Energy: Meeting soaring demand
Energy: Meeting soaring demand
By Alex Kirby, BBC News website environment correspondent, Tuesday, 9 November, 2004
The first problem with energy is that we are running short of traditional sources of supply.
The International Energy Agency says the world will need almost 60% more energy in 2030 than in 2002, and fossil fuels will still meet most of its needs.
We depend on oil for 90% of our transport, and for food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and the entire bedrock of modern life.
But oil industry experts estimate that current reserves will only last for about 40 years.
Views vary about how much more will be found or made economically viable to use.
Pessimists predict production will start declining within 15 years, while optimists say we won't have to worry for a century - though rising prices are likely to push us towards alternative energy sources anyway.
Gas, often a suitable replacement for oil, won't last indefinitely either.
There's plenty of coal, but it's still usually hard to use without causing high pollution.
Worrying signs
Not everyone depends on the fossil trio, though. Nearly a third of today's world population (6.1bn people) have no electricity or other modern energy supplies, and another third have only limited access.
About 2.5 billion people have only wood or other biomass for energy - often bad for the environment, almost always bad for their health.
That's the second problem - understandably, they want the better life that cheap and accessible energy offers.
But if everyone in developing countries used the same amount of energy as the average consumer in high income countries does, the developing world's energy use would increase more than eightfold between 2000 and 2050.
The signs are already there. In the first half of 2003 China's car sales rose by 82% compared with the same period in 2002.
Its demand for oil is expected to double in 20 years.
In India sales of fuel-guzzling sports utility vehicles account for 10% of all vehicle purchases, and could soon overtake car sales. And the developed world is not standing still.
In the last decade, US oil use has increased by almost 2.7 million barrels a day - more oil than India and Pakistan use daily altogether.
Crossing continents
Where our energy comes from is a third problem - energy sources are often long distances from the point of consumption.
Centralised energy generation and distribution systems are fairly new.
A couple of centuries ago virtually everyone would have depended on the fuel they could find within a short distance of home.
Now, the energy for our fuel, heat and light travel vast distances to reach us, sometimes crossing not only continents but political and cultural watersheds on the way.
These distances create a whole host of challenges from oil-related political instability to the environmental risks of long-distance pipelines.
But even if we could somehow indefinitely conjure up enough energy for everyone who wants it, without risking conflict and mayhem in bringing it back home, there would still be an enormous problem - how to use the energy without causing unacceptably high levels of damage to the natural world.
Counting cost
The most obvious threat is the prospect that burning fossil fuels is intensifying natural climate change and heating the Earth to dangerous levels.
But forget the greenhouse effect if you want. There are still real costs that go with the quest for and use of energy: air and water pollution, impaired health, acid rain, deforestation, the destruction of traditional ways of life.
It's one of the most vicious circles the planetary crisis entails.
Cheap, available energy is essential for ending poverty: ending poverty is key to easing the pressures on the planet from the abjectly poor who have no choice but to eat the seed corn. But the tank is running dry.
It doesn't have to be like this. Our energy use is unsustainable, but we already know what a benign alternative would look like.
All we have to do is decide that we will get there, and how.
It will make vastly more use of renewable energy, from inexhaustible natural sources like the Sun and the seas.
Nuclear power?
One key fuel may well be hydrogen, which is a clean alternative for vehicles and is in abundant supply as it is a chemical component of water.
But large amounts of energy are needed to produce hydrogen from water, so it will not come into its own as a clean alternative until renewable energy is widely available for the process.
Some analysts suggest that nuclear power will be needed to bridge the gap between now and the renewable future.
Many environmentalists (but not all) are deeply unhappy with the idea - fission technology has been in use for a generation, but concerns remain about radioactive waste disposal and the risk of accidents.
Nuclear fusion - a new form of nuclear power which combines atoms rather than splitting them apart - could be ready by around 2040, but that is too long to wait.
However, we can also get energy to do several jobs at once, as combined heat and power plants do. And we can use less of it by becoming energy-efficient.
The British government estimates that 56% of energy used in UK homes could be cut using currently available technologies - yet the original Model T Ford did more miles to the gallon than the average Ford vehicle produced today in the US.
We can install power stations on our roofs by covering our houses with solar tiles, or buying miniature wind turbines the size of a satellite dish.
Practically, the energy crisis is soluble. But reaching the broad sunlit uplands will mean a drastic mental gear change for policy-makers and consumers alike.
