Daniele Ganser (Universität Basel)
Daniele Ganser (Universität Basel)
Peak Oil and Switzerland's Energy Security
Abstract
Peak Oil is not the end of the oil age. But it is the moment when global oil production can no longer be increased but reaches a maximum (a peak) before going into terminal decline. This is a new phenomenon as during the last 150 years oil production could always be increased. Peak Oil will be the beginning of the third oil crisis, which will last much longer than those of 1973 and 1979. Exactly when peak oil will come for conventional oil is unclear, but presumably before the year 2020. As peak oil is inevitable Switzerland has to prepare itself for that coming energy crisis. Technology today is available to heat houses without oil and gas (minergie). The mobility sector is more challenging. Here we need lighter cars, which ideally consume no more than 3 liters per 100 km.
CV
Dr. Daniele Ganser is a Historian and Peace Researcher specialising on Peak Oil, Resource Wars and Geostrategy. He was born in 1972 in Lugano and currently teaches at the History Departement of Basel University. He studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and worked as a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. He has published numerous books, articles and interviews on international politics, secret warfare and energy security. His book on NATO's Secret Armies was translated into ten different languages. www.danieleganser.ch
