There is a renewed debate on how “real” the energy and resource crisis is in the world. Some say it is based on faulty science and politics and the reality looks different. It seems that we have enough renewable energy which helps use to handle our limited resources of raw materials when using intelligent concepts of reuse after lifetime of our products.
Interesting discussion in the context of the ongoing Climate discussions in Paris and Rick Bosman has clearly outlined the landscape for the present and the future. Bikash Sharma's points about the inevitable links between energy, economy and climate that affect both the rich/developed and the poor/developing Nations are valid. I tend to agree with Padmanabhan Krishnan in that we need to have new strategies to efficiently use the available non-renewable and renewable resources.
To evolve a reasonable strategy, we need to stop all kinds of WARS that a few Nations indulge in (sometimes whimsically) without thinking of consequences. And, a new world order, wherein all Nations are more or less EQUAL, something that the participants in Paris are loudly arguing about, needs to be established. This should help normalise the per capita consumption and regulate the energy requirements across the globe towards achieving the 1.5 to 2 degrees limit, that can yet save this planet for another 100 years, if not more!
In my point of view, we have a real energy and resource crisis, but not in term of amount of energy...
The problem is that our consumption of energy is absolutely not constant in time and in place (day-night, cold/hot weather, big/small cities, big/small companies, etc.) and the production of energy is also not constant (wind, sun) and not sufficient at the good time and at the good place in comparison with the consumption, then we have to store...
The efficiency of storage is weak, and costs a lot.
In addition, energy is a market, with economical and political fluctuations...
This is often an emotive issue where the data and the realities are given less importance in pushing for one set of agenda vs another. I come from the perspectives of a market economy, where economic factors often prove more decisive in shifting supplies or demand through the pricing mechanisms.
Let me try to answer this with a number of examples:
1. Resource scarcity is an alarm that is set off periodically. At the turn of the 20th century, it was fashionable to talk about running out of oil within a decade. Since then, oil production has increased by more than eight folds without straining the oil supplies. The recent surge in shale oil and gas reversed the fears of scarcity into one of what to do with the excess supplies that are blamed for the present low oil prices.
2. Coal is plentiful with more remaining untapped. In the 19th century, the concern was about coal running out, where Jevons (a well known British economist then) suggested that there was no substitute for coal. Jevons of course did not foresee the dawn of "non-existent" technologies that managed to harness oil, gas, nuclear, renewables (or even electricity as a nascent technology then).
3. Fuel usage experienced a transition partly because of a change in technologies (i.e. mobility, power or heat) that shift the costs competitiveness of existing ones. This was illustrated by the replacement of steam engines with internal combustion engines. The resulting effects on fuel usage was the shift from coal to oil. In power generation, we have seen more radical shifts into nuclear, gas and renewables that made oil irrelevant in a number of markets (i.e. Spain, UK, and Scandinavia, to cite a few).
4. In the future, how transport, production, and power generation technologies would evolve are likely to result in another shift in how fuels are going to be used. With power generation largely decarbonized in some markets, the advent of electric cars could potentially impact long term oil & gas demand.
In the end, how the future energy markets would evolve will depend on the costs, technology in energy production and end use consumers, and to a lesser extent, regulatory influence. The latter, often manifested as actions on subsidies, price support or mandated demand, have a mixed record in successfully influencing the transition from one fuel source to another. Economics and market forces in the long run appear to be a better mechanism in allocating capital and resources.
Dear Michael
in my point of view, we have more than a energy crisis, and not only on resources and amount of energy, as Ives Rémond says.
We are in the middle of a great global crisis, where geopolitycal forces decide the future of the world.
Energy is a strategic factor, the main power to get the development of a country or a region...and the main factor to avoid it.
We have enough energy and resources but are mismanaging quite a few with either a limited understanding or a wrong understanding. In certain cases there is a reactive hype and on the other hand there is ignorance. The cost to harness in some cases may be initially high but can come down if practiced in volume. There is a late comer's advantage in the developing world which should not be spurned as it is the world's last chance. This should not lead to prejudicial issues from the developed nations. Once again geography plays a major role. Those near the tropics have an advantage but need investments as they are poorer. Recuperative philosophy always pays. Thank you
Padmanabhan Krishnan
Yes, we really have an Energy and Resources crisis. Its not because of availability of energy and resources but because of our consumption pattern. At present, we are borrowing from our future or in other words we are using resources which are meant to be for our future generations. Educating society for energy consumption patterns and maximum utilization of locally available resources is a way to eradicate present energy crisis.
as above mentioned 'Yes' geography plays a major role .
