Everything we do uses energy: heating, driving, making steel, cooling food, lighting a screen. Here is where the world's energy came from in 2023. Coal, oil and gas together are about 81 in 100. People call them fossil fuels: the remains of ancient life, dug up. The other 19 come from rivers, wind, sun, nuclear and wood.
Oil32%
Coal26%
Gas23%
Rivers6%
Nuclear4%
Wind and sun5%
Of every 100 units of the world's energy in 2023, about how many came from coal, oil and gas together?
About 19.
Not yet. That is the share that is not fossil. It is easy to swap them because the news is mostly about the 19, which is the part that is growing.
About 81.
Right. Oil 32, coal 26, gas 23. Four fifths of everything, after fifty years of wind farms and solar panels. The panels are real, and so is the four fifths they sit beside.
About 50.
Not yet. Half would mean the other half was clean. Rivers, nuclear, wind, sun and wood together are 19 in 100, not 50.
Coal, oil and gas burned in 1973100 units
Coal, oil and gas burned in 2023230 units
With 1973 set to 100.
The fossil share has moved slowly: about 87 in 100 in 1973, about 81 now. But the total has more than doubled since then. So the world burns far more coal, oil and gas than it did fifty years ago, even though the share is smaller. Wind and sun grew fast. So did everything.
Move the control through the years. The world's whole energy use in 1973 is set to 100.
Coal, oil and gas87 units
Everything else13 units
The world's energy in 1973 is set to 100.
1973In 1973 the world used 100 units, 87 in 100 of them fossil. That is 87 units of coal, oil and gas, and 13 of everything else.
Coal, oil and gas118 units
Everything else19 units
The world's energy in 1973 is set to 100.
1990In 1990 the world used 137 units, 86 in 100 of them fossil. That is 118 units of coal, oil and gas, and 19 of everything else.
Coal, oil and gas172 units
Everything else28 units
The world's energy in 1973 is set to 100.
2010In 2010 the world used 200 units, 86 in 100 of them fossil. That is 172 units of coal, oil and gas, and 28 of everything else.
Coal, oil and gas197 units
Everything else46 units
The world's energy in 1973 is set to 100.
2023In 2023 the world used 243 units, 81 in 100 of them fossil. That is 197 units of coal, oil and gas, and 46 of everything else.
Between 1973 and 2023 the fossil share fell from 87 to 81 in 100. What happened to the amount of fossil fuel burned?
It stayed about the same.
Not yet. Staying the same would need the total to grow only as much as the share shrank. The total grew far faster than that: 87 units became 197.
It fell, because the share fell.
Not yet. The share fell by 6 points. The total rose by 143. Six points off a slice cannot beat the whole pie growing by that much.
It more than doubled.
Right. A share is a slice of a pie, and the pie grew to two and a half times its size. A slightly thinner slice of a much bigger pie is a lot more pie.
Move the control.
Arrives as electricity20%
Burned on the spot as a fuel80%
The energy people finally use, rounded.
Only about a fifth of the energy people use arrives as electricity. The rest is burned where it is used: petrol in engines, gas in boilers and furnaces, coal in steel mills, kerosene in jets. So a headline about clean electricity is a headline about one fifth of the problem.
The world's electricity in 2023, by source. Tap the source whose share grew fastest over the ten years before.
Tap the part of the picture that answers it.
Biggest is not fastest.
Coal35%
Gas23%
Rivers14%
Nuclear9%
Wind8%
Sun6%
Rounded.
Sun
Right. From about 1 in 100 in 2013 to about 6 in 2023, doubling roughly every three years. The smallest slice on the chart, and the fastest-moving thing in the whole energy system.
Coal
Not yet. Still the biggest, at about a third, but its share has been falling. Biggest is not fastest.
Gas
Not yet. Grew, but slowly, mostly by taking coal's place in a few countries.
Rivers
Not yet. Most rivers that are easy to dam were dammed decades ago. The share has been steady.
Nuclear
Not yet. Its share has fallen since the 1990s. New plants take a decade or more to build.
Wind
Not yet. Fast: from about 3 in 100 to about 8. Second fastest, and bigger than the sun's slice for now.
Other
Not yet. Wood, waste and heat from underground. Small and steady.
Coal burned in 20238.5 billion
People in the world8 billion
The world burned about 8.5 billion tonnes of coal in 2023. There are about 8 billion people. About how much coal is that for each person?
tonnes each
Right. About a tonne each, every year: a small car's weight in coal for every person alive. Most of it is burned to make electricity and steel, far from the people it is counted against.
Petrol12 units
Dry wood4 units
The best lithium battery0.25 units
Energy in one kilogram. One unit is what a one-bar electric heater uses in an hour.
Why did fossil fuels win? They pack a lot of energy into a little weight, they store for years, and they burn wherever you carry them. A kilogram of petrol holds about as much energy as fifty kilograms of the best battery. For two hundred years nothing else was that convenient.
How many people in the world still cook mainly over wood, dung or charcoal?
Pick one. Nothing is scored.
2 of 8
billion people cook over wood, dung or charcoal
About 2 billion.Guesses run low. About one person in four cooks over a smoky fire, and the smoke kills about three million people a year. For them the energy question is not whether to leave gas. It is getting anything cleaner than wood at all.
Which of these mostly runs on electricity today, and which mostly burns a fuel?
One card at a time. Tap the pile it belongs to.
Card 1 of 6
Lighting a home
Heating a home in Europe
Making steel from ore
Flying
Running a factory's machines
Driving a car
Lighting a home → Mostly electricity
Not yet. Lights run on electricity. A bulb is a wire, and nearly every home's lights are on the grid.
Heating a home in Europe → Mostly a burned fuel
Not yet. Heating mostly burns a fuel. Most European homes burn gas or oil in a boiler for warmth.
Making steel from ore → Mostly a burned fuel
Not yet. Steel from ore burns a fuel. The furnace burns coal, and the coal also pulls the oxygen off the iron.
Flying → Mostly a burned fuel
Not yet. Flying burns a fuel. Every airliner burns kerosene, and there is no electric plane on a long route.
Running a factory's machines → Mostly electricity
Not yet. A factory's machines run on electricity. Motors turn the belts and drills, and motors are electric.
Driving a car → Mostly a burned fuel
Not yet. Driving mostly burns a fuel. Most cars on the road today burn petrol or diesel, though electric ones are growing.
Arrives as electricity20%
Burned on the spot as a fuel80%
Right. Electricity runs lights, screens and motors. Nearly everything hot, and nearly everything moving on the road, at sea or in the air, still burns a fuel. That is why cleaning electricity, hard as it is, is only a fifth of the job.
Lesson complete
About four fifths of the world's energy still comes from coal, oil and gas.