3.2. Analysis, Results and Discussion on the Situation of Energy Resources in the World
Renewable and non-renewable energy consumption is one of the major concerns of researchers, but also of national administrators or management teams of international economic bodies, as is the case of the European Union [
53,
54,
55]. Energy consumption is a defining element in the evolution of the economy of each nation in the sense that the organization and realization of production at a national and global level depends on the quantity and quality of these energy resources. Traditional non-renewable energy resources are oil, natural gas and coal. They are concentrated in certain geographical areas, which means that under these conditions, only international trade is able to provide the necessary resources according to the development strategy of each country. We must not forget that in addition to the primary uses of these energy resources, there are also branches of the national economy that can produce only if they have such raw materials. Thus, natural gas resources consisting of raw material are derived primarily from branches of the petrochemical industry (fertilizers, other products needed by the national economy as a whole).
The studies carried out so far highlight the fact that the total energy resources are 283,197,500 kWh. The total value of non-renewable energy sources (oil, gas, natural resources, coal) represents 241,332,792 kWh. Thus, the renewable energy sources are represented by the difference between the two being approximately 41,864,708 kWh.
We know that in addition to this non-recoverable energy there are renewable energy sources such as solar energy, wind energy and water energy, etc. In order to avoid having to face short periods where oil, natural gas, and coal resources are depleted, these renewable energy resources must be used with priority. Currently, oil is exploited daily at a rate of 58,312,700 barrels. If we take 1,436,099,720,310 barrels, which is equivalent to 14,627 days, as the total amount of oil left to be exploited globally, in approximately 41 years, all oil resources will have disappeared. Additionally, natural gas at the time of this analysis represents a total global stock of 1,081,518,350,200 bep. This means that we can only continue to exploit natural gas for another 56,922 days, i.e., about 156 years. Coal resources currently represent a total of 4,294,609,821,700 bep, the average operation of which is 148,090 days. The data are presented in the
Table 1.
Solving the energy problem is crucial, particularly as it takes into account resources as well as the need to ensure national production, consumption in the socio-economic system, and, consequently, the standard of living of the population. We must not neglect the fact that the world’s population currently stands at 7,953,391,905, with a daily increase of 234,790 people, thus ensuring that the first five and a half months of 2022 alone will see an increase of 36,199,461 people. Additionally, greenhouse gas emission levels are quite high, standing in the past few months of 2022 at 16,213,795,300 tons.
Energy consumption causes environmental pollution. Scientific studies have focused on issues such as the impact of globalization, foreign direct investment, foreign trade, carbon emissions generated or synthetic indicators used on the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions due to energy consumption [
5,
57,
58,
59].
The intensity of greenhouse gas emissions from energy consumption is an indicator calculated as the ratio between energy-related GHG emissions and gross domestic energy consumption. It expresses how many tones of CO2 equivalent of energy-related GHGs are emitted in a given economy per unit of energy that is consumed. Energy emissions data are obtained from GHG emissions reported to the UNFCCC. We proposed a situation regarding the intensity of gas emissions and energy consumption and considered this indicator the intensity in the 28 states of the European Union to establish how each country has evolved from 2000 to 2019 over five-year intervals (minus the last interval).
Interpreting the data presented in
Table 2, we found that every year the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions has decreased in all Member States of the European Union. Thus, the most important decreases in the period 2000–2019 were registered by Iceland, 55.2%, Malta, 41.2%, and Denmark, 36.8%, respectively. At the same time, Bulgaria has only managed to reduce the destructive effect of greenhouse gas emissions by 2.9%. In the same area are Cyprus with a 5% reduction, Luxembourg with a 7.7% decrease, and The Netherlands with a 7.6% cut. The worst is Lithuania, which has failed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but is still 2.6% above the 2000 level. At the level of the European Union, the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions was reduced compared to the level of 2000 by 17.4%, showing a downward trend. Completing the above data and figures that have been analyzed, we must keep in mind that the consumption of energy must also take into account the way in which the states of the world can secure these reserves. Thus, the armed crisis between Ukraine and the Russian Federation has led to disruptions in the trading of primary energy resources. This energy crisis has led to economic and financial crises, together with other problems, such as the crisis of rising energy prices first, but then the chain of rising product prices, which belongs to other categories. This particular situation that has become difficult for people around the world, but especially for Europe. In this context, analyzing the situation representing the evolution of energy resources, we will find that special measures must be taken by developing renewable energy resources. This, of course, depends on a high level of usable technology as well as the organization capacity of the national energy production system in each country.
