Solar Revolution

Future and Past

Modern industrial economies rely on three separate energy infrastructures – the electricity grid, oil production and natural gas pipelines. Their maintenance requires huge investment, and it is no surprise that six of the world’s 12 largest companies are fossil fuel providers. As the planet’s population grows, the number of energy consumers expands, too, putting a severe strain on the existing infrastructure. Supplies of oil, coal and natural gas will not be able to keep up with the demand, and so have a finite role in supplying future energy.

Some experts also think that the reports of current oil reserves are vastly overstated since an oil field ceases being economically productive long before all its oil can be extracted. Advanced technologies may increase yield, but the amount of oil that suppliers can extract profitably from any given oil field is limited. In addition, most oil fields are either in politically unstable regions of the world or are controlled by a cartel that has the ability to stop the supply as it wishes – as happened in the 1970s, causing economic chaos in the West.

This issue of secure access to energy supplies has been...