Relationship Between Wealth of a Nation and Renewable Energy Consumption

Sowmya Patapati
December 4, 2021

Submitted as coursework for PH240, Stanford University, Fall 2021

Introduction

Fig. 1: Renewable energy resources. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

I thought it would be interesting to explore the relationship between the wealth of a nation and its renewable energy usage. To see whether the relative renewable energy consumption of a nation was linked to wealth as measured in the Gross Domestic Product, I examined the GDP and energy consumption of the three wealthiest nations and three less wealthy nations.

I used reliable sources to collect data points for analysis. Specifically, I used the World Bank Databank GDP Report and British Petroleum Statistical Review of World Energy 2020. [1,2] The World Bank Databank GDP Report lists the GDP and GDP rank of all countries for the year 2020. [2] The British Petroleum Statistical Review of World Energy provides the total energy consumption as well as the renewable energy consumption of each country for the year 2020. [2]

Data

The results of my analysis are summarized in Table 1.

Conclusion

We see from Table 1 that there is a strong correlation between the renewable energy usage of a country and its relative wealth. We see that for the top 3 wealthiest nations (USA, China and Japan), the percentage of renewable energy consumption to total energy consumption is about ten times as much as that for three less wealthy nations (Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Trinidad and Tobago). Overall, it seems that the countries with higher GDP rank have a higher renewable energy consumption.

Country GDP Rank Total Energy Consumption(J) Renewable Energy Consumption(J) Renewable Energy Consumption to Total Energy Consumption(%)
USA 1 9.465 × 1019 J 5.83 × 1018 J 0.06%
China 2 1.417 × 1020 J 6.63 × 1018 J 0.05%
Japan 3 1.867 × 1019 J 1.1 × 1018 J 0.06%
...
Turkmenistan 88 1.45 × 1018 J 8.7 × 1015 J 0.006%
Azerbaijan 90 6.6 × 1017 J 1.32 × 1015 J 0.002%
Trinidad and Tobago 111 7.1 × 1016 J 3.55 × 1014 J 0.005%
Table 1: Energy Consumption in 3 Wealthy Nations vs. 3 Poor Nations. [1,2]

One reason for these results could be the high start-up costs related to making use of renewable energy. There are many different natural resources through which renewable energy can be extracted (see Fig. 1). However, countries with smaller incomes may not be able to front the expense of having to construct the labor-intensive systems that harness renewable energy resources (like manufacturing and installing wind turbines, solar panels etc).

© Sowmya Patapati. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.

References

[1] "Gross Domestic Product 2020," World Bank, July 2021.

[2] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020," British Petroleum, June 2020.