[Swprograms] Fuelling the future: BBC World Service mini season on energy

[Mike Barraclough <softbulletin1@xxxxxxxxx>]

BBC World Service is focusing on energy for one week
in February. Its mini-season, Fuelling the Future,
from Saturday 11 to Saturday 18 February, is about
production and consumption, the intersection of energy
and policy, global development and its consequences.

The season, running across news, business and science
programme strands, will look at oil, its production
and fluctuating price. It will investigate how, if
cheap energy sources are running out, the developed
countries of the G8 and the large developing economies
of China, India and Brazil will manage to fuel their
future development.

Fuelling the Future will examine the link between
energy and policy, asking if and how energy security
influences the United States' foreign policy. It will
weigh up arguments for and against different energy
sources, assess their effect on the environment and
consider viable alternatives to relying on oil, coal
and nuclear power.

News

Throughout the week, Newshour from 2.00 to 3.00pm and
The World Today from 7.05 to 8.00am report from four
different locations:
Nigeria ? finding out how the country is coping with
its lack of refineries and the mismanagement of its
oil resources;
Qatar - analysts predict that US demand for Liquefied
Natural Gas (LNG) will increase by 42% by 2025. Qatar
has the third largest resource of LNG in the world
behind Russia and Iran;
China ? plans to build more coal facilities to cater
for its large projected increase in energy
consumption;
Russia - how the exporter of energy is making plans
for its economy post-oil.

In Postcards from the Future, broadcast in news
programmes through the week, people outline their
vision of how the world will look in 20 years' time -
the energy we will need, the cars we will drive and
the houses in which we will live.

Analysis tackles some of the big energy issues from
Monday 13 to Friday 17 February from 11.30 to 11.45am.
They include:
The amount of energy the world will need in 2050,
who'll supply it, who'll use it and how much it will
cost;
How countries will ensure their energy sources are
secure;
Investigating the new power brokers supplying energy;
The future of oil, gas and coal;
The arguments for and against nuclear power.

Julian Pettifer reports from the US for Assignment,
about innovative initiatives to develop alternative
sources of energy on Thursday 16 February
(9.05-9.30am).
One Planet visits a North Sea oil rig off the coast of
Norway on Thursday 16 February (10.05-10.30am).
As the rigs exhaust oil reserves they are being used
to store carbon, a new - some say expensive - way of
dealing with carbon dioxide.
Have Your Say (formerly Talking Point) takes the
energy theme to a world audience on Sunday 19 February
(2.05-3.00pm).

Business

Mark Gregory goes to India for a daily World Business
Report on the country's energy needs and dilemmas from
4.30 to 4.45pm -
India's six nuclear power stations service less than
three per cent of the country's power needs. It's
planned to hugely increase this capacity in the next
few years. This is controversial because when India
builds a nuclear power station, outsiders question
whether the real motive is to develop nuclear weapons
rather than create power. 

Mark Gregory talks to the movers and shakers of
India's nuclear debate. Like China and the West, India
is scouring the world for new sources of energy but so
far hasn't done very well in securing deals.  

Mark visits TERI, an Indian environmental organisation
based near Delhi, which is developing energy
efficient, cheap sources of power for India's poverty
stricken rural areas. TERI is at the centre of India's
debate about appropriate energy and minimising
emissions.

India has a rapidly growing car industry. Mark visits
a Bangalore company that has developed a clean and
cheap electric car.

Despite fast-growing demand for energy in India,
there's very little investment in building new
capacity. That's partly because foreign investors have
bitter memories of incidents such as the failure of
Enron to build a new power plant near Mumbai. Mark
seeks out prospective foreign investors.

Peter Day investigates Canada's black gold rush in
Global Business on Friday 17 February (9.05?9.30am).

Alberta is currently experiencing a boom as soaring
oil prices make it economically viable to extract oil
from its Tar Sands. The oil is expensive to produce,
environmentally untenable and the cause of tension in
regional Canada about who profits from the billions of
dollars it will bring in. Alberta is now very rich
indeed but at what cost?

Science

Health Matters - if we are to use more nuclear power
in future we have to find more radioactive minerals to
fuel the stations. Uranium mining creates terrible
hazards for miners and people living in the vicinity
of mines. Miners have a very high rate of lung cancer,
due to exposure to radon.

Health Matters on Monday 13 February (10.05?10.30am)
explores the risks to people involved in the uranium
mining industry, and discovers how companies and
governments around the world are protecting their
workers.

Go Digital - many villages in remote parts of the
world, and people living in the poorer parts of cities
have little electricity or none at all. They are not
linked up to a national grid, or may only receive
locally generated power at certain times of day.

Gareth Mitchell describes the latest attempts to
connect up everyone in the world, visiting projects in
South Africa and Angola that are bringing electricity
to remote areas on Tuesday 14 February
(10.05?10.30am). He talks to the developers of the
Nndiyo system, a stripped down computer that operates
on very little power and looks at whether fuel cell
technology is ready to run mobile phones, PDAs and
even laptops.

Science in Action - Richard Black reports on a BBC
News Online survey of energy expenditure around the
world on Friday 17 February (10.05?10.30am).

Discovery - Richard Black assesses how science and
technology are helping to uncover new sources of
energy. He asks scientists to what extent it is
possible to fuel the future with the energy sources
currently at our disposal in a four-part series from
Wednesday 15 February (10.05?10.30am).

Tri-Media Debate

A BBC World television debate, The World Debate:
Fuelling the Future, will be broadcast on BBC World
Service radio and online on Sunday 12 February
(6.05?6.45pm). The debate is chaired by BBC World's
main anchor Nik Gowing. Participants include His
Excellency Maqbool bin Ali Sultan, Oman's Minister of
Commerce and Industry; Walid Khadduri, Former
Editor-in-Chief, Middle East Economic Survey; Dr Kevin
Rosner, Senior Fellow, Institute for the Analysis of
Global Security, Washington; and Dr Yang Fuqiang,
Chief Representative, The Energy Foundation, Beijing.

Website - the online site www.bbcnews.com/energy will
be up and running from Wednesday 25 January.

(BBC World Service Press Office, 25/1)

 


		
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