COMMERCIALIZATION

The 2008 World Energy outlook, published by the International Energy Agency, predicts that demand for oil will increase from 85 million barrels/day to 106 barrels/day. Figure 1 shows the growth of world consumption of energy based upon the history since 1980 till 2004.

Figure 2 shows the history and forecast of the growth of world consumption by fuels. The projection shows that the highest level of fuel consumption is in the form of liquid petroleum, followed by coal and natural gas.

Figure 3 shows the world energy demands in terms of fossil and non-fossil fuel. The so-called renewable green energy will be insignificant (less than 1%), as compared to other forms of energy, even if full effort is applied to their advancement. Fission-based nuclear energy may play a major role, but it has its own hazards, including the major problem of nuclear waste storage

There are many problems with this trend of energy consumption. Environmental impact, concerns over energy security, growing costs as the resources dwindle, wars over resources, globalization, enormous growth and ever-increasing energy demands of third-world countries (i.e. China and India).