RATIONAL OPTIMIST SOCIETY
A 0–100 ranking of 217 countries by energy-enabled living standards. Not dollars. Not promises. Energy per person.
GLOBAL VIEW
Hover or click any country to see its energy abundance score and key metrics.
GEOPOLITICAL RISK
How vulnerable is each country to a Hormuz closure? A composite 0–100 score ranking 48 nations by oil dependency, Gulf concentration, strategic reserves, and economic resilience.
| Rank | Country | Exposure | Oil Imp. | Gulf % | SPR Days | Renew. |
|---|
FULL RANKINGS
Search, filter, and sort every country in the index.
| Rank | Country | Score | Electricity/Person | Primary Energy/Person | Electrification | GDP/Capita | Low-Carbon |
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KEY INSIGHTS
Surprising findings from ranking 217 countries by energy abundance.
Iceland uses 51,915 kWh/person/year (~5.9 kW per person). Chad uses 21 kWh/person/year (~2.4 watts per person). That’s a 2,457-fold gap in electricity access — far larger than income inequality alone would suggest.
The correlation between low-carbon electricity share and energy abundance is essentially zero. Bermuda ranks #5 on the index but gets only 1.6% from low-carbon sources. You can be rich in energy without being clean — and vice versa.
Qatar is #1 in raw energy per person but drops to #17 on the index. Why? Its electrification ratio is only 0.089 — most of that energy never shows up as usable electricity for citizens.
Chad’s electricity use averages 2.4 watts per person across its entire economy. That’s less than a single LED bulb running continuously. Energy poverty is measured in single-digit watts.
Paraguay ranks #136 on raw energy per person but jumps to #75 on the index. Its electrification ratio of 0.857 is the world’s highest — nearly all energy shows up as usable electricity thanks to massive hydropower.
Luxembourg looks energy-rich in raw data (#24) but drops to #90 on the index. Its electrification ratio is just 0.037 — cross-border fuel sales massively inflate its primary energy per capita.
“Imagine you are sent back to 1800 with $1 million in gold. Are you rich? Technically, yes. But you still wash clothes by hand, die of infection, and travel at the speed of a horse. Why? Because you are Energy Poor.”
The index corrects for export distortions, fuel bunkering, and cross-border sales.
THE SWITCH FLIP TEST
The ROS-EAI is a measure of what happens when you flip a light switch.
COMPARE
Select up to 4 countries to compare side-by-side.
HOUSEHOLD ENERGY
Select your daily appliances and activities to see how your household energy use compares to countries around the world.
0 of 20 items selected
Select items from the left to visualize your daily energy use
ENERGY COSTS
Interactive comparison of electricity generation costs by technology — unsubsidized, $/MWh. Data: Lazard v18, IRENA 2024.
Solar PV has fallen ~93%, batteries ~92%, onshore wind ~60% since 2010.
UTILITY
Type a value in any field — all others update instantly. The universal energy translator.
SCALE
Pick two things. See the energy difference. Prepare to be amazed.
VISUALIZE
Interactive scatter plot — choose axes to reveal relationships.
REGIONAL VIEW
Average scores and metrics by region.
METHODOLOGY
Transparent, reproducible, and designed to be hard to game.
High-quality energy services. Log-scaled, winsorized min-max normalization (5th-95th percentile). 50% of System Score.
Total energy throughput per capita. Log-scaled, same normalization. 30% of System Score.
Electricity / primary energy. Proxy for modern, usable energy delivery. Winsorized min-max. 20% of System Score.
The published “Lived” score blends 80% System Score with 20% GDP per capita (log-scaled) to reduce cases where energy use is dominated by exports or heavy industry.
Low-carbon electricity share is tracked for context but is not part of the scoring formula. Data from OWID Energy Data (2022-2023).
WHY ENERGY?
Money is noisy. GDP per capita fluctuates with currency markets, financial flows, and statistical revisions. But energy — how many kilowatt-hours of electricity and primary energy each person has access to — is a more direct measure of material living standards.
The ROS Energy Abundance Index was built to answer a simple question: How energy-rich is life for the average person in each country?
Traditional energy rankings are misleading. A country can look energy-rich simply because it exports oil or refines fuel for ships. The ROS-EAI corrects for these distortions by emphasizing electricity per person and the electrification ratio — measures that track usable energy services rather than raw throughput.