Talk:World energy resources and consumption/Archive1

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Contents 1 Energy consumption in Watts??? 2 Introduction 3 Regulation 4 Reduction 5 Consumption 6 Consumption Regulation 7 Key World Energy Statistics - 2006 Edition 8 GA nomination 8.1 GA - on hold 8.2 GA nomination failure 8.3 Renewed GA nomination 9 FAC 10 World Energy Outlook 11 rev by Mierlo, 1st Feb 2007 12 Coal 13 Layout 14 Nuclear Power 15 Stuff 16 Comment on layout 17 World energy consumption images

[edit] Energy consumption in Watts???

From what time an energy consumption is measured in watts instead of watt hours or joules? And how to convert "watts" in this article to regural units?

"Megawatt" appeared in a November 28, 1847, article in Science. Wikipedia has a good article on Watts. A Watt is a Joule per second so to convert from watts to joules you multiply by the number of seconds in the time period. Consumption implies a rate so there will be a time period. A year has approximately π *10⁷ seconds. :) User:Mierlo 23:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

==Energy consumption in Watts???== part2 The BP statistical Review that is cited , shows all electrical consumptions in TeraWattHour (TWh) .... but this article do not??? Watt is a power unit, Watthour is a energy quantity unit.User:Davidnikko

[edit] Introduction

I don't like the "ability to generate work" definition of energy on this page. This is a purely scientific construct and requires the scientific understanding of the word "work". To reflect the social science emphasis of this page, I prefer "ability to cause change". --LightYear 00:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I also would like to see the page preserve "work" in its technical sense. Perhaps a parenthetical comment could be added to the effect of "... work (a narrowly-defined measure of the ability to effect physical change) ..." to aid those who are unfamiliar with the technical term. Mitgeek 18:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regulation

Have added a clarifying sentence to describe why energy ownership by the state is significant for regulation. Sound right? --LightYear 00:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reduction

Have moved the old text on energy use in consumer products to the energy coversion efficiency page and linked to it here with some relevant context. --LightYear 00:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consumption

I tried to save the old text about vast energy use dictating evolution of society by putting it in the context of consumption. Additionally, I've reintroduced the unreferenced fact about the biggest consumers in the world to add to the statistical information in this section. --LightYear 00:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the details provided here about TW/year consumed from various sources, the break-out of US energy consumption, etc., are an extremely valuable resource for anyone interested in issues of energy policy. I suggest keeping this page as a resource page, with hard, verified numbers that can feed into the broader (and less quantifiable) issues. Mitgeek 18:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consumption Regulation

Energy policy can be used to change a nations energy consumption rate. For example, energy rationing may occur in times of war. Similarly the energy industry is often subsidized or taxed. These legislative measures can strongly influence rates of energy consumption. Even in the western world, energy is sometimes considered the domain of the state and it is not unusual for power companies to be publicly owned.

[edit] Key World Energy Statistics - 2006 Edition

I think that the Key World Energy Statistics - 2006 Edition, published by the International Energy Agency, consists some interesting information concerning energy consumption, which is worth to use in this article. I also added this publication to the list of external links. Beagel 20:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

This was a great lead and the publication was used to produce the Energy consumption per capita versus the GNP per capita figure. User:Mierlo 23:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the discussion

[edit] GA nomination

[edit] GA - on hold

The topic is very intriguing and the graphs are excellent, but I think changes are needed before it can attain GA status:

• More references are needed. The existing ones aren't in proper reference format.

OK I will fix that. Help, or more specific suggestions, will be appreciated I am not an expert in reference formatting.

See Wikipedia:Citation templates on how to format citations. Books need ISBN numbers. Cite questionable details such as "Coal is especially abundant and by itself can sustain the current energy consumption of the entire planet for the next 600 years." Carson 03:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I will add the ISBN numbers I am puzzled by the statement on coal however. The 290 ZJ of coal has been confirmed by two of the references. The 15 TW of annual consumption is confirmend by four references. 600 years is the outcome of a simple division and a conversion from seconds to years. How can that be questionable?

