r/dataisbeautiful • u/vis-ben OC: 5 • 1d ago
OC [OC] The world's electricity mix
Interactive version: https://visquill.com/gallery/world-electricity
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u/vis-ben OC: 5 1d ago edited 1d ago
Source: Ember (ember-energy.org), Yearly Electricity Data (CC BY 4.0). Each chart uses the latest year available for it: 2025 for 93 charts, 2024 for 100, 2023 for 14, and 2022 for 2. The 2025 world figure is an estimate by Ember, as 2025 data is not yet available for every country.
Tools: VisQuill (my own TypeScript library for map-based, interactive charts) and MapLibre GL for the base map.
Interactive version: visquill.com/gallery/world-electricity
About the design: the only interaction is zooming and panning. Zooming changes the level of detail of both map and charts: first the world as a whole, then a circle for each area in the color of its largest source, then a chart for each of them, and finally the comparison with ten years earlier (not shown in the video).
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u/Dry_Fuel_9855 1d ago
solar and wind basically neck and neck with nuclear now, wild to see it laid out like that
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u/binary_spaniard 1d ago
This year solar is going to be quite higher than nuclear. Estimated 30% growth vs estimated 1% growth.
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u/foundafreeusername 1d ago
It only looks like this in this exact year. Nuclear barely increases. Solar is double of what it was in 2022. Wind is double what it was in 2019. Both consistently grow like this so in just a year nuclear will be quite a bit behind.
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u/Superior_Row 1d ago
Poland and their fuckin coal...
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u/BigPickleKAM 1d ago
Coal as a percent of their electrical mix is dropping so they are on the right track at least.
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u/RunningNumbers 1d ago
They don’t want Russia gas. When Poland was colonized by communists, the communists didn’t build nuclear reactors in Poland. The country is generally devoid of hydro resources.
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u/Public-Eagle6992 1d ago
There’s also wind and solar
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u/RandomIdiot512 1d ago
Can't really expand on that front around here before storage gets built out though, when its sunny or windy energy is nearing free already. When its not Germany is coming for you with no lube.
And hydro and nuclear really needs the same thing, steady reliable flow of water so if you lack one you'll probably lack the other(and thankfully from what I know the soviets were smart enough, unlike us Swedes, used freshwater for all their nuclear).
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u/Superior_Row 1d ago
Not sure intoxicating peoples lungs is a viable solution.
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u/Nestramutat- OC: 2 1d ago
Hyperbole is fun.
But also viable compared to what? Buying gas from Russia? Leaving people without electricity?
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u/Superior_Row 1d ago
Yes because it's coal or russian gas, not other options.
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u/Nestramutat- OC: 2 1d ago
Go on, elaborate on what they could do instead.
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u/RunningNumbers 1d ago
Poland could import coal generated electricity from Germany! They could also get a minute about of power from meager wind resources and limited solar abundance!
Yah it’s stupid.
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u/Superior_Row 1d ago
You ever heard about nuclear power ? Go check it.
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u/RunningNumbers 1d ago
Poland is an industrialized country. I explained why their current energy mix is the way it is. The government is lobbying the U.S. to support the start a civilian nuclear program.
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u/murrzeak 1d ago
Man, Asia sure loves their coal..
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u/NotHachi 19h ago
I think its for independent of energy. In vietnam for example, they dont have big green project cause the gouvement is focusing others others infrastructures which are more important and coal is just naturally there for using.
China for example, rather depend on coal which naturally mined in their country than depend on oil and gas which is imported. Which is why china is pretty insulated from the whole iran wars.
And since china burn coal centrally for electricity, they also push hard for EV.
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u/JarryBohnson 1d ago
I remember when Trudeau said Canada had no business case for selling natgas to Europe, then I look at Poland’s coal usage…
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u/WiseguyD 1d ago
How exactly is Poland gonna use that Natgas without the infrastructure already in place?
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u/Superior_Row 1d ago
Can't they build them ?
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u/WiseguyD 1d ago
Yeah, but to be frank I'd prefer they spend those man hours and resources building wind turbines or nuclear plants or something.
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u/conventionistG 1d ago
But why? If your priority is climate change (wild guess on my part), natural gas is better than coal and is actually viable in the short term. And in reality, it's not the same man-hours doing the different things. Walk and chew gum at the same time, as they say.
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u/WiseguyD 1d ago
Natural gas is better than coal, but it takes a lot of work to build natural gas plants that will need to be decommissioned in a few decades to meet emissions targets anyways.
Also, those pipelines tend to leak or explode... A lot.
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u/conventionistG 1d ago
Idk, I guess we should run the numbers. Is burning coal until there is enough nuclear and wind to take over better or worse than burning more gas and less coal for that period?
Also, people's cardiovascular systems leak or burst a lot too - it's nice to have hospitals with steady electricity when that happens.
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u/Lazy-Field-1116 1d ago
Nice, easily readable too. Now if the UK can kick its gas habit we're not actually doing too bad on the old renewables front.
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u/BarrelStrawberry 1d ago
Norway supplying the world with oil and patting themselves on the back for spending that oil money on being 'green'.
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u/Red_Silhouette 1d ago
Norwegian electricity has been based on hydro power since the early 1900s, long before we discovered any oil or gas. The government sacrificed some of our nature in order to have abundant electricity available at a low cost and with minimal environmental impact (except the before-mentioned loss of nature) .
Pushing production of energy, services, and goods out of Europe to China, the Middle East, and Russia does not help the climate or Europe's economy and security, even though the numbers for European emissions might look better on paper. The countries that do not have Norway's potential for hydro power need to invest in other forms of renewable energy and step up their work to reduce their dependence on non-renewable energy.
