LISTEN to ministers and green campaigners and you would think that we are on a happy path to greener energy, with renewable sources of power freeing us from reliance on fossil fuels.

It is a pipe dream, according to a leader of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. Abdallah Jum’ah, who stepped down last year as chief executive of Saudi Aram-co, the state-owned oil company, said objective assessment of the world’s energy needs showed renewable resources would provide only a minute share of what was required. Oil, gas and coal would remain the fuels of choice - and there was plenty of oil left, he told the Royal Academy of Engineering last week.

Jum’ah’s words will anger environmentalists, economists and former oil-industry executives who have argued we are near peak oil production, and that it will run out sooner rather than later. Renewable energy will grow at a faster rate than oil, but the supply will remain small, said Jum’ah.

“The volume of new energy supplied by renewables will still be only half of the additional energy provided by oil or by gas and only a fourth of the new energy expected to come from coal,” he said.

Much “renewable” energy was generated by burning wood and other biomass for heating and cooking in the poorest countries – energy use that is “neither environmentally friendly nor efficient”.

“Geothermal, wind and similar renewables account for less than 1% of today’s energy supply, meaning breakthroughs in efficiency and economic performance, and sizeable investments in infrastructure, will be required before they have a large impact. An objective assessment shows they face considerable obstacles.”

While renewables were struggling to get off the ground, the world’s demand for energy would grow quickly. The International Energy Agency forecasts that it will go up 45% by 2030 largely because of demand from emerging economies (see graphic above). Oil and other fossil fuels would have to fill the gap, he said. Reserves were available.

“The world’s endowment (including unconventional sources such as tar sands) is estimated at 15 trillion barrels. Even after more than a century of widespread use, we have consumed only 1 trillion barrels.”

He said oil consumption would rise because there were few alternatives. “Political rhetoric has made people believe there is a solution around the corner but there is not, he said.”

Jeremy Leggett, boss of renewables company Solar-century and chairman of a UK industry taskforce on peak oil, said Jum’ah’s comments were to be expected. “We believe this at our peril. Western economies allowed themselves to be duped by the investment-bank-ing industry, which massively overstated assets, and we cannot make the same mistake with the oil industry.”

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