Accessibility and urgency

Each day of the World Energy Congress is devoted to an energy challenge and “accessibility” is the focus of day 1. Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, set the scene on this issue by outlining work his organization has done on the outlook for energy demand over the next two decades. They have developed three scenarios, the most pessimistic of which is characterized by continued economic turbulence and a low-level of international cooperation. However demand is set to increase by 2030 in all scenarios, at rates between 30 percent and 42 percent. This means that meeting energy demand will be a “big job,” Yergin said. “It is sobering to realize that much of the infrastructure needed to meet demand in 2030 has not yet been built.”

Having set the scene in those terms, the panel discussion that followed focused not so much on accessibility but on the urgency of addressing the demand. There was broad agreement among the speakers from government and from the oil and power industries that a broad energy mix will be required, but also recognition that technology available today will have to do a large part of the job. Johannes Teyssen, chairman of German utility E.ON, summed it up by pointing out that there is a limited amount that can be done to expedite the development of energy technologies, and just as nobody planned the first two industrial revolutions, a third one is not going to happen simply because it is desirable.

Benjamin Contreras Astiazarán, undersecretary of electricity in the Mexican ministry of energy explained that his country sees energy efficiency as the best short-term opportunity. Since the Mexican government subsidizes electricity bills for the poor, it has decided to also subsidize purchases of energy efficient fridges and light bulbs to reduce power consumption. The country is currently replacing refrigerators at a rate of 2,400 per day (and destroying the old ones to ensure they aren’t kept in operation), he said.