Read the entire article
Showing posts with label energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label energy. Show all posts
Friday, October 07, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
How to Escape the Oil Trap by Fareed Zakaria
How to Escape the Oil Trap by Fareed Zakaria
How to Escape the Oil Trap
Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are now awash in oil money, and no matter what the controls, some is surely getting to unsavory groups.
By Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, August 29, 2005 U.S. Edition
If I could change one thing about American foreign policy, what would it be? The answer is easy, but it's not something most of us think of as foreign policy. I would adopt a serious national program geared toward energy efficiency and independence. Reducing our dependence on oil would be the single greatest multiplier of American power in the world. I leave it to economists to sort out what expensive oil does to America's growth and inflation prospects. What is less often noticed is how crippling this situation is for American foreign policy. "Everything we're trying to do in the world is made much more difficult in the current environment of rising oil prices," says Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World." Consider:
Terror. Over the last three decades, Islamic extremism and violence have been funded from two countries, Saudi Arabia and Iran, not coincidentally the world's first and second largest oil exporters. Both countries are now awash in money and, no matter what the controls, some of this cash is surely getting to unsavory groups and individuals.
Democracy. The centerpiece of Bush's foreign policy—encouraging democracy in the Middle East—could easily lose steam in a world of high-priced oil. Governments reform when they have to. But many Middle Eastern governments are likely to have easy access to huge surpluses for years, making it easier for them to avoid change. Saudi Arabia will probably have a budget surplus of more than $26 billion this year because the price of oil is so much higher than anticipated. That means it can keep the old ways going, bribing the Wahhabi imams, funding the Army and National Guard, spending freely on patronage programs. (And that would still leave plenty to fund dozens of new palaces and yachts.) Ditto for other corrupt, quasi-feudal oil states.
Iran. Tehran has launched a breathtakingly ambitious foreign policy, moving determinedly on a nuclear path, and is also making a bid for influence in neighboring Iraq. This is nothing less than an attempt to replace the United States as the dominant power in the region. And it will prove extremely difficult to counter—more so, given Tehran's current resources. Despite massive economic inefficiency and corruption, Iran today has built up foreign reserves of $29.87 billion.
Russia. A modern, Westernized Russia firmly anchored in Europe would mean peace and stability in the region. But a gush of oil revenues has strengthened the Kremlin's might, allowing Putin to consolidate power, defund his opponents, destroy competing centers of power and continue his disastrous and expensive war in Chechnya. And the "Russian model" appears to have taken hold in much of Central Asia.
Latin America. After two decades of political and economic progress in Latin America, we are watching a serious anti-American movement gain ground. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela—emboldened by his rising oil wealth—was the first in recent years to rebel against American influence, but similar sentiments are beginning to be heard in other countries, from Ecuador to Bolivia.
I could go on, from Central Asia to Nigeria. In almost every region, efforts to produce a more stable, peaceful and open world order are being compromised and complicated by high oil prices. And while America spends enormous time, money and effort dealing with the symptoms of this problem, we are actively fueling the cause.
Rising oil prices are the result of many different forces coming together. We have little control over some of them, like China's growth rate. But America remains the 800-pound gorilla of petroleum demand. In 2004, China consumed 6.5 million barrels of oil per day. The United States consumed 20.4 million barrels, and demand is rising. That is because of strong growth, but also because American cars—which guzzle the bulk of oil imports—are much less efficient than they used to be. This is the only area of the American economy in which we have become less energy-efficient than we were 20 years ago, and we are the only industrialized country to have slid backward in this way. There's one reason: SUVs. They made up 5 percent of the American fleet in 1990. They make up almost 54 percent today.
It's true that there is no silver bullet that will entirely solve America's energy problem, but there is one that goes a long way: more-efficient cars. If American cars averaged 40 miles per gallon, we would soon reduce consumption by 2 million to 3 million barrels of oil a day. That could translate into a sustained price drop of more than $20 a barrel. And getting cars to be that efficient is easy. For the most powerful study that explains how, read "Winning the Oil Endgame" by energy expert Amory Lovins (or go to oilendgame.com). I would start by raising fuel-efficiency standards, providing incentives for hybrids and making gasoline somewhat more expensive (yes, that means raising taxes). Of course, the energy bill recently passed by Congress does none of these things.
