By way of noting this year’s “Earth Hour” (May 26, 2011)—as well as the ongoing challenges being faced by the Japanese as they struggle to get a damaged nuclear power plant stabilized—this week our market size items will all be related to electric energy markets.

We are voracious consumers of electricity, particularly in the industrialized world where even many toothbrushes plug into an electric outlet. Today’s market size is the size of the world’s capacity for generating electricity. Tomorrow we’ll start breaking this down by how the electric power is generated, with coal, hydroelectric dam, nuclear plant, solar panels, etc.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2008
Market size: 18,778.7 billion kilowatt hours
Source: “Table 1387. Net Electricity Generation by Type and Country: 2008,” Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2011, page 867, available online here.
Original source: U.S. Energy Information Administration