Nearly unnoticed by government and industry, the world energy economy has entered a period of rapid change that may be as far reaching as the computer and telecommunications revolutions.
Many giant oil, auto, and electric utility companies may find themselves in the position of IBM: overtaken by smaller competitors that are better able to anticipate the coming revolution.
That is the stark argument of a book published in October by W.W. Norton & Co., New York, called "Power Surge: Guide to the Coming Energy Revolution."
In the book, authors Christopher Flavin and Nicholas Lenssen, respectively vice-president for research and senior researcher at WorldWatch Institute, Washington, point the way for an economical transition to an efficient, sustainable world energy system.
Flavin and Lenssen claim to have worked out an energy scenario in which carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere stabilize during the next 50 years, as called for in the Rio climate treaty. Their prediction is said to be based on a technique pioneered by analysts at Shell Oil Co.
EFFICIENCY
The authors say their vision requires highly efficient use of all fuels, extensive deployment of decentralized technologies, and reliance on methane and hydrogen as gaseous energy carriers in the long term.
"Virtually all analysts agree that efficient use of energy is the cornerstone of a more sustainable energy system," Flavin and Lenssen wrote.
"To hold carbon dioxide emissions to about the current level in 2025 and then cut them substantially, we estimate that the world will need to double current energy productivity over the next four to five decades."
As a measure of how difficult this may be, the authors say it took the U.S. 72 years to double the level of energy productivity, it had in 1921. They left unsaid, however, the fact that only since 1973 have successive oil price shocks provided a real incentive for major cuts in fuel waste.
FUELS MIX
A second key to stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is seen by Flavin and Lenssen as a shift in the mix of fossil fuels. Their sustainable outlook requires a 73% reduction in coal use by 2023 and a 20% cut in use of oil, some of which would be replaced by natural gas.
"Natural gas resources appear adequate to permit a tripling in global production by 2025," wrote the authors. "Although such estimates are somewhat speculative, our relatively conservative figures suggest that world gas consumption would peak by about 2030, fall sharply after 2050, and be largely phased out by the end of the next century."
To continue the trend away from fossil fuels after 2025, the authors reckon a 75% increase in use of renewable energy will be required between 2025 and 2050. By 2050, renewables would provide more than 50% of primary energy.
"W,e see no technical or economic barriers to such a transition," said Flavin and Lenssen. "Under this scenario the renewable energy industry would have annual revenues of roughly $200 billion in 1993 dollars by 2021-D-twice the 1993 revenues of Exxon Corp."
Copyright 1994 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
