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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL EXAMINATIONS
Cambridge International Level 3 Pre-U Certificate
9777/01
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
Paper 1 Written paper
October/November 2010
1 hour 30 minutes
INSTRUCTIONS (Resource Booklet)
*1687363737*
READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST
This Resource Booklet contains Documents 1 and 2 which you should use to answer the questions.
You should spend approximately 10 minutes reading the documents before attempting to answer the questions.
This is allowed for within the time set for the examination.
This document consists of 3 printed pages and 1 blank page.
DC (LEO) 19601/3
© UCLES 2010
[Turn over
2
The documents below consider energy supply. Read them both in order to answer all the questions on
the question paper.
Document 1: adapted from ‘Before the oil runs out: the search for alternatives’, an article by John
Dillin, written in 2005. Dillin is a US journalist and an Education Development Officer.
When Adolf Hitler sparked World War II, the German war machine faced a daunting challenge: it had
almost no petroleum. Despite the shortage – which some considered fatal – a powerful Nazi blitzkrieg
quickly rolled back the armies of Poland, France, the Low Countries and Britain, and it thrust far into the
Soviet Union. Hundreds of German bombers pounded Britain, and swarms of German fighter planes
fought off Allied attackers.
How did Hitler do it? With coal.
Operating 25 synthetic fuel plants, Germans converted their country’s brown coal into high-quality
diesel fuel and gasoline. Coal provided over 92% of Germany’s aviation fuel and over half of all its
petroleum needs.
What worked in wartime Germany could hold lessons for the United States. With only 2% of the world’s
proven oil reserves but teeming with coal, the US could turn its carbon bounty into synthetic fuels. If
they’re cheap enough synfuels could power America’s autos, trucks, trains, tractors and aircraft far into
the future and cut the nation’s reliance on Middle East oil. The US already relies on coal, natural gas,
hydropower, and even windmills to heat and provide electricity for homes, offices and factories. But for
transportation – a linchpin of modern economies and national security – synfuels from coal, tar sands
and other ancient fossil deposits represent one of the few alternatives to oil.
‘Only fossil fuels provide energy on a large enough scale and with sufficient versatility to meet the
world’s demand for energy,’ concluded a recent study by ExxonMobil.
Oil and Gas Journal seems to concur. Even as conventional oil supplies begin to play out in the US,
the North Sea, and some other major production areas like Venezuela, the Journal says that the most
‘realistic’ replacements would be ‘other hydrocarbon resources (such as) oil shale, tar sand, extra heavy
oil and possibly coal liquids.’ Only hydrocarbon sources are in great enough supply to supplement
regular oil, the Journal says.
Until now, energy companies have by and large bypassed hydrocarbon alternatives to conventional
oil because of cost. Producing oil from something like Canada’s vast sand-tar deposits was just too
expensive at $30 or $40 a barrel when Saudi Arabia could pump and deliver conventional oil for about
$4 a barrel. Current tight markets and rising prices have changed that equation.
© UCLES 2010
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Document 2: adapted from an article by the Post Carbon Institute, an organisation established to
focus on innovative solutions to environmental challenges.
It may be too soon to speak of the end of fossil fuels altogether, but we have unquestionably reached
the end of an era. It is increasingly clear that global oil production is stalling, with permanent decline
underway by 2012.
The obvious answer to fossil fuel depletion and climate change is to simply substitute alternative energy
sources for oil, natural gas and coal. However, this solution quickly bogs down on two fronts. First, there
are no alternative energy sources (renewable or otherwise) capable of supplying energy as cheaply
and in such abundance as fossil fuels currently yield in the time that we need them to come online.
Second, we have designed and built the infrastructure of our transport, electricity and food systems
– as well as our national building stock – to suit the unique characteristics of oil, natural gas and coal.
Changing to different energy sources will require the redesign of many aspects of those systems.
The energy transition cannot be accomplished with a minor retrofit of existing energy infrastructure.
Just as the fossil fuel economy of today systematically and comprehensively differs from the agrarian
economy of 1800, the post-fossil fuel economy of 2050 will profoundly differ from all that we are
familiar with now. This difference will be reflected in urban design and land use patterns, food systems,
manufacturing and distribution networks, the job market, transportation systems, health care, tourism
and more.
It could be argued that these changes will occur in some fashion whether we plan for them or not; that
it is only necessary to wait for the market price of fossil fuels to reflect scarcity, with higher costs forcing
society to adapt. However, lack of government planning will result in a transition that is chaotic, painful,
destructive and possibly, if the worst climate forecasts are realised, unsurvivable. As a recent study
for the US Department of Energy showed, a passive approach to the fossil fuel depletion problem
would lead to ‘social, economic, and political costs’ of ‘unprecedented’ scope. Once again bold action
is required.
We need to reduce our overall energy consumption, and restructure our economy to run primarily on
renewable energy. This energy transition should have five components: a massive shift to renewable
energy, and a retrofitting of our transportation system, our electricity system, our food system, and our
building stock.
The development of alternative energy sources must be a cornerstone of any plan to reduce our
national reliance on conventional fossil fuels. However, many alternatives being discussed – including
nuclear power, industrial-scale biofuels, and low-grade fossil fuels such as oil shale and tar sands –
suffer from serious drawbacks, including low energy profit ratios, high environmental impacts, or a
limited resource base.
Renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and advanced geothermal clearly are a long-term
solution to national and global energy problems.
© UCLES 2010
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Copyright Acknowledgements:
Questions 1 & 2
Question 2
© J Dillin; Before the oil runs out ; www.csmonitor.com/2005/0922/pllsol-usec.html; 17/2/09.
© Post Carbon Institute; http://postcarbon.org/md-solution; 17/2/09.
Permission to reproduce items where third-party owned material protected by copyright is included has been sought and cleared where possible. Every
reasonable effort has been made by the publisher (UCLES) to trace copyright holders, but if any items requiring clearance have unwittingly been included, the
publisher will be pleased to make amends at the earliest possible opportunity.
University of Cambridge International Examinations is part of the Cambridge Assessment Group. Cambridge Assessment is the brand name of University of
Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), which is itself a department of the University of Cambridge.
© UCLES 2010
9777/01/RB/O/N/10