Renewable energy What does the future hold for French Guiana?

The lofty desire to stop emitting CO2 as part of our fight against climate change has stimulated research into and development of renewable energy sources. The predominant yet implicit issue here is that oil will become rarer and rarer. Each oil well undergoes a period of increasing production over the first half of its life, which then peaks and starts to decrease as the well dries up. Over the past ten years, many smaller wells contributing to global production have dried up and therefore been shut down. New production, which is fewer in number and lesser in volume, struggles to meet the increasing demand. Since 1980, we have been consuming more oil than we have been able to find, boring into the stocks discovered by the previous generation. How much will be left for the next generation, given that it takes nature 100 million years to make oil? Whilst demand continues to grow, the worldwide supply of hydrocarbons is going to begin to fall. When will it reach its peak? Sometime between 2010 and 2020, according to geologists (www.peakoil.net). If we do not do anything to reduce our consumption, the law of supply and demand will kick in, sending the price of petrol spiralling and therefore that of food and other raw materials as well. Was the 2008 crisis a mere taste of what is to come? The poorest and developing countries will be the first to suffer. The production of greenhouse gas is intimately connected with the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) an......