Coventry Journalism Review 2010

By Karl Berridge

Part one: “Oil”

For the last 100 years the car industry has quite rightly been concerned with selling vehicles.  Currently in the world today there are over 750 million cars (world ometers:2010) driving around and tooting their horns and it’s believed that figure will double within the next 30 years meaning  there will be over a billion people in the world all with the want and right to own a car.

This is a problem, there are no serious plans in any country to accommodate such an increase in vehicles and crucially the oil which powers them is finite. This is not to say the world will run out of oil, but it will run out of cheap oil as demand starts to outstrip supply. Once easily accessible and tradable oil reserves start to deplete; countries and oil companies will start to move into the mining and drilling of less accessible, unrefined oil. Alongside increased demand the price of oil will rise dramatically and have a disastrous effect on the global economy.  Gradually the price of oil will become economically unviable as the worlds dominate transport fuel. Currently the most optimistic resea Continue reading →