The Future: Into the Twilight Zone

未来：进入暮光之域

 

A glimpse of a post-oil era

一窥后石油时代

 

Stewart Spence was a young hotelier in Aberdeen in 1971 when he first realised what an oil rush meant. His hotel, the Commodore, was the only one in the Scottish city with en-suite bathrooms. One day an American oil executive strode in, wearing denims, cowboy boots and a stetson. Once assured that the bedrooms had private facilities, he booked 20 rooms for six months and paid upfront by banker’s draft. The American, boss of an oil-services company called Global Marine, was ferrying three oil rigs from the Gulf of Mexico to Aberdeen. Thus began Scotland’s North Sea oil boom. Steak houses, cigars and words like roughneck and roustabout took hold. Texans famously drank Dom Pérignon champagne out of pint mugs. They lived the high life until oil prices crashed in 1986. Then they disappeared almost as swiftly as they had come, says Mr Spence.

 

1971年在阿伯丁，年轻的旅店老板斯图尔特·斯彭斯（Stewart Spence）第一次见识了什么是“石油热”。当时他的“海军准将”（Commodore）是这座苏格兰城市里唯一带有独立卫生间的旅店。一天，一名美国石油公司主管大步走了进来，他穿着牛仔裤，踩着牛仔靴，戴着牛仔帽。问清楚房间确实带有独立洗浴间后，他把20个房间包下半年，然后用银行汇票预先结了账。这名美国人是石油服务公司“环球海洋钻探”（Global Marine）的老板，正从墨西哥湾将三个石油钻井平台运送到阿伯丁。苏格兰北海的石油繁荣期就这样拉开了帷幕。牛排馆、雪茄以及“钻工”和“油井杂工”这样的称谓落地生根。得克萨斯人用啤酒杯喝唐培里侬香槟的习惯众所周知。斯彭斯说，他们过着奢华的生活，直到1986年油价暴跌。然后就像来时一样迅速地消失得无影无踪。

 

Since those days oil has brought both boom and bust to Aberdeen, but never before the sense of despondency that grips the city today. In 2012 it had more multi-millionaires per 100,000 people than London and the world’s busiest heliport, taking workers to and from the rigs. But the oil-price crash in 2014 drove home the fact that after almost half a century of exploitation, many of Aberdeen’s offshore fields have become too expensive to be sustainable. The number of jobs has plummeted, and some oil producers are on the brink of bankruptcy.

 

从那时起，石油给阿伯丁带去过繁荣，也带去过萧条，但从没像今天这样使得这座城市被沮丧吞没。2012年时，这里每十万人口中的千万富翁人数超过了伦敦；全世界最繁忙的直升机机场也坐落于此，运送工人往返油井。然而，2014年的油价大跌让人们认清了一个事实：在经过近半个世纪的开采后，阿伯丁的许多海上油田已经变得太过昂贵而不可持续。这里的工作职位数量已经大减，一些石油生产商濒临破产。

 

As the world enters what could be the twilight of the oil age, some wonder whether Aberdeen’s travails could be a harbinger of things to come in oil-producing regions across the world. Mr Spence thinks so. He still runs the smartest hotel in Aberdeen and is about to install a charging station for electric vehicles.

 

随着世界可能进入石油年代的衰退期，一些人怀疑阿伯丁的困境是否预示了全球各地产油区的未来。斯彭斯认为是的。他仍然经营着阿伯丁最光鲜的酒店，并很快将增设一个电动车充电站。

 

Not so fast, say many oil-industry veterans. They accept that high-cost oil regions like Scotland’s North Sea, Canada’s oil sands and the Russian Arctic may be in trouble, but expect at least one more oil boom, born from the ashes of today’s bust, because there has been so little investment in the past two years to open up new sources of supply. Within the next couple of years, they think the market will once again swing from glut to shortage. The biggest beneficiaries will be producers in places with low-cost, abundant oil such as the Middle East, America’s Permian basin, Brazil’s pre-salt fields and parts of west Africa. But although those regions may see a boom in investment, it would be short-lived, because long-term demand is falling and the market could quickly become oversupplied.

 

许多石油业资深人士说速度不会这么快。他们认同高成本产油区，比如苏格兰的北海、加拿大的油砂和俄罗斯北极地区可能确实陷入了麻烦，但他们预计会再出现至少一次石油热——从今日的灰烬中重生，这是因为过去两年极少再有投资开发出新的供应源。他们认为，几年之内市场就会再一次从过剩变为短缺。最大的受益人将是那些成本低而储备丰富地区的油商。这些地区包括中东、美国的二叠纪盆地、巴西的盐下油田以及西非部分地区。但是，虽然这些地区可能会看到投资增长，这种增长也不会持续太久，因为长期需求正在下跌，而市场可能很快变得供给过剩。

 

When it comes, what might a terminal decline in the use of oil mean for the industry, governments and the world at large? The biggest turmoil would be felt in oil-dependent developing countries. As Jason Bordoff, of Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy, notes, the social stresses now evident in budget-strapped petrostates such as Venezuela and Nigeria are a hint of things to come. Gulf countries would accelerate their efforts to diversify their economies away from oil, as Saudi Arabia is already doing. America might rethink its “oil-for-security” geopolitical bargain with that country. Lower oil revenues could increase instability in places like Iraq.

