newsroom

TODAY Friday 15 August 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: We Span the Energy Globe

In the context of the propaganda muscling in preparation for the Kyoto conference on climate change this December, a number of recent developments in the energy world merit some attention.

1. Oil remains cheap, popular, and more plentiful than many had supposed. According to figures released last month by British Petroleum, the world's "proven" reserves of oil actually increased 2.0% last year. 25% of these reserves lie under Saudi Arabia, 4% under the United States and Canada.

Because the price of oil declined, because there was a cold winter in North America and Europe, and because aggregate GDP climbed in Asia and Latin America, the world consumption of oil increased 2.4% in 1996, twice the rate of increase in 1995.

The rise in proven reserves is ascribed generally to three factors: advances in geological mapping reduce guesswork for prospectors; new drilling technologies allow for economic recovery of deposits remaining in old sites; and more governments now welcome multinational companies better equipped to find and extract oil than the local state monopolies. Although industry analysts expect that increases in consumption must sooner or later perennially outstrip increases in reserves, the record since the Energy Crisis of the 1970s is basically one of dual growth.

2. Rates of 1996 growth in the proven reserves and consumption of natural gas are generally considered to be greater than those of oil, though precise figures are yet to be announced. There is a near-frenzy of internationally-funded gas projects exploiting hitherto untapped deposits in South Asia, Latin America, and the former Soviet republics that surround the Caspian Sea.

A new and important change is that many of the gasfields and much of the gas drilling are now in the hands of the oil companies. If Kyoto produces a treaty that requires specific greenhouse gas reductions in the near future, most of those reductions will be achieved by a combination of conservation measures and switches in fossil fuel use from coal and oil to natural gas. That the oil companies could actually profit from such a switch is a fact of considerable diplomatic and political significance.

3. Renewable sources of energy are both better and worse poised to capture an increasing share of the market. The bad news is that the deregulation of electrical utilities will lead almost everywhere to a reduction in local utility-funded subsidies for solar and wind. Those subsidies will now have to be borne by consumers willing to pay a premium for green power or by venture capital or by philanthropies. The good news is that the costs of renewables-produced energy continue to fall, though they are not yet competitive with the costs of gas-produced energy.

There is an excellent, hardheaded new study recently issued by a consortium of five organizations: the Alliance to Save Energy; the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Tellus Institute; and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report is called "Energy Innovations: A Prosperous Path to a Clean Environment," and copies are available from the Alliance to Save Energy. The authors describe the steps needed to go down what they call the "Innovation Path," wherein United States air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced while productivity incr
re specific recommendations for policy changes, financial incentives, and new technical standards; the overall thrust is market-oriented. By 2030, say the authors, nuclear power could be phased out, coal use could be one-quarter what it is today, and oil use about three-quarters. Natural gas would stay about the same, and renewables would go way up (the lion's share, by the way, would come with a big expansion in the use of biomass after 2010).

Meanwhile, another consortium has been busy pushing solar energy. The Edison Electric Institute, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Solar Energy Industry Association have joined with European partners to establish a new non-profit called Solar Century, whose mission will be to foment more investments and sales in solar technologies, particularly photovoltaics. The group is headed by the estimable Jeremy Leggett (the most important instigator of the dialog between enviros and insurance companies), and promises an unusual combination of high-mindedness and oomph.

4. And, lest we forget, two weeks ago brought the news that the orbiting Hubble telescope had captured what Malcolm Browne in the New York Times described as a "faint reddish streak of light." The image came from CL1358+62, a galaxy about 13 billion light-years from Times Square. CL1358+62 now holds the rank as the most distant object ever seen. It is not yet certain what energy source we will employ to get there.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE:

New High Fives, fresh today. Mary Kelly of the Texas Center for Policy Studies surveys the best of the Web pertinent to US/Mexico border environment. Wendy Brawer ranges far and wide to find the best sites on maps and the environment. We are inordinately fond of cartography and West Texas around here, and so announce these offerings with special satisfaction.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

8/14: Up in Flames
8/13: Environmentalism for Grown-Ups
8/12: Right to No
8/11: Cleavage
8/08: The Monsters from 12,000 BC
8/07: A Little More Room
8/06: Big Victory, I Guess
8/05: Necessary Vulgarization
8/04: More Crime, Please
8/01: Wise Use, Smart Use

To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.

 

search | Archives | free newsletter | home

Let us know what you think: listen@libtree.org