Distribution of Natural Energy Resources

Energy resources are not spread evenly across the planet, because they form through specific geologic processes that only happened in certain places. Coal formed from swampy plant matter buried hundreds of millions of years ago, so it concentrates where those ancient swamps existed, like the Appalachian basin in the US, Siberia, and parts of China. Oil and natural gas form from marine organisms buried under heat and pressure, which is why huge reserves sit under the Middle East, the Gulf of Mexico, and the North Sea. Uranium deposits depend on particular rock chemistry and show up in places like Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia. Geothermal energy is different: it's cheap to tap only near tectonic plate boundaries, where magma sits close to the surface, such as Iceland, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ring of Fire. Everywhere else, you'd have to drill far deeper to reach useful heat, which costs too much to be practical.

This geologic lottery has real consequences. A country sitting on large reserves can rely on domestic production, control its own supply, and even export for revenue. A country without those reserves has to import, and that creates energy security risk: if a handful of foreign suppliers provide most of your oil or gas, a political conflict, embargo, or production cut abroad can spike your prices and threaten your supply, and you have little power to stop it.

This connects directly to why countries diversify toward resources that are distributed more evenly, like solar and wind, even though those bring their own siting challenges, which the next topics take up.