Michael Jefferson

• Professor at ESCP Business School

For over forty years energy expectations have been riddled with internal contradictions, and all too often a failure to recognise complexity, the nature and scale of the challenges to be faced, and resultant uncertainty. Key elements of Shell's “World of Internal Contradictions” scenario, issued internally in October 1974, still hold good. Some oth...

Given the widely acknowledged negative impacts of fossil fuels, both on human health and on potential climate change, it is of interest to compare the impacts of low carbon alternative energy sources such as nuclear energy, hydropower, solar, wind and biomass. In this paper, we review the literature in order to summarise the impacts of the differen...

Against the background of IIASA ’s massive (their word) ‘global energy assessment’ (GEA), this paper takes a closer look at the challenges posed by population growth, energy poverty, the fossil fuels and carbon storage, renewable energy, energy efficiency, natural catastrophes, and potential climatic change to offer a somber, although arguably more...

The links between economic prosperity, or lack thereof, and the exploitation and use of energy and other natural resources go back to the earliest records of the human species – and in important respects even further back to when hunting and foraging characterised the earliest humanoid species. This paper surveys the challenges of resource exploita...

Disregard or ignorance of history, the overlooking of energy issues in standard economic growth theory, and failure to recognise the role which declining marginal returns on energy exploitation has played in the decline of earlier complex societies, are evident in academic and more general discourse. Excessive resort to equations, modelling, and st...

Oil and related products continue to be prime enablers of the maintenance and growth of nearly all of the world’s economies. The dramatic increase in the price of oil through mid-2008, along with the coincident (and possibly resultant) global recession, highlight our continued vulnerability to future limitations in the supply of cheap oil. The very...

Despite efforts to increase renewables, the global energy mix is still likely to be dominated by fossil-fuels in the foreseeable future, particularly gas for electricity and oil for land, air and sea transport. The reliance on depleting conventional oil and natural gas resources and the geographic distribution of these reserves can have geopolitica...

Despite the uncertainties surrounding the precise causes of climatic change, few ‘climate economists’ have focused on what truly sound precautionary policies, measures and relevant technologies may best serve to avoid possible severe disruption of future lifestyles and even lives. Instead, over the past twenty years—beginning with the works of Will...

Purpose To review the challenges for energy policy and supply security from the global down to national levels, pointing out failures to meet goals, the internal contradictions of stated policies, the challenges for both fossil fuels and renewable sources of energy to meet future requirements for modern energy services, and the huge scope for raisi...

At the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, great emphasis was placed on energy efficiency in the Opening Session. That message, and indeed the subject of energy more generally, largely disappeared in the forty chapters and 600 pages of Agenda 21 that emerged from Rio. This situation has largely remained in subsequent UN deliberations. Closer focus on climate ch...

Much of the discussion of past scenario development in business has centred on Shell's pioneering work in the 1970s. This paper examines more closely what was done and published, drawing on the direct experience of some of those most closely involved in the detailed work and upon hitherto unpublished and uncited material, to present a rather differ...

Most executives know that overarching paints of plausible futures will profoundly affect the competitiveness and survival of their organisation. Initially from the perspective of Shell, this article discuses oil scenarios and their relevance for upstream investments. Scenarios are then incorporated into generative explanation and its principal inst...

Paper covers personal experiences relating to the relevant science, publications, negotiations, policies, measures, business responses, and sleight-of-hand which has gone around the author over many years.

The pursuit of targets which are clearly infeasible within the intended time period store up trouble for political systems, as well as failing to meet their goals. They raise questions about the target culture and its unintended consequences. There are specific concerns about food availability/prices and environmental impacts, especially flowing fr...

Although wind energy is a potentially useful renewable energy resource, insufficient emphasis is placed upon optimising its efficiency in operation under UK renewable energy policy and planning guidance. Exaggerated claims are made by the industry and government. Using official [Ofgem] data on capacity factors achieved the author demonstrates that...

The slow pace of transition to sustainable energy systems is the result of several factors running in parallel. The starting points are very low. Even 30% per annum increases in rated capacity (for wind energy or solar PV, for example) take many years to make a big impact at the global level. Policy initiatives are for the most part ineffectual in...

Concerns about sustainability, and the harsh realities of environmental catastrophe, can be traced back at least 4000 years. This paper points out how human pressures on the surrounding environment have had severe consequences over this period, coal burning has had adverse consequences traceable over the past 750 years, and the adverse environmenta...

Since the Stockholm Conference of 1972 the UN system has taken a leading role in promoting environmental and development issues, and more recently sustainable energy issues. A review of the past 30 or so years suggests that the results, especially for energy and emissions related matters, have been modest. The author raises questions as to whether...

Due to the critical importance of oil to modern economic activity, and oil’s non-renewable nature, it is extremely important to try to estimate possible trajectories of future oil production while accounting for uncertainties in resource estimates and demand growth, and other factors that might limit production. In this study, we develop several al...

Most of the progress in human culture has required the exploitation of energy resources. About 100 years ago, the major source of energy shifted from recent solar to fossil hydrocarbons, including liquid and gaseous petroleum. Technology has generally led to a greater use of hydrocarbon fuels for most human activities, making civilization vulnerabl...

This paper outlines the six WEC/IIASA scenarios, which began life in 1993 as three ''cases'' or scenario families, and which are now regarded as the ''state of the art'' in this field. They were published in detail in N. Nakicenovic et al. (1998) Global Energy Perspectives, Cambridge University Press. The fully integrated scenarios present a ration...

This report draws upon various World Energy Council (WEC) publications, including in particular the joint WEC/IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) study Global energy perspectives to 2050 and beyond (1995). In keeping with the earlier WEC Commission Report Energy for tomorrow's world (1993) the WEC is in the process of botto...

This article reports a study on Global Energy Perspectives to 2050 and Beyond conducted jointly by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the World Energy Council (WEC). All together three cases of economic and energy developments were developed that sprawl into six scenarios of energy supply alternatives extending unt...

The World Energy Council tentatively assessed the more likely prospects beyond 2020. Four cases were selected covering the period 1990-2020 and three of the cases were taken on to 2100. The long-term prospects for nuclear power will not only depend upon the evolution of public perceptions and policies, but also developments with fast breeder reacto...

The possible implications of increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, their atmospheric concentration, and potential climate effects appear sufficiently serious that precautionary measures of a 'minimum regret' kind are essential, and their implementation should not be delayed.

Two WEC publications form the basis for this assessment: the WEC Commission report ‘Energy for Tomorrow’s World’ (ETW), first published in September, 1993; and the WEC book ‘New Renewable Energy Resources’, published in July, 1994. The WEC Commission report was based on the work of over 500 people from all over the world. It was both top-down and,...

Global prospects for renewable energy are bright, but for a number of reasons the pace and scale of development will be slower than some assume.

Uncertainty is endemic, in economic affairs no less than in other fields of human endeavour. Uncertainty intrudes heavily into decision-making, which is characterised by partial knowledge; irremediable unforeknowledge; and the exercise of hunch and judgement.

Scenarios modelling possible World energy futures out to the year 2100 take little or no account of the problems of oil and natural gas resource constraints while either making very generalised assumptions about what contribution renewable energy could make. Here a more focussed view is taken both of the recoverable oil and natural gas constraints...