Why save energy?
Energy is the cornerstone in the evolution of mankind. The discovery of how to make fire, the steam engine, making use of oil – all have improved the standard of living for billions of people. We have become dependant on cheap fuels.
Most of our energy, some 86%, comes from non-renewable sources. The world’s energy consumption is growing. But our access to cheap energy is declining. Our energy inefficiency makes us vulnerable to soaring energy prices.
The hardships do not seem to become less severe in future. Within only a few generations we will have depleted most of our key energy resources to a bare minimum. To extract the last remnants, it will take more energy or more money than they actually contain.
Energy supply - how safe, how cheap?
Energy power and pricing power is being concentrated in fewer hands, some in politically unstable regions. 80% of the world’s 64 largest oil producing nations have peaked and are facing declining production. The volatile, high energy prices feed the anxiety that energy demand can actually begin to outstrip the supply capacity for ’the black gold’.
Most of the oil reserves lie in just four countries. This makes the safe and cheap energy supply, on which we rely, sensitive to even small technical or political disturbances.
Oil enough? 
We consume 3 times more oil and gas liquids than we discover. The gap between growing consumption and diminishing new discoveries is becoming wider.
Source: The Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), Newsletter No. 51, March 2005, compiled by C.J.Campbell, Staball Hill, Ballydehob, Co. Cork, Ireland.
How long will the energy ressources last? It took 300 million years to form fossil energy. But within only a few generations we can deplete most of our key energy resources to a minimum. Oil is expected to last only another 40 years before it takes more energy to extract the last drops than they actually contain, predicts BP (British Petroleum). Gas reserves may last some 60 years. Whereas there is about 41 years supply of Uranium known at this stage to be available, according to the World Nuclear Association. If prices grow considerably, making marginal uranium finds economic, a few extra decades may be added.
If coal is needed to compensate for the decline in the other main energy resources, then our coal reserves may last less than 125 years. This is the situation even if we calculate with a yearly growth in world energy demand of only 1% for oil and 1.5% for natural gas – which is a lower growth rate than we see today. |
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