Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, 2021a

3 Population 42
Figure 3.14: Absolute population growth
rate by country: how many millions of people
are added per year (birth rate minus
death rate times population) [8, 19, 20].
place. The U.S. adds about 1.6 million per year, a little beyond the top
ten. This exercise goes to show that context is important in evaluating
data.
Country
Population
(millions)
Birth Rate Death Rate Annual
Millions Added
India 1,366 20.0 7.1 17.7
China 1,434 12.1 7.1 7.2
Nigeria 201 38.0 15.3 4.6
Pakistan 216 24.9 7.3 3.8
Indonesia 271 17.6 6.3 3.1
Ethiopia 112 36.1 10.7 2.8
Bangladesh 163 20.2 5.6 2.3
Philippines 108 24.2 5.0 2.1
Egypt 100 26.8 6.1 2.1
DR Congo 87 36.9 15.8 1.8
Whole World 7,711 19.1 8.1 86
Table 3.3: Top ten populators [8, 19, 20], in
terms of absolute number of people added
to each country. Birth rates <strong>and</strong> death rates
are presented as number per 1,000 people
per year. These ten countries account for
55% of population growth worldwide.
Adding another relevant perspective, when one considers that the percapita
energy consumption in the United States is more than 200 times
that of Niger, 25 together with the larger U.S. population, we find that
the resource impact from births is almost 400 times higher for the U.S.
than for Niger. 26 On a per capita basis, a citizen of the U.S. places claims
on future resources at a rate 28 times higher than a citizen of Niger
via population growth. 27 On a finite planet, the main reason we care
about population growth is in relation to limited resources. Thus from
the resource point of view, the problem is not at all confined to the
developing world. Table 3.4 indicates how rapidly the top ten countries
are creating energy dem<strong>and</strong> (as a proxy to resource dem<strong>and</strong>s in general)
based on population growth alone. Figure 3.15 provides a graphical
perspective of the same (for all countries). For reference, one gigawatt
(GW) is the equivalent of a large-scale nuclear or coal-fired power plant.
So China, the U.S., <strong>and</strong> India each add the equivalent of 10–20 such plants
per year just to satisfy the dem<strong>and</strong> created by population growth. 28
25: The average American rate of energy
use is 10,000 W vs. 50 W for Niger.
26: In other words, for every additional
kilogram of coal, steel, or whatever required
by Niger’s added population, the U.S. will
require 400 kg of the same to satisfy its
population growth.
27: 28 is smaller than 400 by the ratio of
populations in the two countries.
28: This does not even consider rising st<strong>and</strong>ards
placing additional burdens.
© 2021 T. W. Murphy, Jr.; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Lic.;
Freely available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions.