Submitted by Taps Coogan on the 12th of June 2019 to The Sounding Line.

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Fossil fuels remain the dominant source of energy globally. Combined, coal, oil, and natural gas provided 87% of the world’s energy in 2018 (PDF). Hydro power provided 7%, nuclear provided 4%, and non-hydro renewables such as wind and solar provided just under 4%. While growing rapidly, renewables remain the smallest component of the global power system.

The following maps, from 911Metalurgist, visualize which countries produce the most fossil fuels by scaling countries’ sizes according to their fossil fuel production.

The United States is the largest producer of fossil fuels in the world, producing roughly 20% of the world’s fossil fuels. Following the US comes Russia, Iran, Canada, and Qatar, respectively. The US is the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas while China is the top producer of coal. While Saudi Arabia is the world’s second largest oil producer, it’s relatively limited production of natural gas and coal push it to ninth place on the list for total fossil fuel production.

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