IN THE race to shore up energy certainty in the face of peak oil, vastly differing strategies are on the international table.
In his State of the Nation address last week, United States president Barack Obama pinned much of his nation's future to its vast gas reserves.
Hydraulic fracturing - "fracking" - to extract gas could create 600,000 jobs in America by the end of the decade, Mr Obama said.
“We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years, and my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy,” he said.
Exploiting gas is part of an "all of the above" US energy policy that also includes renewables, although critics fear that an economy already geared around fossil fuels will retain the easy option at the expense of renewables development.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported early this week that global renewable energy deals climbed 40 per cent to a record high of US$53.5 billion last year, from US$38.2b in 2010.
Solar, wind and energy efficiency projects took precedence over hydropower for the first time, the agency said.
But global economic strains and manufacturing over-capacity in China could dampen the growth of renewables deals in 2012.
BP estimates that despite the growth of renewables, only 5pc of global energy production will come from renewable sources by 2030 - excluding hydro power.
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