Planet OilThis is the rollercoaster story of global energy security, and we are at its critical juncture. Around the world, oil and gas fields are either running dry or have become politically or environmentally toxic. For all the talk of renewables and nuclear, no one is in any doubt that the human race will continue to rely on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. But how long can Earth's resources sustain life as we know it? Travelling to many oil and gas producing territories around the world, Planet Oil traces how humans have developed fuels and how geology, technology, politics and commercial pressures have affected and driven the world's insatiable consumption. Timely and groundbreaking, it also asks what will be the cost of our continued addiction to these fuels, and can the human race ever end its dependence on oil?
http://tvo.org/programs/planet-oilepisode 1: -
How Oil Made UsAir Date: Sep 17, 2015
Length: 49:52
Available Until: Oct 14, 2015
About this Video
From the moment, we first drilled for oil, we opened a Pandora's Box that changed the world forever. It transformed the way we lived our lives, spawned foreign wars and turned a simple natural resource into the most powerful political weapon the world has ever known. But when exactly did geology turn into such a high stakes game? In this timely new series, Professor Iain Stewart visits the places that gave birth to the earth's oil riches, discovers the people who fought over its control and supply and explores how our insatiable thirst for oil is changing the very planet on which we depend. It's a journey that will help us answer a fundamental question: How did we become so addicted to oil in little more than one human lifetime?
episode 2 : -
The Carbon WarsAir Date: Sep 24, 2015
Length: 50:26
Available Until: Oct 21, 2015
About this Video
By the early 1950's, a holy trinity of oil, plastics and fertilisers had transformed the planet. But as Professor Iain Stewart reveals, when the oil producing countries demanded a greater share in profits from the Western energy companies, the oil and gas fields of the Middle East became a focus for coup d'états and military conflict. In the North Sea, Prof Stewart recalls the race against time to find alternative supplies in the shallow, but turbulent waters both here and in America's Gulf coast. The offshore discoveries in the 1970 proved to be a game changer. It marked an engineering revolution; the moment when 'difficult' oil & gas (previously unviable sources) could be commercially produced from the ocean depths. It was the moment when Western Europe and the U.S. finally unshackled themselves from their 20th century energy security nightmare.