How long would the lights stay on?

Global energy demands continue to skyrocket as more homes, businesses, factories, banks, schools, hotels, etc. are built each passing day. The resources that satisfy this insatiable need of humans continue to decrease in quantity. Fossil fuels contribute 85% of the global energy demand (Theis & Tomkin., 2015). While it took such energy resources several years (in millions to billions) to developed, their rate of utilization or depletion is far outpacing the rate of formation. During and after the industrial revolution our need for energy would hardly be slowed. There are still about a billion people without energy access in the world.

According to Ecotricity, based on the annual consumption rate (for instance, 11 billion tons of oil per year) of oil, gas, and coal, these resources that formed the base of the world energy demand would run out in 53, 52, and 150 years, respectively. One might ask, how would the world supply electricity to light or heat our homes, data centers, telecommunication infrastructures, banks, schools, hospitals, or health centers, among others or would our transport industry reverse to the horse and cart system that existed from the fifth millennium B.C onwards? Despite challenges such as limited resources, uneven geographical distribution, carbon dioxide emission, and climate change, fossil fuels largely power our vehicles and electricity generation plants. The transition would not be immediate.

It is worth knowing that those resources (especially oil or gas) might not necessarily be consumed in the next half-century nonetheless, the technology and investment of locating large quantities might be an issue of concern. Some fields would be exceedingly difficult to drill due to extreme weather conditions, and/or lack of technological strength in locations such as deep-sea or arctic regions. We are currently drilling the easier and the inexpensive resources first, leaving the most arduous ones for future explorations. The challenge would arrive after production from oil and gas fields peaks and begins to decline, thereby failing to meet our rising needs. This would lead to global shortages and in response to demand and supply, the price of oil and gas would exponentially increase.

Now, to reduce the rate of annual fossil fuel consumption, more renewable energies must be developed to complement and offset the rising energy demand. Doing these would inadvertently avoid global energy insecurity, reduce the environmental, social, and economic impacts on our ecosystem due to global warming or climate change as a result of burning fossil fuels.

The lights would stay on if our governments, NGOs, and all industrial players formulate policies that look beyond profits for today but sustainable profits for tomorrow and beyond. More investment should be allocated to R&D in renewable energy (like wind and solar) integration to the electric grid, energy storage systems (batteries, supercapacitor chargers, capacitor banks, etc.) to allow large-scale supply from renewables.

Lastly, there are a lot of uncertainties in the energy industry, however, it is also true that whenever we try doing it right, we shall get positive results that solve our problems and reduce such uncertainties.  

Thank you for reading: Cheers!!!

Written by: Shaibu Ibrahim