Quest for Energy is Race Against Time

This is the point at which the peak-depletion and global-warming imperatives for the big retreat from oil meet. The core question boils down to this: can we progressively replace oil and the other fossil fuels quickly enough to avoid economic calamity as a result of oil shock, climate shock, or both? Oil provides 40 percent of world energy and 90 percent of world transport fuel today.

The more optimistic practitioners in the embryonic clean energy industries, believe our technologies could probably power and fuel the world completely within 10 to 20 years. Given the political will directed at the war against terrorism, this should be very possible.
RE Insider – September 20, 2004 [SolarAccess.com] There are two reasons why society has to get out of oil, and at first sight, they seem contradictory. Firstly, oil is running out. Secondly, we cannot afford to burn it all. Oil is running out because it is a finite resource. Optimists, like the US Department of Energy and the oil companies, estimate that around 2,600 bn barrels are left in known deposits and predictable future discoveries. Pessimists, like the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, reckon on more like 1,000bn barrels.

In a society that has allowed its economies to become geared almost inextricably to growing supplies of cheap oil, the difference is seismic. If there are 2,600bn barrels left, the topping out point – or the so-called peak of depletion – lies far away in the 2030s.

The “growing” and “cheap” parts of the oil-supply equation are feasible until then, at least in principle, and we have enough time to get ready for the hydrogen age that must follow the hydrocarbon age. If there are 1,000bn barrels left, the peak of depletion may be as soon as 2007. The “growing” and “cheap” parts of the equation become impossible, and there is not enough time to make the transition from oil to hydrogen. Economies cannot run without energy and global depression lurks around the corner.

This way of looking at oil, of course, assumes that we can afford to go on burning it for as long as we can find and pump it. Most economists and financial analysts live in a culture that assumes this. But they are wrong. We can not. The reason is global warming.

If we do nothing about our use of fuels, in particular the burning of oil, gas and coal, global warming is also quite capable of sparking the next depression, as well as adversely affecting ecosystems.

This can happen various ways. One involves the $2,000bn (