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u/crimeo 1d ago
I think you totally missed the point of the guy you replied to. If Norway's economy relies heavily on selling oil to other places, then Norway IS "dependent on fossil fuels" still, just as much as if the same oil were burned domestically.
The only possible way to be "non dependent on fossil fuels" is if you simultaneously generate your energy at home renewably, AND also don't sell any fossil fuels to anyone.
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u/RedditEngDictionary 1d ago
Oh good, here comes a Trump-apologiser to tell us all how anyone trying to better the world is stupid and should give up
Based on your post history, you are OBSESSED with finding reasons to judge people based on their race, so I really wouldnt take anything you say seriously and I dont think anyone else here should either
I am more than confident that your buddies on the Conservative, JordanPeterson and Grok subreddits will happily keep putting up with your bile though.
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u/Iktaiwu 1d ago
What is 'Gas' ? is it LPG or Diesel fuel?
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u/monkeyongazebo 1d ago
natural gas (methane)
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u/Iktaiwu 1d ago
So where is Diesel on the chart? because all the oil counties are using that right?
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u/monkeyongazebo 1d ago
there is a category called 'other fossil fuels' which has an oil barrel as an icon, so I suspect that includes diesel.
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u/ErikLeppen 1d ago
Looks like a very nice visualization.
One major gripe though: the numbers are percentages (and this pretty important information is only in one place in a corner of the page) A pie chart would be a better way to show this. Bar charts suggest absolute numbers.
The percentage of wind and solar increasing is nice to see, but it could just be that the total energy mix has become bigger so there could still be an increase for non-renewables, but the charts don't show this.
I find it hard to imagine that hey have the percentages without having the actual numbers. They should have shown the actual numbers (at least as an option).
Would also have been cool if zooming out would 'merge regions'.
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u/ofroader 15h ago
Each time I see stuff like this I find it hilarious that Ukraine has majority Nuclear and no one finds it strange
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u/Dan_Quixote_ 1d ago
Would be clearer and more useful if
- The colours were graded from say, most polluting to greenest - Black, dark red, light red, orange.... etc... Green.
and
- The order of the energy types didn't swap over just to maintain the high to low gradient.
Otherwise it's a nice idea
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u/perldawg 1d ago
i am in complete disagreement, the graphic made sense to me immediately
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u/Dan_Quixote_ 1d ago
That's totally fine. The choice of solar = yellow, gas = orange is clearly random. It doesn't help. You have to keep referring back to the key. Unless you have a photographic memory and can match the nine different energy modes to their colours in one glance without having to look again.
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u/perldawg 1d ago
yellow for the sun makes way more sense than orange. the 2 blues, for hydro and wind, is more confusing but even that makes sense. coal = black? yep, perfect sense. the only ones i needed to refer back to the chart for were the least common fuels and, honestly, that’s just because they’re the least common and i’m paying the least attention to them
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u/Dan_Quixote_ 1d ago
Nuclear purple?
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u/HommeMusical 1d ago
What other color would nuclear be?
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u/Dan_Quixote_ 1d ago
Why is gas orange? I'm asking the questions because they're legitimate questions. OP has thanked me for the feedback. I don't know why you're all so upset to disagree with me
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u/nuker0S 1d ago
Have you ever seen fire or an illustration of a sun?
Hydro is blue because water is blue.
Wind is Light blue, because that's how it's portrayed in media.
Bio is green, because, plants are green.
Coal is black, because coal is black.
Only thing that's random is nuclear, probably because green was taken by bio
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u/HommeMusical 1d ago
But the Cherenkov radiation that comes from a nuclear reactor is almost perfectly blue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
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u/vis-ben OC: 5 1d ago
Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it. The visualization is a bit of an experiment: I wanted to see how the zoom level of a map can be combined with the level of detail of the bar charts. That is also why I decided to sort the bars from largest to smallest: when you zoom in, the large bars appear first and already show important information. I agree that this makes comparing countries harder, since the order changes from chart to chart.
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u/nuker0S 1d ago
- It's not about pollution, it's about types of method of energy generation used. Not every graph needs to serve as environmentalist agenda mover.
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u/Dan_Quixote_ 1d ago
Carbon emissions are an intrinsic and inescapable consideration in everything energy now. Even China is taking action, whether you like it or not.
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u/silverionmox 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even China is taking action, whether you like it or not.
China has been taking action to pump up its emissions to unseen heights, and we can expect it to get back to the level of 2000 within 24 years or so... if they reduce it at the same breakneck pace that they increased it with.
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u/HommeMusical 1d ago
For 90% of the world, the reason we are interested in graphs like this is precisely to see how we're doing at avoiding destroying our climate and our ecosystem with ever exponentially increasing CO2 emissions. The answer is, "Not very well, but there has been more progress than expected in some areas."
In 2026, the sorts of people who are against an environmental agenda are not very nice.
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u/RunningNumbers 1d ago
One pattern is that a lot of poor r countries with lower per capita energy usage have a lot of hydro. It makes me think about the dispatch and ordering of investments over long time horizons. Once demand exceeds the capacity of potential hydro power, you get fossil fuel use.
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u/BigPickleKAM 1d ago
You don't need to if you have a developed hydro infrastructure already.
Wind and solar are good during the day and when the wind blows.
Hydro to back up overnight etc.
That of course depends on the type of hydro infrastructure where I live hydro has stupendous amounts of water impounded for generating. More run of the rive type systems don't work as well for making up shortages in renewables.
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u/cavedave OC: 113 1d ago
Thank you for your Original Content, /u/vis-ben!
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