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Guest Post: Shell Predicts That Natural Gas Or Solar Will Become The No. 1 Energy Source
Submitted by Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com,
Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) has just released new forecasts for its ‘New Lens Scenarios’ program, which aims to predict how current business decision and policies may unfold over time and affect the markets in the future.
Peter Voser, the CEO of Shell, explained that the scenarios “highlight the need for business and government to find ways to collaborate, fostering policies that promote the development and use of cleaner energy and improve energy efficiency.”
The scenarios take two different approaches: one considers the world with a high level of government involvement, and the other looks at the markets when they are given more freedom to develop naturally.
With high government involvement in dictating energy and policies, Shell believes that natural gas will flourish to become the number one energy source in the world over the next couple of decades, overtaking coal and helping to reduce carbon emissions.
It also predicts that hydrogen and electric power cars would become the common methods of transportation and as a result oil prices will drop. This in turn will mean that high-cost unconventional fossil fuels would remain in the ground as it would be economically unfeasible to extract them.
The other scenario exists when the government has taken little interest in the markets and has instead allowed the economy to progress naturally. Fossil fuel demand, especially for coal, would grow around the world. High oil demand would lead to higher prices, which sustain drilling for unconventional reserves in harsh, expensive environments. High energy prices in general will lead to more investment in research of alternative sources of energy, which will eventually cause solar power to become the dominant source of energy on the planet in about 50 years time.
In neither scenario do we manage to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to limit temperature rise to two degrees Celsius.
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Both economically and thermodynamically oil wins.
Until we start fighting wars over hot vacuous deserts you know oil is on top.
Actions speak louder than words.
Besides China has ALL the rare earths.
China has all the refined rare earths. There are mines worlwide. California has one.
Rare earths are very dirty to refine, because they are a tiny proportion of the raw ore, hence "rare"
Most of the 1st world is happy to let China pollute itself to death mining and producing things like this and lead batteries etc.
Surely Bernanke could use his philospher's stone that transmutates debt into money, to transform some common useless item like political rhetoric into tangible rare earth metals, if we really needed it. Afterall he is god.
hi there, i think that a lot of people forget the involvement that government and public funded research projects has had on the modern world we live in.
anyone who denies the technological benefits of projects like the manhattan project, internet (funded by darpa) and lots of other projects, well, you can take your 'government is 100% bad' and go live in a cave. there are a lot of projects that have been funded by government (and taxpayers) and these projects would arguably never have been initiated if the private sector was meant to get involved.
To be honest, if I was spending $2,500,000,000,000 a year and my only notable contribution since 1945 was another way of sending data through existing copper wires, I would probably get fired.
But hey, that's life for us mere mortals in the private sector.
You miss the point, do you think private industry would fund an international space station or Manhattan project. I dont think so, they come after.
You are just picking some made up number and attributing it to a mythical project. I mean the jet engine is another one.
Im a libertarian minded kind if chap but I know some things need a small and sensible govt.
Manhattan Project? ISS?
Think about those for a second.
Still like your argument?
Sorry, but DARPA funding the Internet is an urban legend. Like much of the technology we use today, the core of the Internet was developed by Xerox PARC. This comes from Robert Taylor, who ran the ARPA program that created the Arpanet...which was NOT an Internet. The myth of gov't involvement in the Internet was so widespread, that in 2004 Taylor sent a widely publicized email to fellow geeks to set the record straight.
Just an example :: underfunded PBS vs the wonderful BBC... American television is 100% crap and 100% private.
I sense a lot of antagonism between the two camps of energy.
We need to recognise that we are in a period of flux and that by the end of that period both the traditional and the alternative means of power production will become more and more efficient.
Even more importantly, we might make changes to the way we live, how we buid our homes, the growth of public transport etc etc.
Until then, we need to be mindful about how we go about our daily lives and seek out all efficiencies possible.
the world has a choice between Putinistan and Exxonistan!
One thing is SURE : it'll be Oligarchystan
Blue print of tomorrow : the Oligarchs of state/private do a deal and control the primary source of wealth : energy.
The rest is secondary. We can always make fiat out of toilet paper or vice versa.
But never energy out of human sweat to match primary sources of nature.
Lets face it : with petrodollar fiat and monarchy oil kingdoms we are already there!
two areas of reserach :
1° Photon to electron energy transfer seamlessly... That would be a revolution.
2° Hi density electromagnetic energy in virtual magma cable form in the sky eliminating hi tension cables and correspondent energy loss.
Lets face it : today from source to User, electrical energy made from Nuclear primary source only transmits 20% of the primary energy; the rest is lost to the birds. (I don't know what the energy ratio is from gas turbines but it should be more like 25-30 % at most as the electric cable cross-country loss is the same; its only the reactor/Turbine energy loss which is different.
If we had a virtual electromagnetic wave magma (non physical) electrical transfer grid and direct photon to electron generation in main/substations, we could use it for heat/light and transport as very cheap cost, running it off the sun (and the wind), feeding the electro magnetic grid.
Nobody in Shell/Exxon/Oil -gas majors has that scientific capability, they have such an inbred dinosaur culture!
Where are our new Einsteins in the real areas of innovation; instead of wanking themselves to death by making financial algos for JPM and bankstas!
Hey that just shows ya; I'm a true unicorn! Dream on!
Speaking of dreams and unicorns,
What we really need is a Time Loop Electrical Generator to turn hydrogen into mc2 worth of electricity without any messy intermediate steps.
You do realize magma is hot melted rock, don't you? You are proposing a grid of melted rock to transport energy through the sky.
What happens when a plane flies into your melted rock, hot lava fire rains down on the earth.
Other than being unachievable, requiring more energy to create and maintain, than it could transmit and being unbeleivably dangereous and really quite stupid, its a brilliant idea.
If we are to propose using things that don't exist to solve our current problems, I say we start using dragons for flying transport and energy generation.
you've never been to Fuku; if you can survive fuku magma you will survive the magnetic lava of my imagination. Flux and reflux, its all magmificent.
AGW is a hoax concieved by TPTB to gain ever more control over our lives. It is junk science that has been proven to be based on lies. These "scientists" are cheap political activists, nothing more. Solar in current form is bunk. Batteries are NOT the answer. Natgas is certainly the more plausible of the two...
AGW will be a major drive in the future of 'american' economics.
Witness how 'americans' will farm and extort people who are going to be on the wrong side of AGW.
One thing stands between 'americans' and that dreamed future of them: admitting that 'american' way of life contributed to AGW.
'Americans' can not do that. So it has to be a hoax.
'Americanism', the best thing to ever happen to humanity. Ever.
Wind and solar are only viable when decentralized. In that configuration they are viable in many places now. Too much power is lost in "grid transportation" for centralization of alternative energy to work.
But decentralized energy works against the current system in major way. It is way too democratic, and that's why it will never be permitted to exist.
The problem is not technological or economic, it is political.
Agreed. Widespread energy independence (and food, water, everthing really) would a disaster for Elites public and private.
We are moving rapidly in the other direction. See 'Economic Hitman'. It was 'funny' when 'we' were doing it to brown people in the 3rd world. Get ready to bend over.
It must be noted that of all ways to generate utility-grade electricity, photovoltaic solar cells are by far the most vulnerable to total destruction by EMP.
How do you figure that?
Do you have the belief that there are no electronics, computers or microchips involved in the production of electricity from coal, oil and gas?