The Jevons check: world energy hit 600 EJ in 2025, and oil, gas and coal all rose

World energy use is not rolling over. Total energy supply was 166,754 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025, about 600 exajoules (EJ), the highest year in the data and 1.4% above 2024. Oil, gas and coal were each at their highest too, and each was higher than in 2023 (Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2026, via Our World in Data).

That is the pattern the Jevons paradox describes, at the scale of the whole economy: the world uses less energy per dollar of output than it did, and more energy in total. The data fits that pattern. It does not prove that efficiency caused the growth, and three years of data do not settle where demand goes next.

The claim, in its strongest form: efficiency keeps improving and cleaner sources keep growing, so world energy use, and fossil fuel use in particular, should by now be flat or falling. The claim does not need a collapse. It needs growth to stop.

William Stanley Jevons argued the opposite about coal in The Coal Question, first published in 1865: “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” (Chapter VII, “Of the Economy of Fuel”, second edition, 1866; text at Econlib.) That idea is now called the Jevons paradox.

Two things are true at once. Fossil fuels' share of world energy fell, from 87.2% in 2023 to 86.2% in 2025. The amount burned rose, by 3,496 TWh over the same two years.

World energy supply grew by 5,877 TWh from 2023 to 2025. Oil, gas and coal supplied 3,496 TWh of that increase, or 59.5% (3,496 / 5,877). Every other source combined supplied 2,380 TWh. Non-fossil sources grew, but they added to fossil fuels in these years. They did not replace them.

The world did get more efficient. In 1965 it used 2.90 kilowatt-hours of energy for each dollar of GDP. In 2025 it used 1.67, which is 42% less (energy from the Statistical Review via Our World in Data; GDP in constant 2015 US dollars from the World Bank).

Over the same 60 years world GDP grew 6.9 times and energy supply grew 4.0 times, from 41,582 TWh to 166,754 TWh. The economy grew faster than efficiency improved, so total energy use went up.

US primary energy consumption was 96.5 quadrillion Btu (quads) in 2025. That is 2.0% above 2024 and 2.5% below the record of 99.0 quads set in 2007 (EIA Monthly Energy Review, October 2026, Table 1.1).

The US economy uses far less energy per dollar than it did: 12.42 thousand Btu per dollar of real GDP in 1970 and 4.04 in 2025, a fall of 67%. Energy use per person also fell, by 12%. Total consumption still rose 46% over those 55 years.

For 1965 to 2025, the correlation between the yearly levels of world energy supply and world GDP is 0.99. That number says little by itself, because any two series that both rise for 60 years will correlate strongly.

The stricter test uses year-over-year growth rates. On that test the correlation is 0.89 across the 60 yearly changes from 1966 to 2025: in years when world GDP grew faster, energy supply usually did too.

World energy supply fell in only 5 of those 60 years: 1980, 1981, 1982, 2009 and 2020. World GDP fell in 2: 2009 and 2020. In 1980, 1981 and 1982 energy supply fell while world GDP still grew, by 1.8%, 1.9% and 0.4%. In 2009 and 2020 both fell.

Method: Pearson correlation of annual values. Energy is world total energy supply in TWh (Statistical Review via Our World in Data). GDP is the World Bank's world series in constant 2015 US dollars (NY.GDP.MKTP.KD), retrieved Nov 13, 2026. Growth is each year divided by the year before, minus one. A different GDP measure, such as one based on purchasing power, would give different values.

A year in which world energy supply falls while world GDP grows would count against the pattern. In this data that last happened in 1982. Oil, gas and coal each falling for several years in a row, in years when GDP is growing, would support the peak claim.

Through 2025 the rollover has not happened. World energy supply was at a record 600 EJ, oil, gas and coal were each at a record, and fossil fuels were 86.2% of the total. The pattern matches what Jevons described in 1865. Whether it continues is a question the next Statistical Review will help answer, not this one.

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