May 22 - Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

Unless solutions are found to the world's future energy supplies wars will soon be fought over oil, if they have not already been, a leading Scottish businessman warned yesterday.

Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish & Southern Energy, was speaking about the twin threats of climate change and energy security at All Energy 08, the UK's biggest renewables conference and show.

He said today's CO2 concentration was the highest ever detected on the planet and was continuing to increase and that since 1990 global oil consumption had risen 30per cent.

"You have to ask whether that global consumption is sustainable.

In the last 15 years we have been using up globally more than we are discovering. Oil is getting harder to find.

"The days of cheap easy oil and gas are rapidly coming to an end if they have not already and secondly we will reach a plateau in the amount of oil we can produce sustainably in this world. Some people think it is already at that plateau.

"We are going to have to fundamentally change how we think about oil and gas."

He said he believed that by 2020 the UK would only be halfway towards its target CO2 reduction and would remain a laggard in Europe.

"Carbon capture storage (CCS) will be working but it won't be working here. The Scottish Energy Minister will be wondering how Portugal managed to steal the lead in green energy, some of today's windfarms will probably still be in planning and BERR (the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) will still be consulting on whether it should be rolling out smart metering and most worryingly in 2020 oil and gas reserves will be the biggest source by far of global political tension and potential conf lict.

"If we don't sort this out there will be wars fought over oil. You can argue that there already have been."

Marchant urged politicians to work together and to address the issue of nuclear power.

He said it was important to get the investment climate right, particularly for renewables.

Originally published by Newsquest Media Group.

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