Wow. Shell Oil CEO sends a note to all Shell employees - and obviously intended for wider distribution, as well - in effect conceding that peak oil is well on the way, and suggesting the coming decades are going to be very interesting indeed:
Regardless of which route we choose, the world’s current predicament limits our maneuvering room. We are experiencing a step-change in the growth rate of energy demand due to population growth and economic development, and Shell estimates that after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand.
As a result, society has no choice but to add other sources of energy - renewables, yes, but also more nuclear power and unconventional fossil fuels such as oil sands. Using more energy inevitably means emitting more CO2 at a time when climate change has become a critical global issue.
There are, he writes, two possible responses to this problem - which he terms “Scramble” and “Blueprints.” The former sounds a lot like what we might be doing in the Mideast:
In the Scramble scenario, nations rush to secure energy resources for themselves, fearing that energy security is a zero-sum game, with clear winners and losers. The use of local coal and homegrown biofuels increases fast.
Taking the path of least resistance, policymakers pay little attention to curbing energy consumption - until supplies run short. Likewise, despite much rhetoric, greenhouse gas emissions are not seriously addressed until major shocks trigger political reactions. Since these responses are overdue, they are severe and lead to energy price spikes and volatility.
The other route to the future is less painful, even if the start is more disorderly. This Blueprints scenario sees numerous coalitions emerging to take on the challenges of economic development, energy security and environmental pollution through cross-border cooperation.
Much innovation occurs at the local level, as major cities develop links with industry to reduce local emissions. National governments introduce efficiency standards, taxes and other policy instruments to improve the environmental performance of buildings, vehicles and transport fuels.
If in fact this is the real deal - and one would expect the CEO of a major energy company like Shell to have a handle on it - it suggests to me that our goverment, for now at least, has indeed chosen the “Scramble” option. And really - as the biggest bully on the block, the U.S. is well-positioned to win that scramble, though we’d make a heck of a lot of new enemies along the way.
But we’re also uniquely poorly positioned to implement the “Blueprint” scenario. Efficiency standards, taxes and similar “policy instruments” are pretty much explicitly opposed by conservatives; so if that’s the wave of the future, how are we ever going to ride it?