Dear Michael, this question has kept me busy for sometime as well. If you look at the amount of energy available, there is no crisis. Especially if you involve the incredible amounts of renewable energy that are available, speaking of an energy crisis is crazy. In this article I address this question and argue that we need to change our thinking on energy statistics: http://www.europeanenergyreview.com/site/pagina.php?id=3834&print=1
If we are able to tap into the incredible amounts of renewable energy available, this might tip the balance of power in the world. Where now limited and geographically constrained sources of fossil fuels provide concentrated power to a lucky few, the abundant and geographically distributed nature of renewables could entail a fundamental shift in the balance of power and even a democratization process of energy access. This question is addressed in an article that was published last week: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1S8Sv98SGSARJ
If we look at the still available fossil fuel resources, the real crisis might not be their limited availability, but the amount of climate change inducing greenhouses gases embedded in the known reserves. Research in the renown journal Nature Climate shows that if we are to limit global warming to 2 degrees, as has been internationally agreed upon, 80% of the world's known reserves of coal, 50% natural gas and 30% of oil need to stay in the ground. The amount of greenhouse gases embedded in the currently known reserves exceeds the remaining carbon budget - the amount of carbon we can still emit to limit global warmin to 2 degrees - by three times. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7533/full/nature14016.html
Dear Rick,
Clear comments... Many thanks for that..
With best regards
Michael
I think the world has and continue to face the daunting clean energy services crisis if not the potential renewable energy resource crisis. Despite energy security plays at the crossroads of economic security, environmental security and national security, teh conventional growth oriented national sovereignty energy perspective is given too much time to fail with too little time to succeed the robust and resilient energy strategies for addressing three most pressing challenges of energy poverty, climate change and energy security conundrum.
Interesting discussion in the context of the ongoing Climate discussions in Paris and Rick Bosman has clearly outlined the landscape for the present and the future. Bikash Sharma's points about the inevitable links between energy, economy and climate that affect both the rich/developed and the poor/developing Nations are valid. I tend to agree with Padmanabhan Krishnan in that we need to have new strategies to efficiently use the available non-renewable and renewable resources.
To evolve a reasonable strategy, we need to stop all kinds of WARS that a few Nations indulge in (sometimes whimsically) without thinking of consequences. And, a new world order, wherein all Nations are more or less EQUAL, something that the participants in Paris are loudly arguing about, needs to be established. This should help normalise the per capita consumption and regulate the energy requirements across the globe towards achieving the 1.5 to 2 degrees limit, that can yet save this planet for another 100 years, if not more!
With the economies around the world slowing down and the inevitable crash in the stock market, there will be a movement toward less materialism in the developed countries. It will be less fashionable to drive large gas guzzling cars, and those that do will be looked down upon. Mass transit has lagged in the USA especially in the South. Uber has picked up some of the slack but our roads are very congested in the larger cities.
Wars never solve problems they just create more problems. The Norwegian/Swedish policy of refraining from wars when possible, has served them well. The shale boom has ended because the prices for oil have crashed. China is a know producer of products that have a high rate of failure. The USA is the greatest consumer of Chinese garbage. When our economy fails, China will fail in a major way. It also seems likely that very soon their will be a major disease that will wipe out at least some of the Earth's population. Given the fact that the last line of defiance has been breached with antibiotics. A mutation in the flu virus can plunge us into a pandemic that could spread extremely fast, given world travel.
New technologies will most likely keep pace with the consumption of fuels in the future. Local shortages will persist as they always have.
I have the same opinion with you Michael, we have enough renewable energy resources. The problems is after the industrial revolution, use of energy was in-efficient and in-effective, both in the developed and developing countries. I think, we just shock in the 20 century when we faced the fact that fossil energy resources started to deplete significantly. Now, we should stand at the right point i.e. use of renewable energy resources in efficient and effective as possible as we can.
In order to give you a correct answer, we have to define what you understand for the concept of energy crisis. If we are talking about of lack or energy source, the answer is no, we do not have an energy crisis, because we have enough energy sources to satisfy the current and future energy demand. However, if we talk about a specific type of energy source, the level of reserves and the impact on the environment, then we can say that there is an energy crisis in the case of oil and coal. The reason is the following: We have limited reserves of oil and coal and the impact on the environment due to the use of these energy sources for electricity generation is very high.
If we talk about the use of some types of energy sources as a baseload energy, then we can say that we have an energy crisis, because several renewable energy sources that we now use for electricity generation due to its limited impact on the environment, cannot be used yet as a baseload energy. If we want to reduce the negative impact on the environment due to the use of oil and coal as a baseload energy, then we have only hydropower and nuclear energy as the main energy sources that can be used as a baseload energy, being nuclear energy a very controversial type of energy source for the public opinion of several countries.
If we talk about the level of energy consumption, then we can say that we have an energy crisis, because some energy sources are very ineffective and millions of people do not have no access to electricity.
I fully agree with Jorge's illuminating response that energy crisis and energy resource crisis need to be separated in the discussion. A country may ace energy crisis even with endowed with rich energy resource potential due to its inability to fully harness it or security supply through import. There are on the other hand counties relying heavily on energy import to meet its energy need even after fully harnessing its domestic energy resource potential. Any discussion of energy crisis should embrace the interlinked challenges of addressing the energy poverty, energy security and climate change in the coming decades of 21st century.
Energy and resources are not perennial. Therefore, the need of using renewable energy. In an irreversible process, entropy increases. When entropy increases, available energy decreases. The need of the day is prudent use of natural resources and science along with determined effort to maintain environment for the sake of future generations.
