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New Energy Research (E3M)

The Future of Energy is the future of the world, for without adequate energy supplies our overpopulated planet will collapse into chaos and global war for resources. Alan Simpson scours the thousands of intelligence feeds, news releases and OSINT sources to evaluate the potential winners in our search for future energy.

E3M will focus on new developments in the energy pipeline. Some will never see the light of commercial production, some will fall short of promised results, and some will revolutionize the future of mankind.

Examples are Helium 3, Solar, Algae, and the many new inventions for Coal, Oil, Gas and Wind power.

Coal Intelligence

Coal was once the fuel of choice, the fuel that drove the Industrial Revolution around the world. Then there came Oil! The position of Coal as a provider of energy fell out of favor for most applications outside of power generation.

Today Coal has become more important as the proven reserves of Oil begin to decline, and growing global population demand more and more energy to feed their lifestyle. Oil and Natural Gas can no longer provide this mushrooming energy demand, and attention again is focused on old energy sources, as well as alternative sources of energy.

But Coal has a well known dark side, it pollutes the area around the mine, and belches acrid fumes which produce destructive Acid Rain. Growing up living less than a mile from a major Coal Mine, and Coke Ovens I saw the worst old technology can do to the environment and the bodies of those who make their living from mining and processing the fossilized fuel.

Today there has been a lot of research into how the fuel can be mined, processed and transported more efficiently. Unlike Oil and Gas it can't be stored in neat white painted storage tanks, landscaped to fit into the countryside. It is a solid that can become very dusty and dirty. Virtually every Coal Initiative is opposed by environmental groups, and local citizen groups. Yet when the Oil get's far too expensive and scarce to heat homes, or power industry, there are few alternatives. You can clean up Coal Dust with a broom, you can't clean up Nuclear Contamination so easily.

World Oil Reserves Are Being Depleted

The world is currently producing more oil annually than it is replacing with new reserves. That sobering conclusion emerges from a new survey of global liquids reserves published by Energy Intelligence Group, Inc.

In contrast to the gradual rise in global oil reserves that has been reported annually in most surveys based on public sources, the new assessment shows that the trend in worldwide liquids reserves is actually one of stagnation and modest decline. The PIW Reserves Survey shows global oil reserves declining by almost 13 billion barrels, or 0.9%, over the last two years to 1.459 trillion bbl at the end of 2006 on a "proved plus probably" basis. Global oil reserves are liquid hydrocarbons, natural gas liquids, tar sands and crude oil, that are economically recoverable at current prices.

The PIW survey uses a somewhat broader definition of reserves than the other surveys based on public sources and it applies that definition consistently and systematically across all countries, fully accounting for production declines and new additions.

The main reason for the poor performance in growing reserves is a lack of additions to reserves from new discoveries, which account for 20% or less of additions in the last few years. The high oil prices and sharply increased upstream spending budgets of most oil companies have not yet provided any significant improvement in global additions to reserves, but more time may be needed. For 2006, the big increases in reserves were led by Brazil and Kazakhstan. Among the top 20, only eight countries saw increases last year, while the rest were flat or in decline.

The PIW survey also confirms earlier suspicions about the overstatement of reserves by Kuwait and some other Opec producers. At the same time, the survey also indicates that reserves in Russia and some other non-Opec countries are much higher than is generally reported.

The Top 10 holders of oil reserves (in billion barrels) at the end of 2006 were:

(Copyright © 2007 Energy Intelligence Group, Inc.).