 

当石油消费的终极衰退期来临时，对产业、政府以及全世界总体意味着什么？那些经济依赖石油的发展中国家将感受到最大的震荡。哥伦比亚大学全球能源政策中心的贾森·博尔多夫（Jason Bordoff）指出，目前委内瑞拉和尼日利亚这类预算吃紧的石油国家明显的社会压力预示了将要发生的事。海湾国家将加快从依赖石油到多样化经济的转变，正如沙特阿拉伯已经在做的那样。美国人可能要重新思考和这个国家“石油换安全”的地缘政治交易。石油收入的减少可能会使得伊拉克等地区变得更不稳定。

 

Oil companies, for their part, will have to explore new lines of business. The North Sea provides a glimpse of some of the opportunities that lie ahead. Near Aberdeen, firms such as Royal Dutch Shell are decommissioning parts of the spectacular network of rigs and pipelines installed in the 1970s. Andrew McCallum, an adviser to Britain’s regulator, the Oil and Gas Authority, says oil companies could deploy their decommissioning skills on projects around the world.

 

石油企业自身将需要探索新的业务领域。从北海的变化可以一窥未来的某些机遇。在阿伯丁附近，荷兰皇家壳牌（Royal Dutch Shell）等公司正在让1970年代建造的大型油井和管网中的一部分设施退役。英国的监管机构石油和天然气管理局（Oil and Gas Authority）的顾问安德鲁·麦卡勒姆（Andrew McCallum）说，石油公司可以在世界各地的采油项目中发挥它们在设备退役方面的技能。

 

Statoil, the Norwegian state oil company, has set an example of what oil companies might do in future. Earlier this year it acquired a lease to build the world’s largest floating wind farm 15 miles off the coast of Peterhead, north of Aberdeen. Each of its five 6MW turbines will be tethered to the seabed on a floating steel base, enabling it to operate in deeper water than a conventional turbine embedded into the sea floor. That will give it access to stronger winds farther offshore, making it cheaper to produce electricity.

 

挪威国家石油公司（Statoil）已经为石油企业未来可能的出路树立了范本。今年稍早时，该公司取得了一个租赁合约，在距阿伯丁北部彼得赫德（Peterhead）海岸15英里处的海上建造世界最大的浮体式风力发电厂。五个6兆瓦的风机将安装在漂浮的钢桩上，再通过锚链固定在海底。与需要埋入海底固定的传统风机相比，这种新方法可在更深的海域工作，使之能在远离海岸处获得更强劲的风力，从而降低发电成本。

 

Back in Norway, Statoil also operates two projects to store carbon dioxide under water, in some of the most advanced examples of a technology seen as key to removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere: carbon capture and storage (CCS). This is costly and still in its infancy, and governments have supported it only erratically. In 2015 a mere 28m tonnes of CO2 was stored that way. To help meet the 2ºC limit, the IEA says the world needs to store a whopping 4bn tonnes a year by 2040.

 

在挪威本国，国家石油公司还在实施两个水下存储二氧化碳项目，它们是碳收集存储（Carbon capture and storage，简称CCS）这项技术最先进的案例之一。CCS被视为从大气中移除温室气体的关键手段，其成本高昂且刚刚起步，各国政府的支持也时断时续。2015年仅有2800万吨二氧化碳用这种方式存储起来。国际能源署称，为实现将气温上升控制在2摄氏度的目标，全世界需要在2040年前存储多达40亿吨的二氧化碳。

 

Biofuels are another way to diversify. At the North Sea port of Rotterdam, Neste, a Finnish refiner, ships in waste fats from the world’s slaughterhouses and converts them into biodiesel for the haulage and aviation industry. It costs more than regular diesel, but under EU rules member countries’ fuel mix must include 10% biofuels by 2020. Neste’s boss, Matti Lievonen, recalls that in 2012 nine-tenths of his company’s operating profit came from refining fossil fuels, whereas now renewables account for 40%.

 

发展生物燃料是另一个实现经济多样化的途径。在北海的鹿特丹港，芬兰精炼商纳斯特（Neste）从世界各地的屠宰场运来废弃脂肪，将它们转化为供运输和航空业使用的生物燃料。这种燃料比普通柴油贵，但欧盟规定到2020年其成员国使用的燃料组合必须包含10%的生物燃料。纳斯特的老板马蒂·列沃宁（Matti Lievonen）回忆道，2012年公司有九成的营业利润来自精炼化石燃料，而如今可再生能源贡献了利润的40%。

 

Not all oil companies want to be innovators. Many plan to develop more gas, but also insist that the world’s demand for oil as feedstock for petrochemicals will keep them in business even if demand from cars wanes. The IEA predicts that petrochemicals will raise demand for oil by almost 6m b/d in the next 25 years. Oil companies are putting pressure on governments to impose carbon taxes, believing them to be the best way to kill off coal and boost natural gas, at least until renewable energy and batteries have come of age. So far governments have shown remarkably little appetite for such taxes. The IEA calculated that carbon markets covered only 11% of global energy-related emissions in 2014. In contrast, 13% of emissions were linked to fossil-fuel use supported by consumption subsidies.

