Survey of energy resources, 1974

A total of 74 nations contributed in part or in whole to the present survey on world energy resources by completing and returning questionnaires on the quantities or absence of various energy resources within their territories. A tabulation lists all the nations which cooperated in this effort and indicates which questionnaires were submitted. In addition, several other nations informed the survey that they had no energy resources of any kind. Energy in its various forms of use throughout the world is ultimately traceable to four origins: (1) solar radiation; (2) subterranean heat from natural radioactive decay, geological metamorphism, and intrusions of magma; (3) inertial forces resulting from the gravitational and rotational phenomena of the solar system; and (4) nuclear reactions involving the release of energy due to fission or fusion of certain atoms. Energy resources, in broad terms, are the natural stores of energy supply originating in one of the above categories. The energy stored may be in fossil fuel deposits, nuclear materials, accumulations of water, heat locked in the earth, or other natural states prior to transformation by man to more readily useful forms.