Primary energy consumption from fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) measured in terawatt-hours (TWh). Data covers global consumption from 1800 to recent years.
Format
A data frame with 231 rows and 5 variables:
- entity
Character, name of the country or region (currently "World")
- code
Character, country/region code (OWID_WRL for World)
- year
Numeric, year of observation (1800-present)
- fuel
Ordered factor with 3 levels: Oil, Gas, Coal. Levels are ordered for logical stacking in plots
- consumption
Numeric, primary energy consumption in terawatt-hours (TWh). All values are positive, making this dataset ideal for area plots
Source
Our World in Data (OWID) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-fossil-fuel-consumption License: CC BY 4.0
Details
This dataset tracks the historical consumption of fossil fuels globally, showing the dramatic increase in energy use since the Industrial Revolution. The data is particularly useful for visualizing energy transitions and the relative importance of different fossil fuels over time.
**Key features:**
All consumption values are positive (no negative values)
Fuel types are ordered factors for better plot aesthetics
Covers over 200 years of energy history
Ideal for demonstrating area plots and stacked visualizations
The fuel factor is ordered as Oil > Gas > Coal, which creates an intuitive visual hierarchy when creating stacked area charts.
See also
insper_area for creating area plots with this data