Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) says solar power, a business it abandoned four years ago, may expand into the world’s biggest source of energy in the next half century.
The proposition that photovoltaic panels will be the main power source by 2070 is one of the New Lens Scenarios Europe’s largest oil company published today in a report on energy demand this century. A second has natural gas as the main fuel by 2030.
“These scenarios show how the choices made by governments, businesses and individuals in the next few years will have a major impact on the way the future unfolds,” Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser said in a statement accompanying the report.
Shell’s solar estimate, which assumes higher energy prices, follows an industry boom that saw capacity grow to about 102 gigawatts in 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That compares with a figure of 1 gigawatt in 2000, based on figures from the International Energy Agency.
Lower costs and state support will boost solar to about 600 gigawatts in 2035, or more than 2 percent of power generation, from a small fraction in 2010, the Paris-based group has said.
Shell’s study is the longest term outlook the company has presented. The producer spent $2.3 billion on alternative energy and carbon capture and storage research in the past five years.
Energy demand may double in the next 50 years on population growth and rising living standards, according to Shell, based in The Hague. At the same time it sees “global emissions of carbon dioxide dropping to near zero by 2100” under both scenarios.
Prosperous, Volatile
The first scenario, “a more prosperous, volatile world,” projects oil demand plateauing after 2040, and wind power and carbon capture growing more slowly because of a lack of public and policy support. In the second, with more moderate economic growth, demand for oil will peak in about 2035. By the century’s end, electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles will dominate roads and there’ll be wide use of technology to trap carbon emissions.
Shell decided in 2009 to focus on biofuels in the renewable energy industry and in 2010 set up the Raizen ethanol venture with Cosan SA Industria & Comercio. In 2010, it saw the share of renewables in transport fuel doubling this decade, and since then has focused its research on biofuels made from sugar cane- farm waste after ending an algae project in Hawaii in 2011.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at [email protected]; Sally Bakewell in London at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at [email protected]
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
