Fuel Cells 'are Key to Economic Progress'.
Continued economic development requires a new energy regime to free the global economy of reliance on depleting fossil fuels, a US expert says.
Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and a fellow at the Wharton School’s executive education programme, said: “We are reaching the peak in oil output. The International Energy Agency says this will occur in 2037 - some say earlier, others say later. But what they are arguing about is a 20-year difference. That is a very narrow window to change an entire energy regime for the planet,” he says.
Peak oil refers to the theoretical point at which half the earth’s petroleum has been extracted and production enters a terminal decline. Prices for the increasingly rare commodity are expected to then become too high to support a petroleum-based economy. Many oil producing countries are believed to have already surpassed their individual peaks and Chevron reports that oil production is already declining in 33 of the 48 largest oil producing countries.
Mr Rifkin told a meeting of experts in Italy that ignoring the problem would stunt growth in the world economy. “The main issue is the cost of energy, both the direct cost as well as the indirect cost of global warming.”
The solution, he says, are fuel cells that produces electricity from hydrogen and oxygen through an electrochemical process, which are potentially more efficient and less polluting than internal combustion engines. Today, fuel cells are expensive and quite rare.
Mr Rifkin dismisses claims that hydrogen fuel cell technology is too futuristic or ‘fringe’ to be taken seriously, pointing to advanced development programmes in the United States and Europe. Over the past few months, he has been invited to advise on energy policy by Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, Slovenian President Janez Drnovšek and the heads of many European regional governments. “Industry is in the conversation but it is not leading,” he adds.
