"A number of well-intentioned strategies call for a much more aggressive displacement of fossil fuels, despite major technological, economic, infrastructure and public acceptance hurdles remaining in the way of achieving such targets," Abdallah Jumah, president and chief executive officer of Aramco, said at the CERA weeklong energy confab. "That has led to considerable confusion over what is realistic when it comes to alternatives, and what the future call on alternatives and conventional sources will actually be.

"Such uncertainty clearly also has negative implications for the vast investments required to expand supplies of fossil fuels."

Jumah noted that many of the calls for a push toward alternative energy come as oil is expected to account for between 82 percent and 87 percent of energy use by 2030.

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Krishnadev Calamur, UPI International Security Editor