Energy Options for the Future—Policies and Planning

Previous chapters have attempted to evaluate our current and future energy options. They have also described the immense changes that have taken place in energy-supply patterns in different countries over the past few years, more especially since 1973. It was then first generally realised that: oil and natural gas could not indefinitely supply two-thirds of the world’s commercial-energy needs; reserves were limited; and within 50 years they could run out. Consequently, in most industrialised countries a substantial switch to fuels other than oil and gas has recently taken place. The coal industry is again expanding steadily despite the CO₂ build-up and acid rain for which it is partly responsible, and vigorous investment has been undertaken in the nuclear industries notwithstanding the unresolved safety and environmental problems. Considerable interest has also been shown in conservation and renewable-energy sources and in the development of synthetic fuels. At last there is some consensus that unless new patterns of energy use are quickly established, new forms of fuel developed and world energy-demand stabilised, an ‘energy gap’ will inevitably occur at some unspecified date in the future. Unless bridged, this could undermine the whole structure of society as we know it, affecting both the industrialised and Third World countries. Every country that has not secured its own long-term indigenous fuel supplies could face the crippling hardship currently experienced by many poorer countries. The supposed ‘energy affluence’ of the early-1980s in the rich countries is as misleading as the frequent abundance of fruit before a tree dies.