We don't need a Manhattan Project to find our way out of our current energy trap. The technologies already exist. But what we're searching for is perhaps even harder—political leadership and vision.
Read at the original source
How to Escape the Oil Trap
Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are now awash in oil money, and no matter what the controls, some is surely getting to unsavory groups.
By Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, August 29, 2005 U.S. Edition
If I could change one thing about American foreign policy, what would it be? The answer is easy, but it's not something most of us think of as foreign policy. I would adopt a serious national program geared toward energy efficiency and independence. Reducing our dependence on oil would be the single greatest multiplier of American power in the world. I leave it to economists to sort out what expensive oil does to America's growth and inflation prospects. What is less often noticed is how crippling this situation is for American foreign policy. "Everything we're trying to do in the world is made much more difficult in the current environment of rising oil prices," says Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World." Consider:
Terror. Over the last three decades, Islamic extremism and violence have been funded from two countries, Saudi Arabia and Iran, not coincidentally the world's first and second largest oil exporters. Both countries are now awash in money and, no matter what the controls, some of this cash is surely getting to unsavory groups and individuals.
Democracy. The centerpiece of Bush's foreign policy—encouraging democracy in the Middle East—could easily lose steam in a world of high-priced oil. Governments reform when they have to. But many Middle Eastern governments are likely to have easy access to huge surpluses for years, making it easier for them to avoid change. Saudi Arabia will probably have a budget surplus of more than $26 billion this year because the price of oil is so much higher than anticipated. That means it can keep the old ways going, bribing the Wahhabi imams, funding the Army and National Guard, spending freely on patronage programs. (And that would still leave plenty to fund dozens of new palaces and yachts.) Ditto for other corrupt, quasi-feudal oil states.
Iran. Tehran has launched a breathtakingly ambitious foreign policy, moving determinedly on a nuclear path, and is also making a bid for influence in neighboring Iraq. This is nothing less than an attempt to replace the United States as the dominant power in the region. And it will prove extremely difficult to counter—more so, given Tehran's current resources. Despite massive economic inefficiency and corruption, Iran today has built up foreign reserves of $29.87 billion.
Russia. A modern, Westernized Russia firmly anchored in Europe would mean peace and stability in the region. But a gush of oil revenues has strengthened the Kremlin's might, allowing Putin to consolidate power, defund his opponents, destroy competing centers of power and continue his disastrous and expensive war in Chechnya. And the "Russian model" appears to have taken hold in much of Central Asia.
Latin America. After two decades of political and economic progress in Latin America, we are watching a serious anti-American movement gain ground. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela—emboldened by his rising oil wealth—was the first in recent years to rebel against American influence, but similar sentiments are beginning to be heard in other countries, from Ecuador to Bolivia.
I could go on, from Central Asia to Nigeria. In almost every region, efforts to produce a more stable, peaceful and open world order are being compromised and complicated by high oil prices. And while America spends enormous time, money and effort dealing with the symptoms of this problem, we are actively fueling the cause.
Rising oil prices are the result of many different forces coming together. We have little control over some of them, like China's growth rate. But America remains the 800-pound gorilla of petroleum demand. In 2004, China consumed 6.5 million barrels of oil per day. The United States consumed 20.4 million barrels, and demand is rising. That is because of strong growth, but also because American cars—which guzzle the bulk of oil imports—are much less efficient than they used to be. This is the only area of the American economy in which we have become less energy-efficient than we were 20 years ago, and we are the only industrialized country to have slid backward in this way. There's one reason: SUVs. They made up 5 percent of the American fleet in 1990. They make up almost 54 percent today.
It's true that there is no silver bullet that will entirely solve America's energy problem, but there is one that goes a long way: more-efficient cars. If American cars averaged 40 miles per gallon, we would soon reduce consumption by 2 million to 3 million barrels of oil a day. That could translate into a sustained price drop of more than $20 a barrel. And getting cars to be that efficient is easy. For the most powerful study that explains how, read "Winning the Oil Endgame" by energy expert Amory Lovins (or go to oilendgame.com). I would start by raising fuel-efficiency standards, providing incentives for hybrids and making gasoline somewhat more expensive (yes, that means raising taxes). Of course, the energy bill recently passed by Congress does none of these things.
We don't need a Manhattan Project to find our way out of our current energy trap. The technologies already exist. But what we're searching for is perhaps even harder—political leadership and vision.
Read at the original source
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