Monday, May 25, 2026, 3:20 p.m
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The global energy market is currently heavily dominated, when it comes to production, by two major superpowers: China and the United States.
The market of energy on a global level it is currently heavily dominated, when it comes to production, by two great superpowers: China and the United States.
Energy dominance is given by scale, diversification and industrial capacity, and the “energy transition” does not replace old energy sources with new ones.
On the contrary, the ideological preference for a single type of energy, as dictated by the European Commission’s policies in recent years, has currently led to the situation that the great economic powers in the EU bloc are clearly outnumbered in terms of production by their geopolitical adversaries.
Europe, long behind
Thus, China and the USA own the largest part of the energy power at the global level, shows an analysis carried out by the Energy Institute and analyzed by Risco.ro.
China is a leader in the production of coal, hydropower, solar and wind power, and the country’s nuclear capacity is growing rapidly.
On the other hand, the US is a leader in oil, natural gasnuclear power and biofuels.
China is aggressively using both coal and renewables rather than choosing one or the other.
And the US continues to stack oil, gas, nuclear power and biofuels instead of abandoning hydrocarbons.
Geopolitical power in 2026 depends on the simultaneous control of multiple forms of energy, with only China and the US currently having the scale and scope to unquestionably dominate the global market.
Major powers are adding renewables to the energy mix while continuing to expand their traditional energy systems.
Europe, on the other hand, has become irrelevant in most of the energy sources.
A battle for two
In terms of coal production, the global leader is China, with 51.7% of total production. It is followed by India (11.7%) and Indonesia (9.1%).
Oil production is dominated by the USA (20.8% of global production), followed by Saudi Arabia (11.2%) and Russia (11.1%).
In terms of natural gas, the leader is also the USA (25.1% of the total international production), and the ranking is completed by Russia (15.3%) and Iran (6.4%).
The US also dominates global nuclear power production with a share of 29.7% of the total, followed by China with 16.3% of the total.
France is in third place in the ranking of nuclear energy producers, with 13.7% of global production.
As for biofuels, global production is also dominated by the US, with 37.4% of the total. It is followed by Brazil (22.3%) and Indonesia (9% of global production).
China dominates global hydropower production, accounting for 30.4% of the total. Followed by Brazil (9.3%) and Canada (7.7%).
China is also the world leader in solar energy production, accounting for 39.1% of global production. It is followed by the United States (14.2%) and India (6.3%).
Finally, China is the largest producer in the world for wind energy as well, with 39.8% of total production. The United States follows, with 18.2% and Germany, with 5.3%.
