Fossil fuels future consumption

The future rate of change of CO2 depends significantly on future rates of industrial CO2 emissions, and therefore, on future energy development. Land use practices also will play a role. If fossil fuel energy consumption in the next 20 years... 

Every product has a basic energy cost and the rising consumption of fossil fuels makes it difficult to predict energy costs in the future. Shifting to hydrogen will reduce future cost and supply uncertainties and significantly improve the U.S. balance of trade. 

A Department of Energy study compared alternative paths for future U.S. energy use business-as-usual and energy-efficient. Both projections suggested a substantial rise in U.S. production C02 and the consumption of fossil fuels over the next few decades. The study predicted an increase in energy between 1985 and 2010 of about 30%. The projected oil and gas increase remained relatively constant over this period, but coal consumption increased greatly by more than 100%. C02 emissions rose from 1.25 billion metric tons per year to about 1.73 billion metric tons in 2010. This is a 38% increase in C02. 

The scientific understanding of how fossil fuel use causes these effects is well advanced, providing quantitative means for explaining what is currently observed and predicting what changes will occur in the future from projected future fuel consumption. These projections provide a basis for modifying the amount and character... 

In this review I have stressed the many uncertainties that persist. Most notably we are far from understanding how the biota interacts with the atmosphere as a functioning community. We are very unsure of the transfers of carbon between air and biota, as we are of the transfers and transformations of carbon within the ocean (as Revelle has stressed). Standing out in contrast is the upward march of atmospheric CO2, which is firmly established. Increasingly there is also consensus as to the climatic change that may flow from the increase. Presumably one can also rely on the estimate of fossil fuel consumption, though the future course of this consumption is uncertain. 

The way people and social institutions will react to climate change will differ from region to region, country to country. Some countries will gain, some will lose. It is not too late for the African countries to involve in their future plans the alternatives to increased carbon dioxide, reduced fossil-fuel consumption, and a higher reafforestation rate. 

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