The ton of oil equivalent (TOE) measures energy for large consumers, with 1 TOE equal to 7.4 barrels of oil. The US consumes the most energy annually at 2.3316 Gtoe, followed by China and Russia. Most energy comes from natural gas, coal, and crude oil. France’s overall consumption increased by 55% from 1999 to 2004. Iceland generated the highest level of estimated productivity and social welfare for energy use in 2004.
The ton of oil equivalent (TOE) is a way of measuring a unit of energy for very large energy consumers such as national economies, with a base of 7.4 barrels of oil. It is a frequently used method of measuring energy use against economic productivity and is based on the energy value of oil since it is such a widely consumed energy product. The effective energy value of one ton of oil equivalent unit is 41,850,000,000 joules of energy, or 11.626 kilowatt-hours when converted into an electrical horsepower value. This is roughly equivalent to 1,615 tonnes of coal, which if burned would produce 39,680,000 British thermal units (BTU). For the equivalent conversion of the consumption of natural gas, which is also a key energy source worldwide, one ton of oil equivalent is equal to 1,270 cubic meters of natural gas.
As energy consumption has increased worldwide, it has become necessary to define the value of the ton of oil equivalent on higher scales. Common terminology now expresses energy consumption in millions of tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe), or in gigatonnes of oil equivalent (Gtoe) to represent billions of TOE of energy. As of 2004, the United States consumed the most energy annually at 2,331,600,000 TOE or 2.3316 Gtoe. China and Russia were in second and third place and together consumed almost the same amount of energy as the United States, and Japan was in fourth place with almost 80% of Russia’s energy consumption at 514,600,000 TOE.
To illustrate how these overall energy values are broken down by source, France consumed a total of 145,050,000 TOE in 1999. Of this total, 96,400,000 TOE came from oil, 33,900,000 from natural gas, and 14,100,000 from solid fuels such as wood and coal. France also consumed a small amount of energy compared to other forms of electricity generation, such as nuclear power, totaling 8,000,000,000 kilowatt hours, or about 650,000 toe. This overall consumption for France increased by about 55% as its economy grew over the next five years to 262,900,000 toe of energy consumption starting in 2004.
The total energy consumption for 63 countries worldwide has been calculated as of 2004 at 9,700,300,000 TOE. This boils down to Iceland-level countries at the bottom of the list. Although Iceland consumed a small ton of oil equivalent in energy out of 2,600,000 TOE in 2004, its economy generated the highest level of estimated productivity and social welfare for this energy use of any nation at the time, followed in second place from the values for the United States.
Most of the energy produced from all sources, including renewable hydroelectricity to nuclear power, came from natural gas, coal and crude oil in the early 21st century. Natural gas accounted for about 21.7% of all world energy production, coal 22.6% and oil 35.1%, for a total of 79.4%. Biomass power generation was the second largest producer by ton of oil equivalent, providing 10.7% of all world energy, and nuclear power provided 6.9%.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
