the resilience of hydrocarbon culture

From a recent Globe and Mail interview, Another perspective on peak oil, by Karl Moore of Adam Waterous, global head of investment banking for Scotia Capital and president of Scotia Waterous, a leading firm in mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas business.

Waterous comments on the growing presence of alternative energy in the global energy supply with some conclusions I find very concerning:

If you make some assumptions that alternative energy, wind, solar, grows at a compound annual rate of 15 per cent a year, which is a fantastically successful business – if you have a 15-per-cent compound annual growth rate, that would be stunningly fantastic – I think the number is, by 2030, so, 21 years from now, alternative energy is still less than 5 per cent of total energy consumed in the world [emphasis mine]. Meaning you'd have to have fantastic, fantastic growth rates in alternative energy to ever replace, in any meaningful way, other major sources – primarily hydrocarbons, coal, oil and gas.

Ignoring for a moment the ecological ramifications of that, the sovereingty and security issues with this scenario alone would seem to me to overwhelmingly recommend a more aggressive push to alternatives.