Energy scarcity and not peak oil needs global focus

(Arab News – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) –As I write these lines on the train from Amersfoot to Frankfurt, with white, fluffy snow as far as the eye can see, the world seems engrossed with the deliberations in Copenhagen, with focus on global warming and carbon emission.

However, in the hullaballoo of this entire debate, the very issue of energy poverty appears to have been sidelined. After all it affects the daily lives of billions — and not millions — of people. By 2050 there may be 10 billion people demanding energy — a daunting prospect, considering that of today’s 6.2 billion people, nearly 2 billion “don’t even have electricity — never flipped a light switch, says Keith O. Rattie, the CEO of Questar Corporation. Rattie projects the global energy demand will in fact grow 30 to 50 percent over the next 20 years and there are no near-term alternatives to fossil fuels.

And this is an interesting conclusion — and cannot be overlooked in the idealism that seems to have got hold of some. The fact is that wind and solar power combined are just one-sixth of 1 percent of American energy consumption. Nuclear? The United States and other rich nations endorse reducing world carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. But Oliver Morton, a science writer, says that if nuclear is to supply only 10 percent of the necessary carbon-free energy, the world must build more than 50 large nuclear power plants a year. Currently five a year are being built.

In fact the issue is where all this energy is going to come from?

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