# Energy consumption of the US

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/energy-consumption-of-the-us/164929>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 29, 2003, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/energy-consumption-of-the-us/164929 "2003-03-29T00:18:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Agubwa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d78d45/32.png) [@Agubwa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agubwa)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/energy-consumption-of-the-us/164929/1 "2003-03-29T00:18:54Z")

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My question is, proportionately speaking, how much energy do we USans use? That is, what percentage of the world population vs. how much of the world’s rescources?  
It was put to me one time that if we shrunk the world down to the size of an island, and the population down to 1000, then the current situation would be that roughly 50 of the people would be using one third of the rescources on the island.  
I’m looking for some hard numbers/statistics. Thanks alot!

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**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/energy-consumption-of-the-us/164929/2 "2003-03-29T00:36:26Z")

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World Primary Energy Consumption in (Quadrillion (1015) Btu) for 2001 - 403.92  
North America Primary Energy Consumption in (Quadrillion (1015) Btu) for 2001 - 115.58  
USA Primary Energy Consumption in (Quadrillion (1015) Btu) for 2001 - 97.05  
The USA consumed almost 25 percent of the world’s energy in 2001.

Source: [http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/tablee1.html](http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/tablee1.html)

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**Author:** ![Agubwa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d78d45/32.png) [@Agubwa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agubwa)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/energy-consumption-of-the-us/164929/3 "2003-03-29T20:14:59Z")

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Thanks Duckster!  
Does anybody have any figures for 2002?  
What percentage of the world’s population is in the US?

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**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/energy-consumption-of-the-us/164929/4 "2003-03-29T20:39:54Z")

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The US population is ~280 Million. World Population is ~6 billion. 280/6000 = .04666667 or roughly 4.67% of the world population. Also of note, the US generates roughly 25% of the world gross product as well.