That doesn’t pass the sniff test.

Let me see, global electricity consumption in 2011 was 22,000 TWh. There are 8760 hours in a year. Divide. Answer: 2,5 TW. Six times less. The point still stands, but I’d like to get the numbers accurate because there is already so much disinformation floating around.

The main source for this type of error is the habit of the energy industry to express everything in kWh’s. This 15 TW number is the total primary energy consumption.

It is true that all kWh’s are equal. But some are more equal than others.

Shoving all energy use into one number inevitably leads to underestimating the contribution that renewable energy is already making. Renewable energy is usually electricity, whereas fossil fuel is heat. A kWh of electricity can do 3-4x as much work as a kWh of fossil heat (think electric cars/heat pumps).