Sustainable Energy Policies for Uncertain Climates

The world has probably never experienced periods of climate stability, a conclusion drawn recently by Fagan [16]. However, with increasingly sophisticated computer models and measuring techniques, there is general agreement that we are entering a period of global warming. The extent to which this may be due to the burning of fossil fuels is still the subject of considerable controversy, but there is no doubt that all the World’s fossil fuels have a finite life. Various forecasts dating back to the late 19th Century have suggested that solar energy in its various applications could and should replace these conventional fuels as resource limitations begin to emerge. This paper places World energy resources and climate issues in their historical context and examines an assumption that renewable energy sources could supply about 20% of the Worlds energy requirement by 2020, taking into account environmental, technical and economic factors. Some possible growth patterns for both conventional energies and the renewable energies are described using a modified S-curve [logistic] approach linked to the Volterra-Lotka equations of competition. The growing importance of these issues in China as well as some other future energy projections have also been examined. Analysis of these scenarios suggests that without a change in the energy policies of most countries, a sustainable energy future with the substantially reduced levels of greenhouse gas emissions suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], would be very difficult to achieve. Problems with inconsistent energy and economic data are noted.