Energy is political Issue related to GDP of the country. Energy Source are in Crisis bur Resource are not. Renewable, basic SUN Light takes longer time for the crisis.
The good news is that the world is not running out of oil, however, the bad news is that the world will never have enough. The world is still nearly 100% oil-based transportation. As long as we keep monopolizing the transport industry with a single fuel, such as oil, we are not going to meet the demand that the world needs. The politics of energy will never permit us to have enough energy for the growing demand. The geo-politics of energy, and of oil in particular, gets in the way all the time. This comes in different forms such as: an accidental fate resulting to the suspension of operating permits in certain countries around the world; the threats that exists (verbal or otherwise) that sends shock waves through the oil prices to disable economic growth projections of countries that otherwise would be able to grow faster; among others. The geopolitical issues present an unclear future. Counting on increased production under the terms and conditions that exist in many countries today are questionable.
It depends on the time scale.
We don't actually have an energy crisis now, but the spaceship Earth, on which we are living, is round with a finite dimension, and therefore its own ressources are finite. The only external ressource is the sun, which now radiates on the earth surface about 10'000 times the nergy needs of mankind. This radiation will last for the next billion years.
The energy crisis relates mainly on the so-called not renewable sources. Within a couple of centuries, we are exhausting sources (coal, oil and gas) that took millions of years to be filled. This gives back to the atmosphere the CO2 that was trappped in these fuels. Therefore, the main today's problem is in the egreenhouse gas effect resulting from this fast back-recycling!
As Yves and Jorge state - we don't have an energy crisis at a global level but arguably we do at regional and local levels, and in certain types of energy too. This is undoubtedly the same with other resources - which depends on the resource and the location. There are however some globally 'endangered materials' which are the focus of ongoing research activities.
However, in order to limit environmental damage from business as usual economic growth and consumption - it could be argued that we actually need to create a set of crises to change how we use materials and resources. The main one being a carbon crisis where only a certain amount of additional carbon can be released into the atmosphere (net carbon release).
A good book looking at materials and environment is http://www.withbotheyesopen.com/read.php it is free online
The word "crisis" is more and more commonly used as soon as humans find any important obstacle onto the way they are walking on. Then I guess "energy crisis" to be a word too often misused specially when there is a fear of no longer havng enough energy to comply with our increasing demand as shown during and since the 1970's, a situation that has started in 1973 , the first oil shock.,Since then the oil price is deeply varying But,the ratio oil reserves/annual production remains constant, about 40 years since ... 40 years. That means that we you still get oil up to end of XXIth century. And coal surely for a few more centuries However, the decarbonation, the new paradigm that has become very popular during the Paris COP 21 Conference, is expected to have a greater and greater (although totally ignored at the moment) impact on the energy policies. You'll see that in the next 15-20 years
You also know that direct (photovoltaics, thermall) or indirect (Wind, Biomass) Solar Energy offers a potential offering many order of magnitude higher that the present tannual world energy demand (about 13 000 MTOE). No risk to run out of enregy!!
For the present generation, the question is not to face a lack of resources, but instead to ignore that any kWh or liter of oil or kg of coal extracted from the ground or generated or consumed has a higher and higher environmental cost not only in terms of CO2 but in increasing the geo- political risks, impact on human health, discreapancies on resource availability.
Dear Jacques,.
many thanks for the clear statements..
You exactly point out the relevant influencing variables on our actual energy and raw material policy. There might be a great need of educational advertising to bring this way of thinking into the general public and political minds.
With best regards
Michael
Dear Michael
I appreciate your comment. Of course, the XXIth century challenge we are here concerned with,( i.e.to actively support only those energy policies that are able to limit the Climate Change impact on our societies), will be better adressed through "a great need of educational advertising... ". This is not the only way, a key one anyway. For such reason, I continue to pay a strong interest to Universities and HE institutions Ecocampus-like (or EMS-like) that are involved in such programmes. it is our common responsability not only to teach what the society should do to be more conscious but to really be of those leaders that inspire both a deep respect and a desire of followship.
Nota Bene : Some of my papers, as shown from your request, are available as hard copies only. If necessary, both of us may possibly find a way to help you to get it;
Dear Jacques,
Fully support your thoughts on the need to spread the awareness via "educational advertising". And this education should be imparted from primary school onwards. Would greatly appreciate if you can digitize your papers and share them on ResearchGate, such that like-minded people can evangelize the philosophy.
Thanks and regards
Gopal
crises are there. but its about changing our habits. and necessity is the mother of invention. together we all can work this out.
Dear Michael,
I think that we have a moderate resource crisis and we are approaching more serious stage. I recommend this book: https://supplyshock.org/brian-czech/
I also have asked a similar question, but it got too little attention so far: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_will_come_first-non-acceptable_global_warming_or_extinction_of_oil_reserves
Dear Michael
in my point of view, we have to go resource energy endless mean solar energy , future energy is not nucluare or hydropower the future energy world has solar energy and thise energy bilions year
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