Invited Perspective: Switch: Coming Your Way

Abstract

President's column Questions posed by 2015 SPE President Helge Hove Haldorsen Answers provided by Professor Scott Tinker, Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin (UT) This is my last JPT column as your 2015 SPE President. Come end-September at the Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) in Houston, you will witness “the switch” to 2016 SPE President Nathan Meehan. There is another, much slower switch going on as well. Recently, the G7 members (Council on Foreign Relations 2015) announced their ambition to switch away from fossil fuels altogether 85 years from now in 2100. They also agreed to make a switch in electricity generation by 2050 so that 100% of electricity generation comes from “clean” sources from this time onward. This call to long-term decarbonification action, if followed up by laws, rules, regulations, incentives, and a carbon dioxide (CO2) tax, will give new momentum to a long-term global energy-mix switch away from fossil fuels. This “85 years from now ambition” must, of course, be held up the against the “next 30-plus year projection” that more, not less, oil and gas will be needed during this period (Figs. 1 and 2). Holding these two seemingly conflicting thoughts in our minds at the same time is difficult, but very important. Being for fossil fuels until new viable energy sources are ready to take over does not mean being against alternative energy and renewables and massive “Manhattan Project”-style research and development to make them viable. On the contrary, as pointed out by Alex Epstein in his book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, if we look at the big picture of fossil fuels (which provide more than 80% of the global energy supply in 2015 while sun, wind, and geothermal provide 1% to 2%) compared with the alternatives, the overall impact is to make the world a far better place. This is why exploration and production (E&P) professionals for the foreseeable future will continue to have “making the world a better place” in their job descriptions.