 

并非所有石油企业都想成为革新者。许多企业计划发展更多天然气业务，但同时坚持认为，即便汽车的石油需求减少，全世界对用作石化产品原料的石油的需求仍会让它们有生意可做。国际能源署预计，未来25年，石化产品将令石油需求增加将近每日600万桶。石油企业正在向政府施压，要求实施碳排放税，他们相信这是抛弃煤炭而提升天然气地位的最佳方式，至少在可再生能源和电池真正成熟之前是如此。到目前为止，政府在这类税赋上显现的兴趣极少。据国际能源署计算，2014年碳交易市场上的碳排放量仅占全球能源相关碳排放量的11%，相比之下，13%的排放与受消费补贴支持的化石燃料使用相关。

 

Transport fuels are more widely taxed, but at vastly different rates, ranging from high in Europe to low in America and China. Experts say that in America it is easier to regulate fuel consumption via vehicle-efficiency standards, which consumers notice much less than fuel taxes.

 

对交通用燃料的课税更为普遍，但税率差别极大，欧洲较高而美国和中国较低。专家们说，在美国，通过车辆燃油效率标准来调节汽油消费更为容易，因为消费者对燃油税要敏感得多。

 

The crucial, and underappreciated, players in the future of oil are consumers. Their choices, at least as much as those of producers and governments, will determine its ultimate fate, because oil fuels the industries that make goods for them, the trucks that deliver those goods, the cars they drive and the plastic objects that clutter their homes.

 

消费者在石油的未来中扮演了至关重要却被低估的角色。他们的选择将决定石油最终的命运（其影响至少不亚于石油生产商和政府的选择），这是因为那些为他们制造商品的产业、运送这些商品的卡车、他们自己驾驶的汽车以及家中堆满的塑料物品都在使用石油。

 

This special report started by recalling how the horse was displaced by the car. Urban planners failed to find ways to reduce the horse-manure problem. Governments paved roads, put up traffic signs and introduced legislation that allowed the motor car to establish itself. Yet it was the allure of the Model T for millions of consumers that finally drove the horse off the road.

 

本期特刊从回忆马匹如何被汽车取代开篇。城市规划人员未能找到缓解马粪问题的方法。政府铺设道路、竖立交通标识并进行立法来推动汽车的普及。然而，是T型车对百万消费者产生的吸引力最终将马匹赶下了道路。

 

Similarly, oil companies may turn their attention to alternative fuels, governments may tinker with fuel taxes and congestion charges, battery costs may come down with a bump and the electricity grid may be converted to run on sun and wind. But none of these developments alone will end the oil era. Only when entrepreneurs can capture the public’s imagination with new vehicles that transform the whole travel experience, rather than just change the fuel, will the petrol engine run out of road.

 

同样地，石油公司可能会将注意力转移到替代性燃料上，政府可能会在燃油税和拥堵费上做文章，电池成本可能突然大跌，电网可能会被改造成倚赖太阳能和风能发电，但它们无一能单枪匹马地终结石油时代。唯有企业家用彻底改变旅行体验的新交通工具抓住人们的想象力之时——而不仅仅只是改变燃料——汽油发动机才会从道路上消失。

 

This could happen with electric self-driving cars, which may eventually become not just four-wheeled travel pods but mobile offices, hotels and entertainment centres, running noiselessly through city streets day and night. Or it could be some other futuristic innovation. A new play in London, “Oil”, predicts that the hydrocarbon age will end with the Chinese mining helium-3 on the Moon to fuel nuclear-powered cars and homes on Earth. Whatever your particular fantasy, there are bound to be more oil wars and oil shocks. But it will be when the internal-combustion engine eventually loses its remarkable grip on the world’s roads that the age of oil will come to a screeching halt.

 

这可能会在电动自动驾驶汽车上实现，这时汽车终于不再只是一个带四个轮子的移动盒子，它还是移动办公室、旅馆和娱乐中心，夜以继日、无声无息地行驶在城市道路上。也可能是其他的未来派创新。伦敦新上演的戏剧《石油》（Oil）预测，某天中国人会在月球上开采氦3来驱动地球上的核动力汽车及住宅，从而终结油气时代。不论你想象的终结者是哪一型，一定还会有更多的石油战争和石油危机。但是，只有当内燃机最终失去对世界各地道路的控制时，石油时代才会戛然而止。

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