(Paper at the Round Table “Prospects and policies for food, energy and environmental security in the BRICS and SCO countries” at Saint Petersburg State University)
1
How long will the fossil fuels that currently supply 78,4% of the world's energy consumption last? (https://goo.gl/Pc2WuA). Their extraction tends towards a "Peak" or "Top", after which the amount of energy needed to extract them tends to become greater than the amount they yield. This limit has been reached. Russian Finance Minister Vladimir Kolichev warns that "peak consumption may well be over"
(https://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/russia-starts-preparing-for-life-after-peak-fossil-fuels). British Petroleum estimates that it will never return to the level of 2019, “the highest mark in the history of oil”. Norway's state-owned Equinor predicts falling output by 2027-28; the Norwegian researcher Rystad Energy for 2028; France's Total SA around 2030; the consulting firm Mc Kinsey for 2033; the Bloomberg NEF group and Wood Mackenzie consultants in 2035; the most optimistic is OPEC, which dates it to 2040, barely 18 years from now (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-peak-oil-era-is-suddenly-upon-us/). The International Energy Agency calculates that by 2025, 13 million barrels of oil will be missing to cover the world's daily demand. Antonio Turiel, from the CSIC, affirms that production will decrease by more than 50% in the next 25 years, from 69 million barrels per day today to 33 million in 2040 (https://culturacientifica.com/2019/05/03/el-pico-petrolero/). Hydrocarbons will be increasingly scarce, their extraction more expensive and their profitability lower, until they become uneconomic.
2
These figures explain the world news. The Glasgow Conference proposes a world without hydrocarbons, not because of environmentalism, but because they run out. The Ukraine conflict incites the European Union and NATO against Russia to prevent it from selling its liquefied gas to Europe through Nordstream 2, thus forcing a captive market for the United States' very expensive fracking hydrocarbons. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, the brutal harassment against Venezuela are theft of hydrocarbons or roads for their transportation.
3
Let us examine how equipped countries are to live or rather survive the decline in oil extraction. The first global place in proven reserves corresponds to Venezuela, with 503.806 million barrels. Saudi Arabia follows with 260.000 billion barrels. The third place corresponds to Canada, with 171.000 million barrels. Iran follows with 157.800 billion; the invaded Iraq with 143.000 million, Kuwait with 104.500 million, the United Arab Emirates with 97.800 million, Russia with 80.000 million, the dismembered Libya with 48.360 million, and in a poor tenth place, the United States, the first consumer in the world, with only 38.200 millions. The gigantic China occupies the 14th position, with 25.000 million. The thirty countries of the European Union rank 22nd, with 5.718 million barrels, and the United Kingdom 27th, with 3.600 million barrels (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Pa%C3%ADses_por_reservas_probadas_de_petr%C3%B3leo). Gas reserves are similar. These figures explain why the largest consumers of fossil energy on the planet, the deprived United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, have been in league for more than a century assaulting, destroying, blockading, intervening, occupying, stealing, coercing and chaosing the countries that they produce it. According to the International Energy Agency, the proven oil reserves of the United States at the end of 2020 were 38.200 billion barrels (MMBbls), and at the average extraction rate between that year and today, 11.500.000 BPD, In less than 8 years, the United States will have consumed all its crude oil reserves.. The visit to the blockaded Venezuela of Washington commissions headed by the northern ambassador is not a generous concession, but a plea from a country on the verge of energy poverty.
4
It is extremely unlikely that renewable energies, which currently supply only 21,6% of the world's energy consumption, will be able to cover it in a few decades. The lack of hydrocarbons will alleviate the greenhouse effect, but it will seriously depress industry, transport, urban concentration and agriculture itself due to the lack of fertilizers and agricultural machinery.
5
Capitalism, which pursues the greatest profit at any cost, ecological, social, cultural or human, cannot constructively manage this decline. The anarchy of the dividend above all else has led to energy looting, to the hyper-concentration of capital, to the consumerism of minorities at the expense of the impoverishment of all, to massive pollution, to the recurrent crisis that is only alleviated with wars that unleash worse crises. Perpetuating this unbearable state of affairs requires consecutive alliances of the countries that devour more fossil energy to plunder those that produce it, with the eventual sacrifice of the weakest plunderers (as is the case today with the European Union). This requires increased military spending, for the chaos of countries that cannot be controlled and the destruction of their economies (as in Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Russia or Venezuela). The parallel neglect of social investment would cause chaos even within the dominant countries; the deepening of the energy scramble would lead to the threshold of world conflict. The uncontrolled burning of hydrocarbons could lead to the terminal consequences of the collapse of civilization and the feared greenhouse effect before its depletion.
6
Part of the fossil energy producing countries are part of the BRICS or are allies of the organization. It is essential to consolidate this union to prevent the hydrocarbons that are still available from being looted, and instead to be applied in a planned and humane way to satisfy essential needs and generate renewable energies. Leaving them to the mercy of plunder could seriously affect the continuity of civilization.
Incredible mastery of world economic culture and his analytical skills.
This article should have more publicity.
KEY ARTICLE BY MASTER LUIS BRITTO TO UNDERSTAND THE KEYS OF THIS TIME
Excellent report, and the phrase best used was "the plea of a country on the brink of energy poverty" regarding the United States and those countries that have attacked Venezuela and realized the grave mistake they were making with the Sword of Damocles for themselves.