumption continues to rise, by 1.0% per year – GDP by 2.4%.
• 88.2% is consumed in the form of fossil fuels
  (only 81.5% according to EI, which is not correct and minimises the dependence and the challenge).
• Share of renewables: 6.4% of which 2.8% hydro.
• 62% of this growth in energy consumption is generated using fossil fuels.
  • This is particularly true of non-OECD countries, which have major development needs.
• Decarbonisation is an enormous challenge:
  • The percentage of fossil fuels in the global energy mix is declining by only 0.28% each year. Extrapolating this trend in a simplistic and linear way, it would take 314 years to reach zero.
    Size matters!
  • Around 34% of fossil fuels consumed are used to generate electricity.
    The remainder is used for transport, domestic and industrial heating, and to make chemicals, cement, steel and plastics.
  • Too much attention is being paid to simply changing the way electricity is currently produced (60% by fossil fuels).
    To ensure an “energy transition”, it will be necessary to produce 2 to 3 times as much electricity.
  • Infrastructure for storage and transport need huge adaptations, without which all the rest remains useless.
• Fossil fuels remain indispensable for building the new facilities dedicated to decarbonised activities.
• This means that premature disinvestment in the exploration and production of fossil fuels would lead to economic and social collapse. Germany is showing the way!
• There’s no need for meticulous CO₂ accounting, because all we need to do is monitor fossil fuel consumption.
  It keeps useless people busy, serves only to blame and shame, and feeds blablabla without helping in any way to find solutions.
• The premature promotion of electric vehicles and heat pumps is increasing demand for electricity at a time when there is limited capacity, 60% of which is produced with fossil fuels.
  This is putting the cart before the horse, without any progress being made.
• A word about hydrogen:
  • Hydrogen is more of a chemical reagent than a secondary energy carrier. It would be absurd, because it would be doubly inefficient, simply to burn it in combustion engines or fuel cells.
  • To produce it and other high-energy-density liquid synfuels, major, robust R&D projects are essential, with no guarantee of results and no promise of affordability.
  • It would be ruinous and counterproductive to invest prematurely and excessively in technologies that are still deficient.

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