Welcome!
Welcome to GEM Wiki, the shared resource on all things energy: fossil fuels, renewable energy sources, environmental impacts, and the global movement to transition to a clean energy system.
How GEM Wiki Works
GEM Wiki is based on MediaWiki, a software platform developed by the Wikipedia Foundation that allows anyone to edit existing articles and create new ones. A key feature of wiki software is that each successive version of an article is saved along with a time stamp and a brief description of the change. This feature makes it possible for mistakes to be corrected.
Documenting the Global Energy System
GEM Wiki hosts thousands of pages dedicated to energy projects such as power plants, extraction sites, pipelines, terminals, solar farms, wind farms, and waste sites. Each wiki page serves as a footnoted online fact sheet that develops over time, offering data on project size, ownership, location, development status, financing, protests, alternative options, etc. In addition, individual wiki pages serve as a foundation for GEM’s research projects (trackers), which encompass comprehensive datasets, maps, and summary tables. GEM currently maintains 21 trackers, each focusing on specific categories of energy projects. These 21 trackers are listed below.
- Global Coal Plant Tracker: provides information on coal-fired power plants generating 30 megawatts (MW) and above; catalogs operating coal-fired generating units, new units proposed since 2010, and units retired since 2000.
- Global Coal Mine Tracker: dataset of coal mines and proposed coal projects that includes operating mines producing 1 million tonnes per year or more, with smaller mines included at discretion.
- Global Coal Terminals Tracker: dataset of import, export, and domestic coal terminals, and new projects.
- Global Coal Project Finance Tracker: surveys publicly- and privately-owned financial institutions that have provided funding for coal-fired power stations since 2010 or are considering funding in the future.
- Global Steel Plant Tracker: provides information on global crude iron and steel production plants; includes steel plants operating with a capacity of 500,000 per year or more of crude iron or steel, proposed or under-construction steel plants since 2017, and retired/mothballed steel plants since 2020.
- Global Blast Furnace Tracker: provides information on each of the furnaces at iron and steel plants in GEM’s Global Steel Plant Tracker.
- Global Iron Ore Mines Tracker: provides information on global iron ore mines, including all operating, proposed, shelved, retired or mothballed mines since 2023.
- Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker: dataset of oil and gas resources and their development. Where comprehensive government data is available, the tracker includes the largest units that account for 95% of total global production. For countries that do not provide comprehensive government data, the tracker includes units that have a production of 1 million barrels/year or have reserves of 25 million barrels or more.
- Global Oil Infrastructure Tracker: dataset of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) transmission pipeline projects and their development; includes all global oil transmission pipelines and all in-development NGL transmission pipelines of pre-determined size thresholds.
- Global Gas Infrastructure Tracker: dataset of natural gas transmission pipeline projects and liquified natural gas (LNG) import and export terminals; includes all LNG terminals regardless of threshold, and gas transmission pipelines over predetermined size thresholds.
- Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker: dataset of oil and gas-fired power plants; includes units with capacities of 50 MW or more (20 MW or more in the European Union and the United Kingdom).
- Europe Gas Tracker: dataset of gas infrastructure (gas pipelines, LNG terminals, gas-fired power plants, and gas extraction sites) in the European Union (EU), with some components covered in non-EU countries as well.
- Africa Gas Tracker: dataset of regional gas infrastructure, covering gas pipelines, LNG terminals, gas-fired power plants, and gas extraction sites in Africa.
- Asia Gas Tracker: dataset of operating or in-development gas infrastructure in Asia.
- Global Solar Power Tracker: documents operating utility-scale solar farms with a capacity of 1 MW or more and announced, pre-construction, construction, and shelved projects with capacities greater than 20 MW.
- Global Wind Power Tracker: documents wind farm phases with capacities of 10 MW or more.
- Global Geothermal Power Tracker: documents geothermal power plant units with capacities of 30 MW or more.
- Global Nuclear Power Tracker: documents nuclear power plant units of any capacity and status.
- Global Bioenergy Power Tracker: tracks bioenergy units with capacities of 30 MW or more at power facilities that exclusively burn biofuels.
- Global Hydropower Tracker: documents hydroelectric power plants with capacities of 75 MW or more.
- Portal Energético para América Latina (Latin America Energy Portal): tracks power plants, pipelines, LNG terminals, extraction areas, coal mines, wind farms, and solar farms located in Latin America and the Caribbean.
