Non-carbon sources may fuel the world of the future, but fossil fuels form the world's energy foundation, and companies are looking for the best ways to make those fuels abundant and safe.

In a panel titled "Solutions for a Sufficient, Clean and Secure Supply of Fossil Fuels," chairman Randell Gossen, president of the World Petroleum Council, said fossil fuels have a wide-ranging effect in many areas, including access to acreage, non-conventional production, climate change and supply reliability.

The International Energy Agency 2009 World Energy Outlook reported that primary energy will grow at an average 1.5% a year through 2030 with demand rising from some 85 MM b/d of oil to 105 MM b/d of oil in 2030, and nearly all of that increase will go to feed the growth of emerging countries.

The role of the producer, he said, is to provide a "stable, affordable, sustainable supply of energy." To reach that goal efficiently producers, policy makers, academia and other global organizations must cooperate.

Turning to the panel, Eloy Álvarez Pelegry, director of corporate intelligence for Gas Natural Group in Spain, explained the advantages of combined-cycle production of electricity from coal and natural gas. The combination lowers emissions and raises plant efficiency.

His company has specific targets for power production from renewable energy by 2020, he added, but "we need to address that contribution and the economics."

With the adoption of combined-cycle generation, Spain's electricity production grew from 72.8 gW in 2004 to nearly 100 gW this year. At the same time, natural gas use increased 187% and use of renewable energy climbed 79%.

Sarthak Behuria, chairman of the Petroleum Federation of India, said oil production has stagnated in percentages, gas formed 10% of the energy base in 2009 oil 30%, coal 52%, nuclear 1% and hydro 5%. The percentages will be similar in 2030 at 12% for gas, 29% for oil, 51% for coal, 6% for nuclear and 2% for hydro even as the Indian government set up measures to ramp up oil exploration. Still, only 15 of the nation’s 26 sedimentary basins have been opened for exploration.

At the same time, India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. has 39 projects in 15 countries from Brazil to Myanmar and Libya to Vietnam.

Jean-Michel Gires, president and chief executive officer of Total Exploration and Production Canada Ltd., outlined the role of oil sands, which are expected to plateau at production of some 95,000 b/d between 2020 and 2030. At the same time, extra-heavy oil and bitumen should provide 8% of production by 2030.

"The resources are there, but oil from sands and heavy oil area expensive to produce," he said. At the same time, he added, "we have different elements, different ideas for reducing emissions" from oil sands production.

Giambiattista de Ghetto, senior vice president of research and technological innovation with the Exploration and Production Division of Italy's Eni, said technology reduced finding and development costs in the Gulf of Mexico by 80% from 1980 to 1995.

"The more we apply technology, the more we lower unit costs. The more we apply technology, the greater the reliability," he said.

Rob Whitney, chief executive officer of CRL Energy (New Zealand), said, "New Zealand, with 15 billion metric tons, has more coal per capita than any country in the world."

That gives the nation an incentive to develop technology around its coal, including coal-to-gas technology developed by Sasol in South Africa. New Zealand could produce 100,000 b/d of coal liquids if oil prices made it economical, he said, but that would take an oil price between $100 and $150/bbl.