In order for each individual country to maintain affluence and economic growth, we need to be able to maintain global supply chains for all kinds of products. At the moment we are dependent on supplies from all over the world to supply us with products for our own production systems and to sell in most types of stores. If we have less oil, we will be forced to reduce economic activity. Initially, this will mean that the least affluent will not be able to buy the petroleum products that they need in order to get to work or to produce on a daily basis. Companies in developed countries will experience increasing difficulties to purchase products from these countries.

In order to be affluent in the future we need to systematically reduce our use of oil at a faster rate than the reduction in global production, or increase the production capacity for renewable fuels so that this increase plus the reduction in oil use at least cancel out the reduction in supplies. This, for reasons explained above, needs to be done for our entire global oil supply, and not only for individual countries that may be in a position to relatively easily replace oil by renewable fuels. This, it has to be repeated, is because every country is dependent on growth in the global economy for its ability to achieve affluence and economic growth. The global economy, in its turn, is dependent on growing supplies of oil and other energy sources, but currently no other energy source can, at short notice, replace oil for transportation.

This does not seem to be clear to the majority of economists, politicians and high level business leaders. Many seem to think that we can adjust to a higher energy price. Yes, this may be possible. It will be much more difficult to adjust to a reduced supply of oil and continue to do business in the same way we do today in the face of declining global volumes.

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Those of us who are already aware of this need to inform politicians and high level business leaders about this.

This is the only possible way forward!

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We use energy to run our global economy, and we are dependent on oil to maintain and expand global transportation networks. We have no large scale alternative to oil for transportation and it will take a number of years to expand the supply of renewable fuels or electricity, and vehicles etc that can run on these, so that they can start to make a dent in the demand curve for oil.

The volume of oil that we produce and use every day is a staggering 83 million barrels. This means that only in order to increase the energy supply to allow for the annual increase in demand of 1,5 per cent, we will have to make more than one million oil barrel equivalents of renewable fuels available in global markets every day. In addition to this we need to make up for the decline in oil production that we will experience in the near future.

This is why we rapidly need national strategies for large scale energy transformation. This is also why all large companies need to assess the impact that higher oil and energy prices, and reduced supply will have on their businesses.

This is what all this is about!

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One board member, Catharina Lagerstam, was appointed in April and she did an independent valuation of the holdings by the board meeting in May, at which she said that the holdings were overvalued by 100 million dollars. When she did not receive the support of the board she resigned. The chairman of the board, Mats Qviberg (the Q in the name of the bank) said: “She did not have strong enough nerves to continue.” Three months later the bank lost its permit from the Swedish organization that oversees the banks, called the FI in Sweden.

Now there is a really strong debate going on here in Sweden about the value of people who develop independent opinions and speak their mind, even if it goes contrary to the views of their superiors. One columnist in the Swedish business daily DI wrote that chairmen of boards are supposed to look for this type of independent, strong and honest board members.

Regardless of this, the scrutiny that I have put forward in the books “Global Energy Transformation” and “Overcoming Overuse” of the way we approach sustainability and the perilous future of affluence and economic growth goes unnoticed.

We will have a government election in September, and the energy issue is hardly even mentioned. Probably due to the fact that Sweden ranks among the best in the world in terms of low carbon emissions! This is mostly due to our high share of nuclear energy and hydroelectric power, but we are as dependent on oil as most other countries, which is the real problem we will be facing as oil production starts to decline.

We need to look for honest scritiny not only in the valuation of companies, but also in many areas in society that are not controlled by companies.

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http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/a-challenge-to-bill-gates-on-energy-research/

In my view we need to develop a strategy and a plan both for the short and long term that combines increased research into renewable energy technologies, energy saving technologies, and their implementation in various areas. We need national strategies, but we also need to understand that renewable energy technologies will not be able to be implemented and utilized as stand-alone inventions. These technologies need to become integrated into customer focused business offerings, that combine technologies, applications and a business concept. This needs to be done by systems integrators, similar to the ones that now operate in, for example, telecom industries, retail industries, and many other industries that provide a packaged offering to customers and end-users.

