Oil for years

So, even tripling the current price to $200 barrel would only result in a pump price of £1.50 a litre, and at this price, the amount of recoverable oil is much more than the one trillion barrels quoted by Professor Whitelegg.

The declared reserves reflect those oil reserves now viable with current technology at today's prices. Four years ago, the amount of declared recoverable oil leapt by 20 per cent when 200 billion barrels of oil from Canada's Athabasca Tar Sands was added as the overhead of its extraction dropped to only $10 a barrel.

The present rise should see much of the Athabasca's potential two trillion barrels added along with even greater reserves from Venezuela's Orinoco basin. As the price rises, other forms of fossil fuel become viable.

Reserves of shale oil, also known as kerogen, are extensive, especially in North America. At $200 a barrel, we can make petrol from coal, just as the Nazis did and the world's reserves of coal are vast, with North America having the most.

In short, there is recoverable oil for hundreds of years to come.

Exploitation of these alternative sources of oil will be devastating for the environment. Not only do they involve open-cast mining on an unprecedented scale, they involve a heavy toll of CO2 emissions in producing heat to release the oil.

If we follow the route of "dirty" fossil fuels then we can forget about limiting CO2. We need leadership, especially from the world's greatest consumer of energy, to develop the conservation and diversity measures described by Professor Whitelegg. Unfortunately, the US President has turned his back on the Kyoto agreement. Against this background, what chance for the Earth?

Pete Hodgkinson,

Carr Lane, York.

Updated: 10:56 Wednesday, August 17, 2005