Energy Security & Energy Poverty

Global energy consumption occurs on a scale that is difficult to comprehend. Although the global demand for energy continues to grow with population and industrialization, the rate of growth is slowing, owing mostly to improvements in energy efficiency, technology, and energy education.

The global energy mix is driven by the need for energy securityâ€"having energy sources that are affordable, available, reliable, and environmentally sustainable. By this definition, fossil fuels are reasonably secure, and that is why they still represent 85% of the global energy mix today. Although fossil resources are ultimately finite, vast amounts of oil, natural gas, and coal remain. Continued supply depends on a combination of advances in technology, economics, and demand. In other words, there is not a fossil fuel resource limit in the next 50 to 100 years; instead demand for fossil fuels will decrease as more secure energy options are developed.

Secure energy underpins modern economies and is also an important component of the overall solution to lift undeveloped and developing nations from poverty. Yet over 1 billion people living in undeveloped and underdeveloped nations have no electricity, and another 1 billion or more have very little access to energy; they live in energy poverty. Because all aspects of modern life depend on secure energy, energy poverty equates to economic poverty. Some energy poverty can be addressed with off grid, distributed energy solutions, in cultures that are open to this type of change. Some poverty still exists where there is access to electricity, and thus requires a combination of approaches to address.

Speaker: Scott Tinker, Univ. of Texas at Austin

Room: Hartley Conference Center