There is no energy crisis

Summary form only given as follows. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has twice stated that human activity is now causing a noticeable impact on the world\´s climate-primarily through the combustion of fossil fuels in the power and transportation sectors. These 2000 IPCC experts are countered by a smaller group of industry experts who disagree with the conclusions. With the measured increase in CO₂ ppm over the past century, it seems that a low-regrets strategy makes good sense. The business-as-usual future scenarios presented by the International Energy Agency assure increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions from the utility sector. These projections recognize that energy demand has closely tracked population growth and global GNP. On the other hand, the Shell long range planners and IIASA/UNDP have offered a radically different scenario that shows renewable energy, especially solar, becoming a major market share by 2050. For this to occur, there would necessarily be a shift in resource investment. Several critical factors would make this possible. First, the cost of renewable energy resources must become competitive with the conventional fuels. Second, utilities and their operators must find means to provide system reliability as intermittent resources expand into the daily load mix. Lastly, the public acceptance and government commitment to address climate change will determine the rate of growth. Surveys indicated that a majority of people would pay more for more renewable energy, but the actual numbers of people who changed energy providers remained just a few percentage points. Studies of the renewable resource potential indicate an enormous capacity of wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, biomass and hydropower. Several renewable technologies have matured in the past decade, and growth rates of solar and wind are now at 17% and 24% respectively. The leading companies in these two areas today are Shell, BP, Enron and Siemens-indicating a recognition by the energy providers of a growing market opportunity. The World Energy Council describes a "window of opportunity" between now and 2020. Because of the life times of power plants, refineries and other energy investments, there is not sufficient turnover of such facil- ities to change course quickly. But the seeds of the post-2020 world will be sown by then. Thus, the choices we make now will determine whether climate change is solved by better technologies or remains a scientific uncertainly.