IEA: China Has Overtaken U.S., Become World’s Largest Energy User

The International Energy Administration (IEA) alleges, based on preliminary data, that China has overtaken the U.S. to become the world’s largest energy user. But China on Tuesday rejected that report, saying the IEA’s data is unreliable.

The IEA said that China consumed 2.252 billion tons of oil equivalent in 2009—4% more than the 2.17 billion tons consumed by the U.S.

“For those who have been following energy consumption trends closely, this does not come as a surprise,” said the Paris-based organization, which comprises 24 member countries, including the U.S., but not China.

“What is more important is the phenomenal growth in demand that has taken place in China over the last decade; also prospects for future growth still remain incredibly strong. Since 2000, China’s energy demand has doubled, yet on a per capita basis it is still only around one-third of the [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] average.”

The agency added that prospects for further growth are strong considering the country’s low per-capita consumption level and the fact that China is the most populous nation on the planet, with more than 1.3 billion people. It also noted, however, that the country’s demand would have been higher “if the government had not made such progress in reducing the energy intensity (the energy input per dollar of output) of its economy.”

Almost immediately after the IEA released its statement, China refuted the ranking. “IEA’s data on China’s energy use is unreliable,” Zhou Xian, an official with China National Energy Administration said Tuesday at a news conference, as state-owned news agency Xinhua reported.

Chinese newspaper The Global Times said that the IEA’s data contradicted a February report by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, which said China’s energy consumption in 2009 was 3.1 billion tons of standard coal. That equaled about 2.13 billion tons of oil, the newspaper estimated.

A researcher at China’s Energy Research Institute, Hu Xiulian, also reportedly told the Times that the IEA’s data was not “very accurate” because “the agency’s criteria for calculating the volume of energy use is different from that used by China.”

Another source, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the newspaper that while the title wasn’t significant—because China’s population was almost four times that of the U.S.—it could make the country vulnerable to international energy pricing.

Sources: IEA, Xinhua, The Global Times