Presentations
For UK -- Argue that energy security policy has to encompass climate and affortability goals -- looking for relevant indicators to use in monitoring
SIDS Small Island Developing States
What's good for Chinese Firms is not Always good for Chinese Government. State financial support for China;s Oil Companies yas yielded mixed results.
(USE IN WEEK 2)
GOOD OVERVIEW (USE in WEEK 2)
Florian Flierenbaum, Evaluation of Carbon Emission reduction Instruments in the Context of Energy Security, May 11, 2012 -- 6 pages
Energy Security: The European Approach and the ASEM Ministerial Conference Perspectives, 74 Slides (USE IN EUROPE, Week 7
methodological (USE IN WEEK 1?)
U.S. Department of Energy Energy Security, Strategic Petroleum Stockpiling, October 19, 2011 (Week 4) 19 slides
Week 7
good -- energy patterns with movements in the economy
good week 4
Week 2
Week 8
Good long term forecasts Week 2?
Critique of Peak Oil Forecasts
Week 3
Good Week 1?
Good Overview Week 2
8 slides, week 7
Week 2
Week 6
WEEK 2 for sure
good on energy security for the UK
Georgia Tech -- Very Good
VERY GOOD
Policy Assignment: Where Can a State Get Oil
Articles
good
analyzing national energy security policies and performance. Drawn from research interviews, survey results, a focused workshop, and an extensive literature review, this article proposes that energy security ought to be comprised of five dimensions related to availability, affordability, technology development, sustainability, and regulation. We then break these five dimensions down into 20 components related to security of supply and production, dependency, and diversification for availability; price stability, access and equity, decentralization, and low prices for affordability; innovation and research, safety and reliability, resilience, energy efficiency, and investment for technology development; land use, water, climate change, and air pollution for sustainability; and governance, trade, competition, and knowledge for sound regulation. Further still, our synthesis lists 320 simple indicators and 52 complex indicators that policymakers and scholars can use analyze, measure, track, and compare national performance on energy security. The article concludes by offering implications for energy policy more broadly.
This study provides an index for evaluating national energy security policies and performance among the United States, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and the ten countries comprising the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Drawn from research interviews, a survey instrument, and a focused workshop, the article first argues that energy security ought to be comprised of five dimensions related to availability, affordability, technology development, sustainability, and regulation. The article then breaks these dimensions down into 20 components and correlates them with 20 metrics that constitute a comprehensive energy security index. We find that the top three performers of our index for all data points and times are Japan, Brunei, and the United States and the worst performers Vietnam, India, and Myanmar. Malaysia, Australia, and Brunei saw their energy security improve the most from 1990 to 2010 whereas Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar saw it decline the most. The article concludes by calling for more research on various aspects of our index and its results. . 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
113 pages/P>
Ultimately, if you really want to cut emissions, you need to reduce oil demand directly. That would reduce production too: slashing demand would lower prices, cutting producers’ incentives to pump more oil. Attacking that demand is the only real path to confronting the climate consequences of abundant oil.
U.S. oil and gas production is on the rise due to the remarkable surge in unconventional oil and gas development. The widespread realization of the economic, technological, and commercial viability of these tremendous oil and gas resources within North America and the potential for transferring this production success to other parts of the world with similar resources may alter the global energy landscape in several important ways. Speculation about the full extent of the geostrategic implications of this newly realized resource endowment runs the gamut: some analysts suggest that it will fundamentally change the geopolitical dimensions of energy that have prevailed over the last forty years, while others posit that the revolution will be short-lived both in terms of its production potential and resulting geostrategic impacts. There is even less consensus about what potential changes in energy relationships might mean more broadly for key international relationships and geopolitical dynamics.
Everyone wants energy security, but few seem to understand what it is. Energy security relates to the availability of oil as well as of refined oil products, natural gas, coal, and renewable energy and also how these systems operate. In the United States (US), the debate over energy security revolves around how much oil we import. This article therefore focuses on oil security, using the example of the United States. Oil security is about not just whether a country has enough oil for its needs, but also where imported oil comes from, how much crude oil is imported to the country, and how much refined oil is exported. Oil security increases as the need to import crude oil declines.
