NOT using renewable energy will cost the world $billions

Cost Of Not Using Renewable Energy at $9 Billion Per Day, http://designbuildsource.com.au/cost-of-not-using-renewable-energy-at-9-billion-per-day-study-claims By Justin McGar, 7 Feb 13, Study Claims In an unprecedented study, the World Future Council conservatively estimates that the future usage loss resulting from current oil, gas and coal consumption is between $US 3.2 and 3.4 trillion per year.

Opponents of renewable energy claim conventional energy sources are cheaper on the whole, but the World Future Council report asks what costs are incurred when renewable energiesare not used.

Every day that exhaustible fossil fuels are burned in lieu of potential renewable energy sources speeds up the depletion of these non-renewable fuels. Using burnt fossil fuels for non-energy related purposes, such as in the petro-chemical industry, will therefore someday be impossible, making their use when they could have been replaced by renewables a costly case of capital destruction.

Previous studies to assess the costs of the non-use of renewable energies consist mostly of attempts to ascertain the costs arising from expected climate damage caused by burning fossil fuels. By internalising these costs, the apparent competitive advantage of fossil fuels often disappears.

More challenging is the question of how to monetise future damages, with previous studies often criticised for their methodology. The World Future Council study raises a different, hitherto ignored issue. Externalised costs from burning fossil fuels are incurred not only through damages from climate change but also through the lack of future availability of fossil raw materials consumed to meet our current energy demands.

BP’s statistical review of world energy from 2011 calculates the average total annual global usage of crude oil in the last five years at 3,977 million tons, while use of of natural gas came in at 2,987 billion cubic metres and use of hard coal production at 5,704 billion tons.

The total for non-energy use, which cannot be substituted by renewables, works out to between 402 and 672 million tons of crude oil, 93 and 152 billion cubic metres of natural gas and 30 and 50 million tons of hard coal.

From a cost perspective based on current market prices, removing non-energy use figures from total energy figures, this amounts to as much as $1,962 billion for crude oil, up to $963 billion for natural gas and up to $474 billion for hard coal.

The report concludes that protecting the use of increasingly valuable fossil raw materials for the future is possible by substituting these materials with renewables. Every day that this is delayed and fossil raw materials are consumed as one-time energy creates a future usage loss of between $US 8.8 and 9.3 billion. Not just the current cost of various renewable energies, but also the costs of not using them need to be taken into account.

The report says the estimates included are actually conservative and the actual costs are likely to be even higher.