Nevermind then. But how could you get a valid answer using division? Consumption would increase in the future... Carson 04:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You make a good point and I certainly do not want to fall in the 'prediction-of-the-future' trap that is so fraught with failure. The text does say current consumption however.

Done - Added the ISBN numbers to both the books that I researched as background material for this page.

There is some kind of technical problem with the reference 13 (Opec 2005 Annual Statistical bulletin). This reference is not listed at the reference list.Beagel 17:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, it seems to be solved. Beagel 19:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

• All the graphs have an unusually large left and right margin. It's causing the text and headings to be unnecessarily squished.

Good suggestion -I placed a request on WP:VPT today to get technical help to fix that.

I am stuck here. I do not want to make the graphics any smaller since they are an essential part of communicating the data. Several people have worked at improving the layout. None of it has been satisfactory. There has been no answer at WP:VPT The current layout is the best I have seen.

• There are only 2 main sections in the article. Split them up into more subsections.

Good suggestion - Will do

Done

• Regarding the last diagram: why are Watts being represented by volumes? Wouldn't a simple pie chart suffice?

• Do energy consumption records go further back than 1980?

• What are the trends of increase of the different energy sources?

• The pie chart showing the uses of energy by sector is data for the United States only. What about worldwide? The text doesn't really talk about how the energy is consumed.

• Likewise, which nations consume the most energy? The least?

Re: Consumption per capita graph - Reduce the font size so you can label all the plotted countries. Whether or not the graph is legible from within the article is not important. The reader can always open it to full view. You also spelled Argentina wrong. Carson 03:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The graphic (figure 2) is very good. But maybe it could be possible also to add some tables with "top 10s" like 10 most energy consuming countries by total consumptiona; 10 most consuming and less consuming per GDP unit; and 10 most and less consuming per capita. Some of this information is already mentioned at the article, but maybe these tables will have some added-value. What you think?Beagel 17:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The figure 1 and figure 2 are almost identical, the second one has data for longer time period. I propose to keep only second one.Beagel 17:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Figure:World energy consumption in TW, 1980-2004. Source: US Energy Information Administration and Figure:World energy consumption in TW, 1965-2005. Source: BP 2006 Statistical review are very similar and I think it's not accepted to keep them both. I suggest to keep only second one, because it covers longer period.Beagel 16:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if my content-related questions are more FA-oriented than GA. Please try to address them anyway. :) Carson 04:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Maybe it will be correct to add also uranium resources? Beagel 17:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Mierlo, you're making good progress. I'd like to see it as a featured article, however its a big topic you've taken on and there are a few holes that it would be good to fill. For example energy consumption is mentioned in the US, but how does this compare to other countries? The US differs significantly from the UK, for example (see Energy use and conservation in the United Kingdom), and it would no doubt be very different in India and China. Some idea of these kinds of global differences would be interesting, as well as the trends. Coverage of other energy resources would be useful too. For example the potential of geothermal energy is vast - 100 million exojoules according to this - but is not yet mentioned. A greater historical perspective would also be interesting. Hope this is useful feedback and not too daunting! Gralo 16:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA nomination failure

It's been in excess of the 7 day maximum that the GA nomination was put on-hold and a couple of the issues relating to the original reviewer's comments still exist. Please re-read his commentary and the comments left by others, and use it as constructive criticism to improve upon the article. Consider the scope of the article in terms of worldviews, as noted by Gralo. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias for some more help on that issue. Do try again when you have everything sorted. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 16:49, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Renewed GA nomination

The article has been dramatically improved and the previous suggestions have been implemented. Last week it was selected as a good article by the energy portal. The text is comprehensive, the prose is elegant, the references are extensive, important facts are referenced twice, the enlightening graphics are especially produced for Wikipedia and the difficult layout problem has been solved. Today I optimistically renewed the good article nomination. The Skeptical Optimist 16:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FAC

Failed fac for ArticleHistory archive: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/World energy resources and consumption/archive1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] World Energy Outlook

