Expansionary Institute

Michael Zey
futurist3000@aol.com

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - World electricity generation is expected to increase on average by 2.7 percent a year over the period 1997-2020 with coal maintaining its position as the top fuel for power production, said energy watchdog IEA on Tuesday.

Despite growing competition from gas, coal will remain the world's largest source of power generation, said the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) in its report "World Energy Outlook 2000" which predicts energy trends until 2020.

"While coal's share declines in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), it increases in developing countries, where electricity production from coal triples by 2020," said the report.

The agency sees natural gas-fired generation growing to more than three-and-a-half times its current level, with strong demand in Europe, North America and non-OECD Asia.

World gas reserves are expected to be more than sufficient to meet the projected 86 percent increase in demand seen by 2020, said the report, noting power generation was the main reason in most countries for the surge in gas consumption.

"Gas is likely to be the preferred fuel for electricity generation so long as its price remains low," it said.

Oil's share in power output is likely to fall to six percent from nine percent currently while that of nuclear will drop to nine percent from 17 percent.

World hydro-electricity is seen growing by 1.8 percent a year over the projection period but only by 0.5 percent a year in the OECD.

By contrast, electricity generation from other renewables is expected to grow rapidly in the OECD area where their share doubles to four percent by 2020.

The IEA predicts nearly 3,000 gigawatts of new generating capacity will be installed around the world by 2020, more than helf this in developing countries especially in Asia.

04:31 11-21-00