3.3. Results and Discussions Regarding the Situation of Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy Resources and Consumption in the European Union
In order to establish models and statistical-econometric methods for analyzing the interdependencies between the indicators under study, we will define in the first stage their content. Thus, Final Energy Consumption measures the final energy consumption in a country, excluding all non-energy uses of energy carriers (natural gas used not for combustion, but for the production of chemicals). Final energy consumption also covers energy only consumed by end-users, such as industry, transport, households, services and agriculture, and excludes the energy consumption of the energy sector itself and losses that occur during the transformation and distribution of energy.
Regarding renewable energy, it measures the share of renewable energy consumption in gross final consumption of energy under the Renewable Energy Directive. Gross final consumption of energy is the energy used by final consumers (final energy consumption) plus network losses and self-consumption of power plants.
Total energy production results from the division of gross domestic product (GDP) by the available gross energy for a given calendar year. This indicator thus measures the productivity of energy consumption and provides a picture of the degree of decoupling of energy consumption from GDP growth. The euro unit in chain-linked volumes allows trends in energy productivity to be observed over time in a single geographical area, while the PPS unit allows a comparison to be made between countries for the same year. The available gross energy is calculated as follows: primary production + recovered and recycled products + imports—exports + stock changes.
Of course, in order to be able to put into the equation the evolution of the studied indicators and to establish what is the correlation between them, they can be recalculated and expressed in absolute figures (million tons of oil equivalent) or relative (%). The evolution of final energy consumption and renewable energy in the period 2000-2020 is illustrated in
Figure 1.
Analyzing the evolution of final energy consumption, we find that this final consumption has a tendency to decrease slightly. Thus, from 1036.4 million tons of oil equivalent, during the crisis of 2008–2011, it reached a consumption of 980.6 million tons of oil equivalent in 2009, respectively, and 984.5 million tons of oil equivalent in 2011. This downward trend in total consumption continued so that in 2020 it was 906.8 million tons of oil equivalent.
Regarding the total quantity of renewable energy, this final consumption has a growing trend, being in 2004 of 99.55 million tons of oil equivalent, then increasing by 2008 to 130.11 million tons of oil equivalent, and then after the economic crisis of 2008–2010 continued to increase from one year to the next, reaching 200.30 million tons of oil equivalent in 2020, practically doubling the amount of renewable energy over the last 17 years.
In this way, it can be pointed out that the production of renewable energy has increased in most of the European Union states, accounting for almost a quarter of the total final consumption. Therefore, this Directive of the European Union to focus on the development of this energy source has come to life.
In order to more clearly highlight the interdependence or correlation that exists between production, total final consumption and renewable energy, we used the statistical-econometric regression model, on the basis of which we calculated useful parameters to highlight the evolutionary trend and the perspective of the evolution of these indicators. The model has the following form:
The results of the analysis using the linear regression method are presented in
Table 3.
We find that the values of the linear correlation coefficient (r) are 0.8226, respectively, −0.8584. Thus, being closer to the upper limit of the interval [−1,1] than to the null value, this indicates that in both cases there is a strong linear correlation between the two variables. Additionally, the Fisher–Snedecor test indicates that the results obtained are significant for the materiality threshold considered and the values of the determination validity (R-squared = 0.6768 and 0.7369, respectively) indicate the strong influence of the causal variable on the resulting characteristic.
