Tessa Munt MP warns that the South West faces over 3,000 fracking wells in search for elusive gas supplies

Tessa was at the launch of the Energy Watch Group’s latest report warning of the dangers to UK and World energy supplies and calling for a faster development of renewable energy sources.

As the UK increasingly depends on imports of oil and gas due to steep declines in domestic production the Energy Watch Group (EWG) released the findings of its latest study into global fossil fuel reserves at a press conference held in the House of Commons on Monday (March 18^th). The EWG study shows that what is happening in the UK is mirrored in other regions and that the world is running out of cheap and abundant fossil and nuclear fuels. It highlights that in the five years since its last report:-

• Shale gas in the USA will reach its peak in 2015. Global gas prices will most likely continue to increase and will not follow the current US trend.
• In Europe, shale gas production will not be comparable to the US as geological, geographical and industrial conditions are less favourable.
• European oil production is now below 3 million barrels a day, a 60% decline since the turn of the century.
• Conventional world oil production has started to decline and is expected to have dropped by 40% by 2030.
• The USA will not become a net oil exporter. Unconventional oil production in the USA will peak in the next five years followed by a steep decline.
• Gas production in Europe continues to decline and imports will need to increase by approximately 200 billion m³/yr in order to match demand.
• Domestic demand in Russia and Asia will increase pressure on gas availability for Europe in the coming years.
• Nuclear energy is not an option to substitute gas fired power plants as there is a high risk of a uranium supply gap for nuclear reactors before 2020. Most new uranium mining projects have been delayed while the production from old mines is in decline.

Tessa Munt MP welcomed the report:-

“I welcome this very helpful report. It is of particular interest in relation to what is says about Shale Gas and the future supply of Uranium. I will be asking my colleagues in the Government to look at its findings in detail in relation to our polices in these two areas to see if we really are on the right track.”

German MP and founder of EWG Hans-Josef Fell launching the report in Westminster said:-

“Our study shows that fossil fuel production will peak by the end of this decade and that nuclear fuel will not have any significant influence on the subsequent energy gap.”  

The report’s author, Dr. Werner Zittel, added:-

“The world is at a crossroads in its energy supply. Politicians, industry and consumers need to understand that unless they take action severe supply disruptions with corresponding consequences are inevitable.”

The report can be found here; http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG-update2013_long_18_03_2013.pdf

 

Tessa Munt

19^th March 2013

www.tessamunt.org.uk

Editors Notes:

The Energy Watch Group is a non-partisan international network of scientists and parliamentarians whose work is independent of economic special interests. The organisation’s scientists undertake studies about the actual worldwide availability of fossil and nuclear energy resources and the possibilities for development of renewable sources of energy. These studies serve as the foundation of a global energy scenario on the basis of geological, technological, and economic analyses.

This report was commissioned to examine the availability and scarcity of fossil and nuclear resources (coal, oil, gas and uranium). With regard to natural gas the study has examined the limited international extraction capacities and the dependency of local excess on existing and planned infrastructure (e.g. pipelines, LNG-terminals). The study has also focused on the evaluation and classification of unconventional natural gas reserves as to substitute and outstrip conventional gas extractions.

Launching the report in the House of Commons was Hans-Josef Fell MdB, report author Dr. Werner Zittel, and Tessa Munt MP. The press conference was Chaired by John Hemmings MP.

Profiles:

Hans-Josef Fell is a member of the German parliament since 1998. He is currently the spokesman for the Green Party on energy policy and one of their most renowned experts on energy policy and climate change. He studied Physics and Sport Sciences at the University of Würzburg and is a globally recognized expert on energy policy with a visionary view on renewable energy sources. He is the key architect of the German Feed-in-Tariff, which has been copied by more than 60 nations around the world.  He has won various international prizes for the promotion of renewable energies and remains active as a member of the World Council for Renewable Energy.

Dr. Werner Zittel is a Senior Scientist at the Ludwig Bölkow Systemtechnik GmbH (www.lbst.de), a Munich-based consulting company specialising in sustainable energy and transport strategies and Board Member of ASPO-Germany. He is an acknowledged expert on energy resources, and a founding member of the European Business Council for a Sustainable Energy Future (www.e5.org), a business NGO which promotes compliance with the Kyoto protocol and lobbies in support of climate-friendly technologies and policies at climate negotiations. He holds a doctorate in physics from the Technical University of Darmstadt and worked at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics.

Tessa Munt MP is the Liberal Democrat MP for Wells in Somerset and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Business Secretary, Vince Cable MP. She was a member of the Energy Bill Committee. She is an outspoken critic of the development of Shale Gas production in the UK and a long standing opponent of the increased use of Nuclear Energy.

 

Posted on: March 19, 2013