Mining sustainability indicators to classify hydrocarbon development

The role of energy in economic, social and ecological development of a country defines its significance in sustainable development. We propose here a method to classify a nation’s hydrocarbon development into one of five classes: (1) futuristic; (2) conforming; (3) sustainable; (4) unsustainable; or, (5) critical. K means clustering is a method of unsupervised classification in which the clusters cannot be labeled due to their lack of a class value. We propose a unique method to label unsupervised classes which is then used to divide the energy data of nations into five clusters. The labeled clusters are structured in an ID3 decision tree which provides a hierarchical structure to evaluate the hydrocarbon development in a given country. The results indicate some useful and interesting patterns in sustainability indicators.