In the absence of a definition, everyone defines energy security differently –both speakers and listeners. It is something like the late Margaret Thatcher said about the politics of consensus: “it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.” Along those lines, I believe that ‘energy security’ has devolved into simply a buzzword: a phrase that everyone favors, but defines differently. Pundits, politicians, lobbyists, industry, and campaigners from across the political spectrum cry ‘energy security’ because it polls better than their preferred policies. I have done it as well. Listeners, then, are misled because, really, who could actually be against ‘energy security?’ It is like being against mom, America, and apple pie.
The electric power grid in the United States is vulnerable to attacks that have already begun, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey said in Chicago Thursday night, and America needs distributed generation as backup—primarily in the form of natural-gas cogeneration and solar power.
America's growing energy self-sufficiency raises a number of geo-political and geo-economic questions, says the State Department's Robert D. Hormats. These developments present enormous opportunities not just for strengthening the U.S. economy and reducing U.S. financial outflows, but also for enabling the United States to pursue new kinds of energy diplomacy.
The shale boom has major implications for US and other countries’ energy security, not least possible US disengagement from the Middle East. However, the effects of US progress towards self-sufficiency may be overstated and the positive external impacts underrated. Technological developments also suggest that Malthusian approaches to food, water and demography need re-assessment. Until recently the principal vision of the future for the US, a country heavily dependent on crude oil imports and expecting a burgeoning dependency on imported LNG, was one of intense competition for natural resources with the emerging economies of Asia.
The outlook for the U.S. energy market has improved dramatically in the last several years, with the country importing 90% less light sweet crude than it did a decade ago and cheap natural gas being produced in abundance. The change is due almost exclusively to advances in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the controversial practice of using water under high pressure to extract hydrocarbons from the earth. Almost 90% of the wells being dug in the U.S. today are fracked, and the "shale revolution" has brought jobs and economic vitality to areas rich with shale. While some producers bemoan the low cost of natural gas, low-cost fuel has benefits for many other industries, and could help spur a manufacturing revival in the U.S. Yet fracking remains controversial because of concerns about the environment, particularly the possibility of water supplies being contaminated below ground.
Just because the United States is gaining energy independence from foreign oil doesn't mean the Pentagon shouldn't remain on mission to secure energy supplies. That's the argument made in a new book by Michael Levi, senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations and director of its program on energy security and climate change. The book, Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future, was released Thursday. "Achieving American energy self-sufficiency wouldn't make us independent in the way that people would like to think it would," Levi told the E-Ring, in an interview Friday. And, he added, it won't decrease U.S. vulnerability in energy or other areas. Since most national security wonks are not energy wonks, and vice versa, we'll allow Levi (who might be a triple wonk: he studied string theory at Princeton and his last book was on nuclear terrorism) to explain. He argues that the United States still remains so tied to the decades-old global oil-supply market that only a significant drop in total U.S. energy consumption would do anything real to free the United States from foreign security concerns.
price section of the class
ABSTRACT The displacement of traditional military security policy by the primacy of economic interests—the economization of security—constitutes a paradigm shift that is about to change international security policies. It is becoming visible in the commercialization of nuclear proliferation, which makes the international security environment increasingly harder to predict; in the emergence of new security threats that challenge the adequacy of military means in a nation’s political–economic calculus; in the global financial crisis that forces Western nations to reduce defense budgets and military ambitions; and in the specter of ‘‘resource wars,’’ that is, economically motivated competitions that might turn into military conflict. All of these developments suggest that the relationship between security and economics is changing profoundly, posing major challenges to the cohesion of traditional military alliances.
Should countries care about where they and others buy their oil from? The answer has wide ranging consequences for public policy. As Middle Eastern oil exports to Asia rise while shipments to the United States and Europe fall, analysts are asking whether this trade shift will carry geopolitical consequences, drawing China politically closer to the Middle East while driving the West further away
This new oil and gas wealth presents the United States with a significant opportunity to create jobs, stimulate its economy, reduce the trade deficit, and improve its global economic competitiveness. However, realizing the full potential of these new energy sources and reaping the short-term economic rewards of this energy bonanza require presidential leadership and new policies. The highest levels of government must prioritize efforts to address these public objectives while ensuring market stability, protecting national security, and addressing climate change.
The shale energy revolution is likely to shift the tectonic plates of global power in ways that are largely beneficial to the West and reinforce U.S. power and influence during the first half of this century. Yet most public discussion of shale’s potential either focuses on the alleged environmental dangers of fracking or on how shale will affect the market price of natural gas. Both discussions blind policy makers to the true scale of the shale revolution.
very good, security section
The International Energy Agency recently confirmed what market watchers have been saying for a year: oil and gas production in the United States is surging and is expected to continue to rise. This trend has led a parade of analysts and even the government’s National Intelligence Council to predict that, after four decades of failed attempts, America might soon become energy independent. This view, if taken too far, is not only wrong, it is dangerous. The United States would remain entangled with the global oil market indefinitely even if it were to import no oil. Political leaders lulled into a false sense of security by rising domestic oil and gas output run the risk of making big mistakes.
