Peak oil is coming soon, business leaders warn
Richard Branson’s airplanes require a fair amount of fuel to keep them in the air, and his trains use up quite a bit of energy too. Brian Souter’s Stagecoach group is another big user of oil, while power company Scottish and Southern Energy and construction firm Arup also rely heavily on cheap sources of energy. So when these companies put their names to a report, released today, which says that that oil is going to become so expensive that the UK economy risks a disastrous oil crunch, they probably know what they are talking about. Interviewed on Radio Four’s Today programme, Arup’s Global Leader for Energy Resources and Industry John Miles said that the price of oil (currently trading at around $80 a barrel) could rise to $150 or $200 a barrel. If we don’t move fast towards a low carbon economy in the UK we may not have much of an economy at all.
More information about this report on the website of the UK Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security: http://peakoiltaskforce.net/