New Report Highlights Urgency to Find Renewable Sources of Energy

Oil reserves will be depleted by 2041 if current consumption remain as they are now, that is, 85.22 million barrels a day, yearly growth of 1.3 per cent, a new study says.

But there won’t be enough clean, non-fossil fuels available for mass consumption before 2140, the report warns, leaving a gap of around 100 years.

The forecast, made by researchers at University of California, Davis, was published online earlier this month in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. It is based on the theory that long-term investors are good predictors of whether and when new energy technologies will become commonplace.

“Our results suggest it will take a long time before renewable replacement fuels can be self-sustaining, at least from a market perspective,” said study author Debbie Niemeier, a UC Davis professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Niemeier and co-author Nataliya Malyshkina’s objective was to help policymakers “set realistic targets for environmental sustainability and evaluate the progress made toward those goals.”

They based their methodology on market capitalizations and dividends of publicly owned oil companies and alternative-energy companies as predictors because investors tend to be “relative accurate” with “forecasts of future events”.

The researchers say the findings are a warning that current renewable-fuel targets are not ambitious enough to prevent across-the-board damage. “We need stronger policy impetus to push the development of these alternative replacement technologies along,” said Niemeier.

Via: AFP

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