Half of the following statements are false. Find out which by interacting with the
visualisation dashboard below.
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The total global energy consumption has tripled over the last 55 years.
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Large producer countries like the USA, China, and Germany spend as much energy in industry
as they do in transportation (of goods and people).
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The world’s third-largest energy exporter is also the world’s second-largest energy
importer.
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Brazil has a larger percentage of energy coming from renewable sources than Germany.
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The total energy consumption in Germany has remained fairly constant from 1970 to today. The
same is true for other large countries in Europe like the UK, France and Spain.
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Despite having a population 4 times larger, India consumes the same total amount of energy
as the USA.
Even though energy plays a very important role in our lives on several levels, interpersonal,
social, national, and global, our sources of free-to-access international energy data are very
restricted. This is the reason why data for several countries and several metrics are utterly
missing in this dashboard, and it is the first and most obvious of the data’s limitations here.
In no particular order, several other limitations are the following.
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The data might give us an indication of how much energy is produced, but it does not tell us
much about the impact on our societies and the environment of such practices. For instance,
how much waste is produced, how is it managed, what is the impact of energy production on
the health of local communities and so on.
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Country-level data is interesting, but a lot of energy is being produced and sold by major
international corporations, which are completely hidden in nation-level representations.
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Who benefits? Is energy production government run or is it private? Do local communities
benefit from the energy produced (financially, with cheap energy, or even with jobs) or is
it used elsewhere?
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Since even large energy exporters like the USA and Russia import significant amounts of
energy, it becomes obvious that energy is not traded just to cover the energy needs of a
particular population. There are more parameters that drive this trade, which, however,
remain hidden in this representation.
On the map you can see how much energy each country consumes per capita, allowing us to compare
energy consumption needs and habits across regions. By changing the energy source via the radio
buttons we can also see on the map the degree that each country relies on that particular energy
source. Lastly, the map can be used to select a country and update the rest of the stats and
charts on the dashboard.
The area chart shows energy consumption over time to help us appreciate both how the total
consumption has been changing over time, and how the makeup of our energy sources has been
changing. These are total values (not per capita as in the map), so changes in population and
the standard of living have a significant impact here. The two bar charts give us a quick
glimpse at the top countries that provide (sell) and consume (buy) energy from the selected
country. The pie chart gives us a breakdown of how energy is eventually used.
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