In general, the coming of shale gas will magnify the importance of geography. Which countries have shale underground and which don't will help determine power relationships. And because shale gas can be transported across oceans in liquid form, states with coastlines will have the advantage. The world will be smaller because of unconventional gas extraction technology, but that only increases the preciousness of geography, rather than decreases it.
We're just beginning to tap the continent's vast hydrocarbon resources.
As traditional security policy is superseded by economic and energy interests, we must begin to discuss the “economization of security policy” – the implications of which go far beyond the current global financial crisis and its effects on the security policy of the West. One voice inside NATO describes what needs to be done to ensure that this commercialization of security will still allow the friendly member countries of NATO and the EU to avoid 21st century conflicts and to continue to act collectively.
In sum, the argument here is that the resource curse can contribute to energy security risks through both the deliberate and unintentional producer state actions it elicits. Firstly, increases in the effects of the resource curse augment the prospect of intentionally assertive resource nationalistic producer state actions. Secondly, the political and economic consequences of the resource curse can have an unintended negative impact on political stability in energy-producing states (and thus energy security). If the argument presented here is correct, then the resource curse is important to major energy importers (such as the states of the EU and the USA) from an energy security point of view as well as from the more traditional development perspective. This is particularly the case for the EU given the proximity of the Europe to these energy-rich countries and the fact that many of these countries represent both current supplies and prospective sources of energy diversification for the EU. The negative effects of the resource curse are therefore a factor that must therefore be born in mind by strategists when considering how to manage the on-going diversification of European energy imports.
As long as we run our economy on oil, we'll still be vulnerable to the world market. (
Daniel Yergin talks about where it's coming from and what it will mean for the U.S.—and the world
The impact of the U.S. energy revolution is only beginning. It is already providing a foundation for a domestic renaissance in manufacturing.
the marketplace, technological change and Middle East tensions are driving Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney to much the same place on the country’s energy future.
This time, it's Western politicians, not Arabian sheikhs, who are roiling the oil markets. --- Make no mistake: Unrest in the Middle East has the potential to destabilize energy markets. With a civil war raging in Syria and North Africa in the midst of a trying transition period, it's not difficult to see how oil supplies could be interrupted. Trouble elsewhere in Africa, in places like the Sudan and Nigeria, is not helping matters. Given these realities, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which oil prices move significantly higher for an extended period absent something going wrong in that part of the world, which contains 70 percent of known oil reserves. Yet when it comes to sovereign decision-making, moves from Washington, Brussels, and Beijing may prove more unsettling to global energy markets in the months ahead than anything OPEC does.
The 2011 IEA release provided policymakers with valuable lessons about three critical aspects of these emergency interventions: their effect on oil prices and market perception, their implications for international cooperation, and the logistical issues they raise about the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Energy officials in IEA countries should bear in mind those market-imposed constraints when structuring future releases, tailor their cooperation with influential oil-producing and -consuming countries to evolving geopolitical realities, and address potential operational impediments to the U.S. SPR, informed by the experience of the 2011 release.
Abstract The ethanol mandate in the federal Renewable Fuel Standard increases corn prices and food prices. This harms consumers and distorts the domestic and international commodity market. While waiving the mandate would be an improvement, eliminating it is the best choice.
North America's massive resources are going to shift market power away from OPEC and Russia and to consuming nations.
New discoveries of natural resources in several African countries – including Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique – raise an important question: Will these windfalls be a blessing that brings prosperity and hope, or a political and economic curse, as has been the case in so many countries?
FAO
Forty years ago, humanity was warned: by chasing ever-greater economic growth, it was sentencing itself to catastrophe. The Club of Rome, a blue-ribbon multinational collection of business leaders, scholars, and government officials brought together by the Italian tycoon Aurelio Peccei, made the case in a slim 1972 volume called The Limits to Growth. Based on forecasts from an intricate series of computer models developed by professors at MIT, the book caused a sensation and captured the zeitgeist of the era: the belief that mankind's escalating wants were on a collision course with the world's finite resources and that the crash would be coming soon.
