The Goal of this Project is to show aptterns and possilble different stages for countries in the transitional period from fossil fuels to renewable energies
For the Project we follow the expected workflow of Data Analytics. The Data was procurred from different sources such as ourworldindata.org,the SHIFT Data Project,the Worldbank and the Harvard Atlas of Economic Complexity.
After procuring the data, the data is cleaned and checked for missing information. During ths step, we identify possible compatibility issues with the data, such as time frames or different measurements and units used. We also identify waht data is missing to complete our dataset and get as clear a picture and as much information as possible.
Following the clean up, we define the Key Indicators that we use to describe a countries energy use and transitional state in switching from fossil fuels to renewable energies. We define the energyconsumption by category (fossil fuels, nuclear energy and renewable energy sources) and GDP/capita as indicators for the countries, describing their transitional state with the total numbers of energy consumed by category and wealth by GDP per capita. During this step we also define, that a country is in the transition towards renewable energies when the following criteria are met:
- The GDP/capita is in an upwards trend
- The consumption in fossil fuels is decreasing
- The consumption of renewable energy is increasing
We also identify countries, that are showing interesting patterns in their energy consumption or in energy consumption and GDP/capita-development. We find that only countries countries that are considered rich, are showing signs of a relevant impact when transitioning into renewable energies. According to that we limit our focus on Russia, China, the USA and Germany. Going deeper into the data we find, that GDP/capita or "being wealthy" is not an explaining factor for a green transition. By analysing the Data of economic complexity we find, that the underlying factor is more likely to be found in the inventivness (defined as patents filed per 100.000 citizens of a country), which shows a clearer picture and better explains, why most of our focus countries are able to swithc from fossil fuels to renewable energies and maintain a growth in wealth. Especially the patents for renewable energies are mainly coming from countries, that are considered wealthy, leading to the assumption, that being wealthy enables countries to do research at the technological frontier and thereby giving them an advantage in transitioning to renewable energy sources.