Breaking convention

In December 2009 Copenhagen replaced beleaguered golf star Tiger Woods as the most popular search term on Google — a fact that the United Nations Climate Change Conference boasted proudly on its homepage — as, of course, the Danish capital played host to the environmental summit. In finding ways to conserve it and make it cleaner, energy is now officially top of the global agenda.

The second part of this energy report will concentrate on alternative energy (renewables and nuclear power), but the focus of this feature will be the conventional energy sources of coal, gas and oil. The fact remains that fossil fuels represent the core of most firms’ energy practices. ‘Certainly, renewable energy is a growing segment,’ says Doug Glass, energy partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in London. ‘But it is still a relatively small percentage of the whole.’

According to the BP ‘Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2009’, in 2008 80% to 90% of total global energy consumption derived from the combustion of fossil fuels, although growth for each of the fossil fuels slowed in the same year. For the third consecutive year, coal accounted for the majority of primary energy consumption growth, with global coal consumption rising by 3%. The figures are heavily dominated by China, which is responsible for a staggering 43% of global coal consumption and is still developing its power infrastructure.

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