Issues and Concerns
The coming of the hydrocarbon age in the twentieth century enabled the development of a world economy based on the consumption of oil, coal and natural gas. The consequences of the rapid growth of energy consumption have become more apparent in recent years and policy makers have reacted in various ways to the challenge posed to the sustainability of life on our planet.
Whatever concerns have been expressed and measures taken, even the most optimistic environmentalist will concede that for the foreseeable future oil, coal and natural gas will remain important sources of energy. The main uses will remain:
• Oil - transport is a captive market for motor fuels, jet fuel etc. There are no mass market alternatives that will significantly reduce reliance on traditional fuels for the next few decades.
• Natural gas has gradually displaced coal and oil in power generation and in industrial uses, particularly in the developed world. The development of liquefied natural gas and gas-to-liquids technology further reinforce the growing importance of gas.
• Coal's share of total primary energy demand has been capped in the industrialised world as electricity is generated increasingly from oil and natural gas. Also, the decline of heavy industries in the developed world has played a role in coal's relative decline. But the rise of China and India as economic powers - together they possess 20 per cent of the world's coal reserves - poses a major challenge to hopes of capping emissions of greenhouse gases.
Environmental concerns become an issue
Beginning in the mid-1960s, environmental concerns have risen higher and higher up the political agenda. In 1972, one of the seminal texts that first articulated the environmental problems that lay ahead was published. The Club of Rome's study The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on "The Predicament of Mankind" argued that if key fundamental indicators - population, industrialisation, pollution, food production, energy consumption, and resource depletion - continued unchecked they would make life as we understand it unsustainable on our planet at some point in the following 100 years.
At the time of the Club of Rome's report, energy demand was expanding rapidly. In the second half of the 1960s average annual growth was 5.4 per cent. The Club of Rome warned of the environmental consequences of burning hydrocarbons, the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the dangers of global warming. The energy industries have a crucial role to play in this process, as 80% of the human originated greenhouse gas emissions are energy related.
Greenhouse gas is a term used for gases which are mainly generated as a result of burning coal, oil and natural gas. The main greenhouse gases are:
• Carbon dioxide (CO2)
• Methane (CH4)
• Nitrous Oxide (N2O)
• Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
• Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)
• Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6)
The first three of these greenhouse gases account for 50%, 18% and 6% respectively of the overall global warming effect arising from human activities. Although there are considerable uncertainties in the process of projecting future trends and thus wide margins for error in the estimates, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a rise of 1.4 to 5.8 °C in global mean surface temperatures over the next 100 years. The impact of warming, even at the lower end of this range, is likely to be considerable with more heat waves, more intense precipitation events, violent storms, expanding deserts and melting ice caps, causing sea levels to rise and engulf coastal regions.
Response to the Wake-Up Call
The response to this environmental wake-up call has developed in three successive waves:
• First Wave - Clean Air
• Second Wave - End of the nuclear dream and improved energy efficiency
• Third Wave - Global Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol