Oil Isn't Going Away; The real threat is the ever-rising challenge of meeting global demand.(Interview)(Cover Story)

Byline: Tony Emerson

Exxon Mobile CEO Lee Raymond is known as an oil man's oil man, with little patience for fuzzy green alternatives. Who better to ask about the semisoft idea behind the hybrid economy--reducing rather than replacing fossil fuels in the energy system? NEWSWEEK's Tony Emerson spoke to Raymond in his Irving, Texas, office. Excerpts:

EMERSON: Do you think the hybrid idea has applications beyond cars--for homes, society?

RAYMOND: Well, the fundamental energy used in the home is electricity, and there's a legitimate debate about how you generate electricity. Is it going to be oil-fired, gas-fired, nuclear? The facts are [that] large-scale electricity generation is going to have to come from fossil fuels in the near term, and perhaps more nuclear in the long term.

So you foresee a fossil-fuel society.

Correct. For the next 20 years, growth in the world economy is going to raise demand by oil and oil equivalents from something on the order of 65 to 85 million barrels a day, to 330 million [barrels], which is a huge, huge number. It's like eight Saudi Arabias. It's hard for anyone to be able to grasp the immensity of the energy system, and what that leads to is, unfortunately, people who are well intentioned talking about items that are not significant.

Such as?