Consequently, the stimulation of the theoretical values of the dependent variable is achieved by replacing the values of the parameters calculated in Equations (1) and (2).
Using the first relationship to obtain the forecast until 2080, we find a change in the average rate of change in total energy production from 0.44% for the period 2000–2020 to 0.34% for the period 2021–2080. However, we must not overlook the fact that non-renewable energy reserves are in an alarming decline and that the Earth cannot sustain this average rate of evolution on the basis of non-renewable sources. Consequently, it is an overwhelming emergency to implement new projects and technological developments to provide renewable energy sources (wind, solar, hydro, gravitational, etc.).
We will deepen the analysis of the evolution of renewable energy and actual final consumption over the next period using the average annual change rate. Thus, data on the evolution of renewable energy and actual final consumption, as well as the average annual rates calculated on the basis of data taken from Eurostat, are presented in the following table. Data on the average volumes and rates of change of energy consumption and renewable energy are presented in
Table 4.
In order to determine the time period x when the absolute volumes of the two indicators will be equal, we will respect the content:
Since it is a nonlinear equation, we will use the logarithm method to identify the variable x. Thus, the calculations showed that years x = 29.15. Of course, the 29.15-year period is valid only if the two indicators maintain the same average annual rate of change (increase or decrease). In other words, in about 30 years, under the conditions mentioned, renewable energy sources will be sufficient to fully cover the energy consumption needed by the European Union.
I shall then resort to a VAR (Vector Autoregression Estimates) analysis, considering that the results of such an analysis are more certain than those obtained on the basis of the multiple regression model. Thus, based on the VAR model, the following equations were used:
The results of the analysis of the correlation between the three variables, namely final energy consumption (
CS), total energy production (
PR) and renewable energy (
RG) are presented in
Table 5.
The results of the analysis confirm the links between the three variables by values closer to the unit value than to the null value of the coefficients of determination (R-squared). At the same time, we find that the built model is a valid one and based on the calculated regression parameters, we can make the forecast for the next period.
Using the above relationships, the result of the forecast by the year 2050; that is, for a period of 30 years, is presented in
Table 6:
We find that based on the VAR model used in 30 years’ time, the production of renewable energy (RG) will cover approximately 39.36% of final energy consumption (CS) at the European Union level. Of course, these results are more pertinent than the previous estimate, and that is because the average rate of change in the considered variables is difficult to maintain. As the European Union’s economy is known and is not only being hit by crises and a series of events affecting all branches of the national (Member States) economies, including the energy industry, the existence of these shocks is signaled in the data series analyzed and they are caught in the equations for estimating future developments. It is in this context that we shall consider the response to momentum in the case of the variables considered, taking into account a period of 10 years.
We note that the application of a shock with a standard deviation on the total energy production will have an immediate effect on the evolution of the final energy consumption, registering a sharp increase in the first year, after which the trend had changed, being a strongly downward one until year 4, after which it will no longer have an influence (
Figure 2a). In the case of the application of a shock with a standard deviation on renewable energy, we find that the response of the final energy consumption is similar to the previous case, but with a lower intensity (
Figure 2b). Additionally, the application of a shock on renewable energy will have the effect of an oscillation in the evolution of total energy production in the first 3–4 years, after which the effect fades (
Figure 2c).
There are some differences, more or less significant, between the results obtained from the analyses carried out in this research using statistical-econometric models and methods, but what is certain is that they all converge towards a unique and extremely worrying result at the same time. In this sense, the results of the analysis highlight the fact that we are facing a particular crisis in terms of the global energy system and in the following period the prospects for recovery are limited. Therefore, recovery measures must be taken urgently through a substantial injection of funds in terms of innovation–research–development, because an approach in this sense can offer humanity a perspective in which new energy production technologies can be discovered; it can benefit from the maximum performance of the existing ones, and, consequently, the current crisis, which, based on the study carried out and presented in this article, has effects over a long period of time, will be overcome.