Part 1 can be found here. This series of posts will be co-authored by phoenix, who is an Engineer heavily involved in the energy sector. It will be based on a submission we made recently to the Australian Government. Obviously, projections of this type are difficult. This is an attempt to provide a model for this kind of projection. We then use the model to provide some insights into just how hard the conversion will be for Australia.

How Much Time Do We Have?

Since Australia has one of the largest per capita endowments of energy resources, it is easy to be lulled into a false security that this benefit will last forever. This impression is boosted by quoted production vs. demand figures exceeding 100 years. The reality of our energy security is not so rosy.

As discussed above, most production vs. resource figures are established by assuming a continuation of the current demand or extraction rate. While this may be a reasonable methodology for determination of the life of a mine or the value of the resource it is patently false for determination of our overall resource security. Demand rates for all of our energy resources are climbing year by year.

The paradigm of continually increasing growth driven by an increasing population and an expectation of improving standards of living demands a continuing increase in production of our natural resources. The following table shows Australia’s major non renewable energy resources together with their expected life calculated on this basis.