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Page added on July 8, 2010
The hunt for energy is not going to be pretty
The world’s energy needs are expected to double by 2050 (as we simultaneously try to halve CO2 emissions). Peter Voser, the chief executive of Shell, told an audience at the London Business School on Monday that he expects the number of cars and trucks on the road to rise from 900 million to 2 billion by the middle of the century. “Even assuming heroic steps to use energy more efficiently, the world will need to develop all energy types”, from fossil fuels to nuclear power to alternative energy. Furthermore, he warned, “unless we concentrate on increasing energy supplies, I think we could experience shortages in the decades ahead”. The International Energy Agency reckons that investment of $1.1 trillion annually in new energy projects will be required for the next 20 years.
This is bound to bring new risks. Deepwater drilling may be banned or priced out of the market. New technologies for extracting petroleum from Canadian oil sands, or natural gas from American shale beds are also controversial, because of their environmental impact. Does the BP spill make them seem unacceptably dangerous, or – relatively – more palatable?
And what about nuclear power? The growing demand for energy, coupled with the desire to reduce reliance on fossil fuels has persuaded many countries to restart nuclear power programmes which had been on hold for decades (in some cases, since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986). Sweden and Finland have both recently decided to build new plants and the UK is about to start building a new generation of reactors to replace old stock.
But again, public opinion on nuclear power, post-BP, could shift. The raw materials of the nuclear industry are not difficult to extract, and tried and tested reactor designs can be easily replicated. However, the Deepwater Horizon spill hardly reinforces confidence in big companies’ ability to operate safely, even if they say they can, and the consequences of a serious nuclear disaster are even more terrifying. Then there is the issue of securing investment in nuclear power, by its nature long-term and dependent on consistent government policy. Will governments indemnify the nuclear power plant operators – foreign, these days, in many cases – against not only their own accidents, but the backlash after someone else’s?
The need to reduce our budget deficits is supposed to spell the end for big government. But the need to secure energy supply – and protect the public from environmental disasters – will require more state involvement, not less. The shift to new energy sources has always required government support: that is how the UK’s shift from coal to gas was achieved. There is an awful lot of scope for making mistakes, for example by backing the wrong technologies.
Even without big blunders, such transitions happen slowly: it takes about 30 years for a proven technology to achieve a one per cent market share. Furthermore, energy markets are no longer domestic, but neither are they truly global. They are, rather, messily interlinked and interdependent.
5 Comments on "The hunt for energy is not going to be pretty"
Plan B Economics on Thu, 8th Jul 2010 9:45 am
We give humanity too much credit. There’s 100% chance there will be shortages. The only thing that can stop human greed is human greed. We will again crash head-first into high oil prices.
RICHARD RALPH ROEHL on Thu, 8th Jul 2010 11:01 am
I’ve always enjoyed the cyberspace pens of Joe Bageant (Sage and Court Jester) and Jim Kunstler (a Curmudgeon Soothsayer).
Joe posted a piece on the Information Clearing House website today that more or less explains what is happening. In a nutshell Bageant says the Amerikan Way, presently being emulated by the Chinese and others, is toxic to the HOST ORGANISM that we call Earth… and it serves as a recipe for pushing humans down the road to extinction. Yesss… extinction is the poisonous fruit of the Amerikan Way, perhaps the most violent, profligate and destructive life-$tyle in human history. Such as it is with the UNITED $TATES OF PERPETUAL WAR PROFITEERING.
It seems that Capitalism (the Amerikan Way) has happily promoted the DOCTRINE OF PERPETUAL GROWTH of the human population and the global consumer economy on Planet Earth (a.k.a.: the Garden of Seed-in or Mother Nature). Unfortunately… the Earth (nature) is a closed looped system of FINITE space and FINITE resources. It cannot sustain the current consumption levels of human civilization… let alone suffer additional exponential growth. Perpetual growth in a closed looped system (the Earth) is not progress. It is cancer! Full blown cancer!
Joe claims that Amerikans are clueless. Yes, most of them are! Some of them, of course, are willfully ignorant… because denial (and deny-all) is easier to handle than the reality of being on the Titanic… as it sinks off the coast of Easter Island. In any event… WHERE THERE IS NO INSIGHT, THE PEOPLE PERISH… and WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY, THEY FIRST MAKE MAD(off)!
Peak Oil is you on Thu, 8th Jul 2010 8:13 pm
Well put, Richard Ralph Roehl. Yes, most of us Americans are not aware that we are on the Titanic anchored off the coast of Easter Island. What can we do though? Too many us are oblivious to what’s happening. Just a few of us know what is going on. Even fewer realize exactly what kind of trouble we are in. Nice. Collapse. It is a comin’.
mario rouillardo on Fri, 9th Jul 2010 3:49 am
While there seems to be a coordinate blackout from the media about this subject, what I have found on the Internet is that there a whole lot of people getting aware of the problem but feel completely isolated. Even so, every time I tried to speak to my frends and family about this, that angry them, strange. It about time we push all the meda around us to talk about these issues openly. That’s what I doing right now.
KenZ300 on Fri, 9th Jul 2010 10:43 am
It is time for the public and politicians to support the transition to alternative energy.
The time for transition is now. We must speed up the transition to alternatives by offering incentives for wind, solar, geothermal and biofuels.
The oil and coal industries have had tax incentives for decades. Let’s reduce the oil and coal incentives and increase the incentives for sustainable energy.