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1 July 2005 The Energy Hobgoblins The great American journalist and social critic H L Mencken could have been thinking of Green politicians when he wrote: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." Despite the appalling track record
of environmental scaremongers from Rachel Carson to Paul Ehrlich
to David Suzuki, the hobgoblin species is not at risk of extinction. An ODT correspondent recently
wrote, "We are at, or very close to, our energy limits now". The latest energy outlook assessment
by ExxonMobil, the world's largest energy company, suggests that
oil production is not likely to peak in the forecast period, 2003-2030. Solid Energy has pointed out that
New Zealand has enormous coal resources - about 10 times as much
per capita as the global average. It has stated that the coal equivalent
of 40 to 50 original Maui gas fields is economically recoverable
at close to today's prices. Bjorn Lomborg, author of The
Sceptical Environmentalist, has noted that the shale oil that
is available in the world is enough to cover current energy consumption
levels for 5000 years and that shale oil will probably be economically
viable within the next 25 years. And our ultimate source of energy,
the sun, is likely to be around for billions of years. It is not good enough for critics
to sneer 'Big Oil' or 'vested interests'. They have to reckon with
facts and expert assessments. Sheik Yamani, founder of the Organisation
of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has often pointed out that the
oil age will come to an end but not for a lack of oil, just as the
Stone Age came to an end but not for a lack of stones. Humans search
constantly for better alternatives. For the next 25 years or so, however,
oil, gas and coal will almost certainly remain the world's primary
energy sources. Production of wind, solar, biomass
and nuclear energy will grow faster, but will still make only a
modest contribution to meeting global energy demand in that period. What the hobgoblin crowd overlooks
is advances in technology. People and their ingenuity are the ultimate
resource. Some of the advances that are occurring
in quite short periods of time are staggering. A recent report out of Japan stated
that a vacuum-insulated refrigerator, which comes with a buzzer
if the door stays open more than 30 seconds, uses 160 kilowatt-hours
of electricity a year, one-eighth of that needed by standard models
a decade ago. An air-conditioner with a robotic
dust filter cleaner uses 884 kilowatt-hours, less than half of what
decade-old ones consumed. From 1973 to today, Japan's industrial
sector nearly tripled its output, but kept its energy consumption
roughly flat. ExxonMobil estimates that improvements
in vehicle efficiency in North America and Europe will offset growth
in vehicle numbers and the associated fuel demand in the period
to 2030. It estimates that carbon emissions
from the increased vehicle fleet in these countries will be at or
slightly below 2003 levels in 2030. Moreover, on the supply side, technological
advances are opening up new and cheaper ways of discovering and
exploiting energy resources. This optimistic outlook is not
clouded by the issue of global warming, which needs to be considered
seriously but rationally. As Julian Morris, executive director
of the International Policy Network, recently pointed out, dramatic
warming is unlikely to result from humanity's emissions in the next
century. "The best estimates suggest a moderate warming of
between one and two degrees Celsius - a change that may even be
beneficial. In a slightly warmer world with more carbon dioxide,
agricultural output would increase, and more food would be available
at a lower cost." Temperature increases in New Zealand
are expected to be only around two thirds of any global increase.
The benefits for agriculture, health and recreation need to be set
alongside negative consequences of climate change. Morris noted that in 2004, under
the auspices of the Copenhagen Consensus, a group of eminent academics
concluded that eradicating communicable diseases, improving access
to clean water and freeing world trade would provide the greatest
benefits for the world's people. By contrast, they ranked reductions
in greenhouse gas emissions an extremely bad investment. Economic and environmental goals
sometimes - though by no means always - involve trade-offs. But
the interests of poorer people (including in New Zealand) in getting
richer should not be sacrificed at the altar of environmental mythology.
Those emphasising environmental goals above all else are often among
the better off in society. In the long term, it is inconsistent
to be concerned about the world running out of fossil fuels and
human-induced climate change. There are enough real problems in the world to be worried about without manufacturing imaginary ones. Roger Kerr is the executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable. For more information, contact: Roger Kerr Web: www.nzbr.org.nz |