Resources

WHAT'S NEXT?: The world is depleting its natural resources at an alarming rate due to population growth and over consumption. Increased competition for ever-diminishing food and water resources may amplify socio-economically motivated armed conflicts and causing quests for more efficient resources on and beyond Planet Earth.

• [New] The dearth of sophisticated new geological research that could help map potential oil and gas resources along the U.S. East Coast is partly to blame for lackluster interest.
• [New] By the end of this decade, Planetary Resources hopes to send a fully functional spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid to conduct the company's first asteroid prospecting mission.
• [New] The United States will continue to promote energy security and economic growth in a manner that improves the health of the world's oceans and environment.
• UK employers will be investing more resources into their training and development programs in 2018 in order to fill their skills gaps and reach their full capacity.
• Modest improvements in the living conditions of the poorest in the world will not be enough to substantially reduce the stark differences in resources and power.
• The next 30 years will see renewables rapidly increase global market share whilst energy efficiency dampens overall energy demand.
• Companies will experience major evolutions of marketing resources in 2018 and new activities holding a new growth.
• The highest-budgeted defense force in the world will be outmaneuvered by adversaries with fewer resources who leverage commercial research with speed and agility.
• Outsourcing business information technology (IT) responsibilities to the cloud is likely to continue: Outsourcing and leasing of services in 2018 will likely grow from its current level.
• By 2022, 78 percent of government entities will be predominantly buying software-as-a-service to focus their resources on activities that more directly serve their citizens.
• Australian LNG exports will remain the main driver of growth in export volumes in the next two years.
• Romania will export around 1 billion metric cubes of natural gas each year to the Republic of Moldova.
• Despite growing demand for energy and abundance of renewable resources, Indonesia is struggling to attract investors.
• 2020 will mark the end of the remarkable growth phase of the Australian resources and energy sector.
• Australia's resources and energy export earnings are projected to level out at$ 213-216 billion from 2019-20 onwards.
• Electricity generated by all renewable resources accounts for 17 percent of US electricity today: By 2050, wind and solar power alone are expected to account for 35 percent of the nation's total.
• Washington policy leaders believe that by denying Assad 50 percent of Syria's resources such as oil, water, agriculture, it will retain leverage and be able to turn Syria into a quagmire for Iran and Russia.
• Berlin maintains that the €10bn (£8.75bn) Nord Stream 2 will buttress Europe's energy security by ensuring steady gas supplies at a time when the continent's energy resources are dwindling.
• The pace of growth in Australia's LNG exports is expected to slow sharply in both years.
• Trade tensions between the US and China will be an overarching risk generator while the latter continues to balance industrial reform with economic growth.
• Over the next decade, price signals that reward supply flexibility will become instrumental as the entry of new intermittent renewable generation will need to be balanced with complementary resources.
• In a world where wind and solar resources make up 40 to 50 percent of generation, wholesale energy prices will drop by as much as $16 per megawatt-hour.
• China's move to protect its limited water resources could leave the world in a very different place at the tail end of the Dog year.

Last updated: 20 June 2018