Shell 2025 scenarios highlight vulnerability of the globalised world

Shell accepts peak oil theory

Energy security and the lack of a European common energy policy were the main concerns raised at a debate about Royal Dutch Shell’s Global Scenarios to 2025. Energy has moved high up the EU’s external relations agenda according to Commissioner Piebalgs.

..
The energy chapter of the Scenarios 2025 report is particularly interesting. 2004 has been an “energy watershed”, according to the report. “The energy sector appears to have entered a new era, as renewed worries are increasingly expressed about the long-term balance between energy demand and supply”. Three major discontinuities have led to this deeper structural change:

…uncertainties over reserves and energy security: the report is surprisingly open about the seriousness of the “peak oil debate” (“the increased risk of reaching a peak in oil supplies in the relatively near future has been debated for decades. However, the failure of previous warnings to materialise is no reason to dismiss the new ones”)

EurActiv