World Energy Outlook consists some forecasts of energy consumption up to 2030. Unfortunately this is not available via Internet and I don't have the printed book.Beagel 18:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - Maybe we should start a seperate page/article for Energy forecasts. User:Mierlo 18:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is an option. However, probably a reference to some reliable baseline scenario could be added also into this article. Beagel 19:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] rev by Mierlo, 1st Feb 2007

Hi Mierlo, this was just a proposal. My solution intended to put the figures in the belonging chapters. IMHO some white space between the chapters is much less incomfortable, than often scrolling up and down the article to compare the information given in the text with those backed by the figures. Also Your solution of programming the page of this article can be very unnerving for those who are updating the article later on --87.185.29.79 19:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. You may at least put in the interwiki to the German site [[de:Weltenergieverbrauch]]. But only if you really like to ;) --87.185.29.79 19:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Frank. First, You are doing a great job collecting the information for this article. But I am afraid You didn't understand what I am talking about. My point is concerning the usability of the article for the reader and other authors. You may be thrilled by these extraordinary challenges programming the article. But as I said above, for the reader it can be very anoying to scroll up and down the article to compare text and corresponding figures and for other authors to update information in the cryptically programmed sectors of the article. In the end You and maybe a few other challengers may stay the only ones to have interest in updating the article. Just keep that in mind. So long and good luck in the good article tournament --87.185.2.36 00:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. It is not necessary to put the interwiki in the See also list. Beagel has put it already in the normaly used column on the left hand side under the headline in other languages, as you can see here. --87.185.2.36 00:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow the other languages feature is really cool, I didn't know about that, thanks for pointing it out. Your point about the usability is well made. I do understand your concern and like you I strive to make things transparent for the reader and the editor. In the end I make the call slightly different; Editing is still easy afterall if an editor clicks on any of the sub-headers she does not even see that she is in a column. If one ignores just the first few commands editing the entire article also does not require any understanding of the columns. For reading I am convinced that an orderly column is better than white spaces in the middle of the article and the text bouncing in between the edge of the screen and the side of the graphics. That said, I wish I knew how to limit the size of the image column to the the width of the image. User:Mierlo 02:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coal

If you're confident of the facts, go with it and cite the sources. Also add to Coal to keep the articles in step, or raise the issue on the coal talk page if you'd prefer. Gralo 22:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Layout

This is difficult. I am afraid that there is no easy solution for the layout, several people have tried already. With the exception of World primary energy all the graphics were specially produced for this article. It took a lot of effort to make them and it would be nice if they can be readable. After all, we are trying to communicate a lot of facts and this is best done with pictures. The current layout does not look very elegant as it creates large white space at several screen resolutions. The two column layout has its problems but it allows larger readable graphics and it keeps the text together.User:Mierlo 22:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be a 'feature' of Internet Explorer. I've repositioned the offending image and it seems OK now... Gralo 23:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It is better but there are still white spaces in the middle of in the article at some resolutions. It would realy be nice if the images could be a bit larger so they can be seen without an extra click. The graphics are an important part of the story User:Mierlo 01:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nuclear Power

I really liked Gralo's edit of the nuclear power section. It reads much better now. User:Mierlo 22:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It says that there are 2500 ZJ of Uranium left and a source was cited. However, when I went to the source there was no mention of this 2500 ZJ. Where does this figure come from? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.37.82.134 (talk) 12:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

The reference says: However, world uranium resources in total are considered to be much higher. Based on geological evidence and knowledge of uranium in phosphates the study considers more than 35 million tonnes is available for exploitation. The article is in SI units, see intro, so tonnes of uranium is converted to joules. The Skeptical Optimist 14:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stuff

Stuff that should really be fixed for GA or FA status:

