Lighting the Way IAC report

Their conclusions are:


CONCLUSION 1. Meeting the basic energy needs of the poorest people on this planet is a moral and social imperative that can and must be pursued in concert with sustainability objectives.


CONCLUSION 2. Concerted efforts must be made to improve energy efficiency and reduce the carbon intensity of the world economy

CONCLUSION 3. Technologies for capturing and sequestering carbon from fossil fuels, particularly coal, can play a major role in the cost-effective 

management of global carbon dioxide emissions.


CONCLUSION 4. Competition for oil and natural gas supplies has the potential to become a source of growing geopolitical tension and economic vulnerability for many nations in the decades ahead. 


CONCLUSION 5. As a low-carbon resource, nuclear power can continue to make a significant contribution to the world’s energy portfolio in the future, but only if major concerns related to capital cost, safety, and weapons proliferation are addressed.


CONCLUSION 6. Renewable energy in its many forms offers immense opportunities for technological progress and innovation.


CONCLUSION 7. Biofuels hold great promise for simultaneously addressing climate-change and energy-security concerns.


CONCLUSION 8. The development of cost-effective energy storage technologies, new energy carriers, and improved transmission infrastructure could substantially reduce costs and expand the contribution from a variety of energy supply options.


CONCLUSION 9. The S&T community—together with the general public—has a critical role to play in advancing sustainable energy solutions and must be 
effectively engaged.

Energy research

Australian government energy pricing audit...possibly show that solar and wind outstrip coal as cheapest source by 2030...? http://www.bree.gov.au/publications/aeta.html

Energy use per person
From Thomas L. Friedman's Hot, flat and crowded, p 104

2000 to 3000 kcal/day - energy required simply be alive i.e. what our biology needs.

230,000 kcal/day - energy consumption of the average American, i.e. each person is consuming about 100 x what their body actually needs to live.

Apparently people in other developed nations use about half that, those in India and China 9 to 30 times less.

His source is a 2007 InterAcademy Council report "Lighting the Way". This report looks like a good source of info on energy...in 2007 anyway.