From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
The BBC want to know why the world is still exploring for oil, gas and coal:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sr6f
It is just as well that we are still exploring, because if we don’t the world’s economy would soon collapse.
Given the fact that the world still gets 82% of its energy from fossil fuels, and that energy demand continues to increase year on year, there is simply no possibility that we could quickly switch to an all renewable economy.
And this ignores the fact that we will still continue to need fossil fuels for non-energy use.
BP Energy Review
The BBC seem to think that if we stop drilling now, it won’t affect us for decades; that we have “plenty of fossil fuels” already available to us which will last for years. But life is not like that.
Every year, new capacity comes on stream. But every year, older capacity is shut down, or its productivity rapidly diminished. Typically oil and gas fields have between 20 and 40 years of significant production, and as we have seen in the North Sea output has been tailing off for as few years. If no new capacity is brought on, we could potentially lose a quarter of the world’s supply within a decade or so.
According to the IEA, 5.9 mbd of net additional oil capacity is projected to come on line by 2028, but this will only be enough to meet demand. In other words, this is net of the loss of existing capacity. The gross capacity addition is probably double this number.
Annual oil consumption is 97 mbd, so if the BBC got its way the world would be facing a serious shortage of oil within a few short years. The economic and social consequences of this would be catastrophic.
Richard Bilton, who presented this Panorama in La La Land report, has absolutely no experience of or qualifications in energy or economics. According to his BBC resume, his background is mainly in social affairs.
Perhaps next time the BBC might get a journalist who actually understands the energy sector to present Panorama programmes on fossil fuels.
And here’s a bonus article from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT about Richard Bilton