So far very little work has been done on the developing of frameworks for national energy strategies and on the development of concepts for systems integrators. The Global Energy Transformation Institute is one of the few organizations in the global arena that actively develop competence and debate these areas.

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There are numerous ideas for how to store electricity. One of them is being developed by the electric car company Better Place in cooperation with Danish authorities. This company will make Denmark a pilot market for its electric car concept, which includes using smart grid technology to charge batteries when there is a surplus of renewable energy. One other technology that is discussed for storage of electricity is hydrogen fuel cells, but this is by some experts thought to be less energy efficient than battery powered vehicles.

http://www.betterplace.com/

There are also other options that involve taking advantage of natural opportunities for instance to use renewable electricity to pump water into dams at a higher altitude that can later be used to produce electricity. This idea and some other similar ideas is discussed in the article below.

One important aspect to keep in mind is that all storage alternatives involve investments and lead times. We need to start investing both in renewable energy, electric vehicles, smart grid technologies and storage technologies in order to prepare for the future. Or we need to analyze other ways of reducing society’s dependence on fossil fuels and develop strategies and plans to realize these.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100106/full/463018a.html

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When we discuss smart grids, for instance, we have not yet developed an overall picture of the structure of the smart grids and the technologies, services, and business concepts that will become necessary in order to realize the benefits of them. Smart grids can help us deal with the intermediate nature of wind and solar power, by making it possible to store energy in different ways.

Overall, we already have a number of technologies that we can use to reduce our demand for energy and make our existing supply last longer by implementing some existing technologies on a large scale. We need to draw up the complete picture of the technologies that we have, and the ones that we are lacking and try to estimate the time line for large scale energy transformation through the implementation of smart grids.

This is one of the project ideas that the Global Energy Transformation Institute now is looking to fund.

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http://challenge.ecomagination.com/ct/ct_a_view_idea.bix?c=ideas&idea_id=3FE45133-213F-4C3B-AA0E-8FDFD0E3083B.

Perhaps for the many energy concerned of you, you may want to submit your own entry. If you feel there is room for some sort of collaboration to help us all attain our goals for better global energy management, please let me know at mats@GETInstitute.com.

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http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Bill-Gates-and-the-Energy-Research-Dilemma.html

I believe that this is true, but I believe that an even more important reason is the lack of “management.” In energy related areas of research there are simply too many different alternative technologies that can, and are, being researched in parallell. Regardless of how much the government increases the funding for technology research, the money needs to be invested in fewer alternatives.

This is also a need that has been identified by the American Energy Innovation Council, but it has not been as widely debated as the need of increased research funding. It is still the first item of the five recommendations listed by the council to establish an independent energy strategy board. What this board needs to do is to narrow down the areas of research to some of the most promising.

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http://www.retscreen.net/ang/home.php

Now also on-line communities emerge that support users of this sofware, such as the “RET Screen Users International”:

http://retscreen.ning.com/

This is a very promising development and one that needs to be taken after by other countries that could contribute to the development of methods and software for various areas of energy transformation.

In a project that I led two years ago, commissioned by the Swedish Government’s Energy Agency (STEM) we analyzed what can be done by companies in order to improve the energy efficiency of their supply chains. One important finding in this project was that there is a need for a wide range of methods in order to develop practices in this field, indicated by a number of large international companies.

Companies in general meet with their key suppliers for a few hours once or twice every year. During these meetings they need to spend most of the time to discuss key issues related to quality, deliveries, product development or other important aspects. The time left to discuss energy the efficiency of each supplier may be down to a few minutes per meeting. In order to make it possible to substantially reduce the energy consumption of supply chains the energy consumption of each supplier needs to be precisely measured, and goals need to be set that are understood and interpreted in the same way by both customer and supplier. In order for this to be possible for different types of supplier, that produce components for just-in-time delivery or suppliers of company cars, or suppliers of stationery and office equipment, a coherent set of methods need to be developed. This was the conclusion made by large companies like ABB, Volvo and SKF, that really want to contribute as much as possible to this process themselves.

So far, however, nothing has been done in order to start the development of methods and softare in this area. RET Screen International and the user communities that arise around this tool remains one of the few examples of national governments that contribute to the need for free software for the various needs of Global Energy Transformation.

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