THE CARBON WAR

100
The Winning of The Carbon War
between-the-lines, I hear a message that the Russian Federation seems to be
in trouble on conventional oil and gas supplies.
Questions from the audience. Someone asks a pointed one. Will it be
western or Russian technologies that will be used for all this futuristic data-dependent
propping up of tomorrow’s Russian production?
The questioner does not mention the sanctions that are underway at
present, instigated by the United States and other western governments outraged
by President Putin’s apparent expansionist intentions in Ukraine. Nobody has,
for the full hour and half.
The chair throws the question to Lukoil Man. In a confident and forceful
tone of voice, he dodges it.
Feeling usefully prepped by this listening experience, I head off to my
own panel.
Representatives of “the energy of tomorrow”, in “the world after oil and
gas”, include an American speaking for advanced biofuels, another American
for wind power, a Briton for solar – me – and a Russian for nuclear. We are
asked to give three-minute opening statements. Around a hundred people
listen to us. It is 5.30 already, and the congress is thinning fast.
Advanced biofuels have arrived, the first American says. Two production
plants are up and running.
Wind power will include airborne turbines tethered like kites, says the
second American. We have a prototype.
I major on the twin emerging megatrends of solar-and-storage costdown
and oil-and-gas capex cost-up. The business models of the big energy
companies are coming under threat on account of these, on an international
basis, I suggest. Russia is no exception.
The nuclear Russian opens with an assertion that his favoured technology
is clean and green, offers no thoughts as to why, and then moves straight on
the offensive. It will be awful after oil and gas, he says. His tone is truculent.
You need them for so many things. And renewables have so many problems.
Solar panels are difficult to dispose of, for example. Nothing grows around
windmills, for example.
With the opening statements complete, the chair seeks immediate audience
participation, and he does it in an oblique way that is probably clever,
given the peer-group constraints that swirl about him.
How many here think that renewables can power the future after oil and
gas, he asks?
Hardly any hands go up.