Assumption 1: The growing demand for energy necessitates resource conservation
Strong growth in worldwide demand for primary fossil energy resources will lead to rising long-term energy commodity market prices characterised by significant price volatility. The imperative of securing access to non-renewable resources for future generations necessitates resource conservation.Over the next few decades, developing countries and up-and-coming newly industrialised countries like India and China will require and consume enormous amounts of energy. However, our oil and gas reserves are finite and will be completely used up in a few decades. If our use of fossil fuels remains constant or increases, it is likely that future generations starting as early as 2030 will only have very limited access to the Earth’s energy sources, if any at all. We can expect the price of fossil fuels to increase dramatically. In Europe and Germany this trend will be accompanied by a growing dependence on energy imports, causing European energy policy to become an increasingly important factor in foreign policy and the conservation of resources to become the top item on the agenda for European energy companies.