A few months ago I had the privilege of delivering the keynote address at an event in Moncton NB aimed at young “rising stars” in the ICT industry. You can see the two parts video here:

Some of my research about the global energy situation came from an excellent book by Peter Tertzakian called “The End of Energy Obesity”.  One of the interesting things I found was Our planet has two economic worlds:

• 800 million people in 28 rich countries, with GDP of US$36 trillion
• 5.9 billion people in the rest of the world, with GDP of US$29 trillion

Today the 800 million people in 28 countries use almost exactly the same amount of energy as the 5.9 billion people in the rest of the world – 45 billion BOE (barrels of oil equivalent).  Although the rate of growth in energy consumption in the 28 wealthy countries is relatively low, actually about the rate of inflation, there is ticking time bomb about to explode in our global energy consumption pattern.   That time bomb are the emerging economies of the other 5.9 billion people.  In fact, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that over the next 20 years the rate of growth in world energy consumption will INCREASE, not decrease.

Validation for this assertion came in dramatic fashion last week, as the IEA released a major report on global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and that news was quite shocking.  Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount in 2010 year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.  You can read an article about the report at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/carbon-emissions-nuclearpower .