• Get the units right:
  • 1000 W = 1 kW, lowercase ‘k’.
  • Put   or another non-breaking character between the number and the unit. (This is optional, really boring and rarely noticed, but, hey, this is about getting the article right.)
  • When referring to money, make clear what currency you use. ‘$’ alone is not enough.
  • When writing ranges of values like ‘300 to 370 TW’, do not omit the unit at either number: ‘300 TW to 370 TW’.
    • Also, use the en dash (the first character in the special characters list below the edit form), not the hyphen: ‘USD 3–5 trillion’. There should not be a linebreak between the numbers and the magnitude.
  • Say once, at the beginning, which units and which notation is used: ‘This article uses SI units and prefixes and measures power in watts (W) and energy in joules (J).’ or something like that. - Done Frank van Mierlo 00:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• Get the images right:
  • Never use the JPEG format for charts.
  • Never use the GIF format for charts unless you know how to use it properly.
  • Use SVG or, if you really like Excel screenshots, PNG.
  • Avoid any background that does not contribute data.
    • If you can, make the background transparent (but only if you can do it properly); else use a white background.
  • Never use the JPEG format for charts.
  • Where they are not controversial or otherwise directly relevant, put the images’ source data into inline citations within the image captions, leaving only the actual descriptions directly visible.
    • Say from where exactly you got the data—provide pages and table numbers (or equivalent information); indicate where your data are synthesised from several tables of the same source or several sources.
• Get the citations right.
  • Decide on one citation style and use it consistently. Especially do not mix inline references with external links in the text.
  • Using citation templates is not required, but if you don’t, be sure to format the citations consistently.
  • Cite sources for all data. For data that have been used and cited earlier in the article, cite again (use the name attribute of the ref tag). For synthesised data, give all sources and a brief note on what was done.
• Make the prose readable.
  • Take care to maintain some kind of consistent narrative (e. g. chronologically/historically or geographically) within the sections.
  • Do not leave paragraphs only a few lines long.
  • Avoid run-on sentences and other grammar problems.
  • Keep consistent punctuation (e. g. use Unicode apostrophes (’) instead of ASCII apostrophes (') everywhere).
  • Check for bunched up edit links.

This has been a drive-by review. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming. —xyzzy_n 23:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your review, these are good comments. User:Mierlo 23:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

More stuff:

• The lead section should define (with citations!) the terms ‘worldwide energy consumption’ and ‘worldwide energy resources’.
• Somewhat around the comments on the oil peak theory, there are claims of consensus and minority opinions. They must be substantiated by neutral, reliable sources which explicitly confirm the claims.
• I’ve said it before, but once more can’t hurt: all significant statements and data should be cited.

I have tried to fix some problems with grammar and punctuation, but there is still a lot to be done about the content. —xyzzy_n 02:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment on layout

In addition to [1], here is what this page currently looks like at 800*600 resolution. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Mierlo has started fixing this. Many thanks! Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I've updated the screenshot; I'm still not sure why it has to be two columns. This creates problems with pacing the copy with the images. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's ugly. But yeah, the two column thing needs to go. pschemp | talk 01:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we should remove two column formatting and put images just inside of relevant text. Beagel 08:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] World energy consumption images

Right now we have two quite similar images named World energy consumption in TW (=1012 Watt), 1980-2004 and World energy consumption in TW, 1965-2005. Although the secondary sources of these images are different, they present same data. The main difference is that BP's data covers longer period than EIA's data. It's usually not accepted that same data are presented by different images of similar type. It's not specified in the text why this article is exceptional. Therefore I propose to keep only image World energy consumption in TW, 1965-2005 as it covers longer period, and remove the image World energy consumption in TW (=1012 Watt), 1980-2004.Beagel 08:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I used both images because they illustrate the error in the data. The numbers are subtly different. For hydro electric they are very different, which I find amazing. Both images together, support the claim of 10% uncertainty in the data that is made in the introduction. That said, I do respect your view and contribution and if you choose to delete the first image after reading this, I will support your judgment. By the way, the uncertainty in the data also comes from the conversion to SI units. A barrel of oil does not have a fixed number of Joules, the exact energy content depends on the grade of oil. Similarly with a ton of coal there is a large difference between the energy content of the hard black stuff and the soft brown goo. Maybe we should add this observation to the article. Mierlo 22:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I will not delete any of these images, but I have a feeling it could be something what would be raised up during next review process. Maybe the difference of figures and reasons should be explained in more detail in the article? Beagel 22:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)