Global Energy Markets: Challenges and Opportunities – Energy Vision for 2050 [Journal]

Increasing energy prices – especially for oil and gas – and recent geopolitical conflicts have reminded us of the essential role affordable energy plays in economic growth and human development and of the vulnerability of the global energy system to supply disruptions. To secure energy supplies is once again at the top of the international policy agenda. Yet the current pattern of energy supply carries the threat of severe and irreversible environmental damage – including changes in global climate. Reconciling the goals of energy security and environmental protection requires strong and coordinated government action and public support. As a consequence, the decoupling of energy use and economic growth, a diversification of energy supply, and the mitigation of climate change causing emissions are more urgent than ever. 

The major share of primary energy demand today comes from fossil fuels, oil, gas, and coal. The main suppliers of oil are the OPEC region, Russia, and the USA. If the oil demand continues to grow as fast as in the past decades, the demand for oil will be higher than supply 15 years from now (depletion point). Although the oil price would also rise with increasing demand and other oil reserves such as oil shale or tar sands would be financially attractive to exploit further, oil still remains the scarcest fossil resource on earth, followed by gas. The world’s largest gas reserves are in Russia, followed by Qatar and Iran. The supply of coal is more widely spread in many countries of the world, and the coal reserves will last for over 200 years. [Download Journal]