This post has two views of Eurozone oil consumption. The above has the data from BP from 1965 to 2009. You can see that the consumption of the core countries peaked in the 1970s, and then again at a lower level in the 1990s, and growth after that came purely from the periphery. The second peak for the whole area came in 2005, and I imagine that Eurozone oil consumption will never exceed those values again.
The EIA data below only starts in 1980, but does include 2010:
There was a slight further decline in 2010. Given the increasing difficulties in the Eurozone at present (see Martin Wolf's excellent column if you didn't already), one imagines that consumption will decline again in 2011.
Do you happen to know how closely these consumption numbers correlate to population?
ReplyDeleteBelow is Felix Salmon discussing the same subject as Martin Wolf. Salmon's piece is (to my mind) very clearly written and not behind a paywall.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/06/01/how-europes-central-banks-are-staving-off-catastrophe/