Economic stakes: the management of energy consumption

Our society is evolving, therefore, in the direction of increasing production. Since it has a need to constantly progress, it encourages a continuous increase in the demand for products and services in the developed countries. The efficiency of the utilisation of energy – what is called the energy intensity (ratio of the consumption of energy to the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP) – is improving year on year in virtually all sectors; in industry, agriculture, in offices and in homes. There is one exception: transport. But that improvement is only sufficient to limit the annual increase in demand for energy, not to reduce the absolute level of demand.

At the same time, our society has a natural tendency to extend the production and availability of products and services to the developing countries. Such is the case in China and India, where a part of the population is beginning to be able to afford material benefits which are quite normal in the rich countries. The inhabitants of the prosperous areas of these emerging countries want to install modern electrical appliances in their homes and have a car to move around. They travel both for their work and for their pleasure. The means of production in these countries are developing to respond to these growing demands. So energy requirements in these countries continue to increase substantially and the energy intensity remains at a high level.

Thus, economic growth and energy consumption are intimately linked. Increased growth leads to increased energy consumption. But the raw materials used to produce the enormous quantities of energy that we need are not inexhaustible. Nor can their production capacity be increased indefinitely.

The major issue in the coming years is going to be to respond to a two-fold challenge on the energy front:

- In the short term, over the next few years, at most the next thirty, (this concerns us all directly!): to prepare ourselves for “the Hubbert Peak” for oil. The supply of oil to the market will begin to decrease whereas the demand will increase inexorably.

- In the long term, over the next fifty years or a little longer, (this concerns the children born today and those who follow): the beginning of terminal depletion of fossilised energy sources; first oil, then, twenty years later, gas. At that time, all that will remain will be coal reserves sufficient for several decades.

- Give priority to energy supplies, continually developing the production capacity of fossil fuels, particularly oil. This response is based on optimistic hypotheses for oil reserves. It is the path chosen by the United States, accepting the May 2001 recommendations of the National Energy Policy Report, better known as the Cheney report, after the name of the Vice-President of the United States. Among developed countries, it is the choice that has also been made by Australia.

Advantages: the inhabitants of these countries will be able to preserve their lifestyle for several additional decades. At the same time, the working of society will not be put at risk. Social tensions will be avoided for some time.

- Take action, as a priority, on the demand for energy, by attempting to limit energy consumption as far as possible. This is the direction recommended by Europe, that of the control of energy consumption and the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.

Advantages: in this way we will respond in a more flexible manner to the eventual problems. By anticipating them, their impact can be substantially reduced. Equally we begin to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases at levels already agreed.

- Develop alternative energy sources. This response can accompany both development of fossil energy availability and efforts to limit consumption. Two main types of alternative energies exist: nuclear energy and renewable energy sources (hydroelectricity, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass).

Advantages: It enables consumption of fossil energies to be reduced and their final depletion to be delayed. Moreover, the alternative energy sources do not emit greenhouse gases (or the CO₂ is recycled, as is the case with biofuels)

- Promote research into energy sources for the future. Currently this means, above all, the fission reactors known as “breeder reactors”, and the nuclear fusion process.

Advantages: if we manage to control them, these energies will be virtually inexhaustible. They do not emit greenhouse gases.

Disadvantages: the techniques used are very difficult to control, above all in the case of fusion. It is not yet known if we will succeed. Any eventual industrial applications (fusion power stations or operational breeder reactors) will not exist for at least fifty years. It is therefore impossible, as at today, to count on those techniques to solve the problems of oil shortages awaiting us in the future. Moreover, the research effort will be expensive: the experimental fusion reactor project, ITER, will cost around €10 billion to construct and to run for 20 years.

The real energy issue for mankind is not therefore the choice of such and such a type of energy, but that of control of consumption. In the short term, that would allow us to economise on the use of fossil energy reserves and we could, therefore, better prepare for the final depletion of a part of fossil energy resources (oil and gas), towards the end of the century. In all the alternative strategies described earlier, whether we consume more or less oil, whether we call on wind and solar energy rather than nuclear, or the other way round, we must prepare for changes in our way of life, in the sense of a making greater economies in the energy we use directly (car journeys, heating, electricity …) or indirectly (drinking water, everyday consumer products, international road transport …). And the sooner we start, the better it will be.