The Energy Innovation Imperative: Addressing Oil Dependence, Climate Change, and Other 21st Century Energy Challenges

Society faces many energy challenges in this century, but "running out" of energy resources in a global or absolute sense is not one of them. The world may be running out of cheaply extractable and reliably deliverable conventional oil and natural gas, insofar as (a) these energy forms may continue (with some ups and downs) to get more costly and less reliable over time and (b) it is unclear for how much longer the rate at which they are extracted can be increased to meet rising global demand. But energy resources of other types are immensely larger and capable in principle of being expanded to multiples of today's use rates of oil and gas combined: there is 5 to 10 times as much coal as conventional oil and gas; there is 5 -10 times as much oil shale and unconventional gas as coal; the energy potential of uranium and thorium resources is larger still; and harnessing even a small percentage of the solar energy flow reaching Earth's land surface could meet multiples of today's world energy demand.