The first, and least foreseen, development since 2008, is that America is rapidly turning from a consumer into a producer nation. On economic grounds, its expanding energy horizons are manna from heaven. When Mr Obama was elected, the US was importing almost two-thirds of its oil. That number is down to below almost half and falling. In 2008, King Coal still dominated US electricity production. Last month natural gas supplanted coal as the largest source of US power supply.
So dramatic are America’s finds, analysts talk of the US turning into the world’s new Saudi Arabia by 2020, with up to 15m barrels a day of liquid energy production (against the desert kingdom’s 11m b/d this year). Most of the credit goes to private sector innovators, who took their cue from the high oil prices in the last decade to devise ways of tapping previously uneconomic underground reserves of “tight oil” and shale gas. And some of it is down to plain luck. Far from reaching its final frontier, America has discovered new ones under the ground.
Officials Cite New Intelligence Pointing to Potential Attacks on Platforms, Tankers in Region; Tehran Is 'Very Unpredictable'
So dramatic are America’s finds, analysts talk of the US turning into the world’s new Saudi Arabia by 2020, with up to 15m barrels a day of liquid energy production (against the desert kingdom’s 11m b/d this year). Most of the credit goes to private sector innovators, who took their cue from the high oil prices in the last decade to devise ways of tapping previously uneconomic underground reserves of “tight oil” and shale gas. And some of it is down to plain luck. Far from reaching its final frontier, America has discovered new ones under the ground.
Officials Cite New Intelligence Pointing to Potential Attacks on Platforms, Tankers in Region; Tehran Is 'Very Unpredictable'
MIDTERM EXAM
SECURITY PART OF CLASS
sanctions
So dramatic are America’s finds, analysts talk of the US turning into the world’s new Saudi Arabia by 2020, with up to 15m barrels a day of liquid energy production (against the desert kingdom’s 11m b/d this year). Most of the credit goes to private sector innovators, who took their cue from the high oil prices in the last decade to devise ways of tapping previously uneconomic underground reserves of “tight oil” and shale gas. And some of it is down to plain luck. Far from reaching its final frontier, America has discovered new ones under the ground.
Security Section
Complex and far-reaching shifts in the global economic order over recent years have created a fundamentally new configuration of natural resource markets and trading relationships.1 Accelerated economic growth in emerging market economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the BRICS countries) has provided the European Union (EU) with tangible competition for access to natural resources, but has also led to increased protectionism in the context of scarce natural resources, as in the case of rare earth metals.
Subsidies distort markets and discourage development of substitutes. Subsidies for fuel are especially problematic, because energy is a backbone of any economy. In terms of energy production and consumption, the world is an uneven playing field in terms of reserves, taxes, regulations, public versus private ownership and income availability. An abrupt end to fuel subsidies would crush the poorest. With few ready alternatives, fossil fuels are highly inelastic products in economic terms – as prices rise, consumption of such necessities do not decline by much. Wealthy countries purchasing oil often set contract terms that benefit a few, and developing countries that are oil rich arrange subsidies as one benefit for the middle class and poor. Subsidies, even in countries lacking energy resources, contribute to political and economic stability. Ending subsidies – without putting alternative support programs into place – only adds to the ranks of the poor and threatens global security
The United States and China, the world's top users of energy, are heading in opposite directions. It is a trend that has major geostrategic implications for the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. is more certain that most of its future oil and gas will be produced at home. It is becoming less reliant on imported oil and natural gas as it ramps up domestic output and consumes fewer liquid fuels because of falling demand and energy saving advances, particularly in transport and industry. Meanwhile, China is becoming ever more dependent on oil and gas shipped or piped into the country, mainly from faraway sources of supply that are often in politically volatile parts of world, including the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. As a result, Beijing's sense of insecurity about future energy supplies is rising.
China faces a dilemma. Today China imports more than 50 percent of its oil, and that figure is expected to rise to 75-80 percent in the coming decades. As many experts have noted, China does not seem to feel comfortable relying on the international system and the continued operation of energy markets to meet its needs.1 To put this dilemma in context, let’s consider the history of great powers in the age of oil, then turn to China’s options for securing its imports, and conclude with some thoughts on the implications of Beijing’s choices for other states in Asia and for the United States. The analysis suggests that China is pursuing an indirect strategy designed to alter the geo-strategic map in China’s favor. To ensure stability along key oil routes, then, the United States may have to build up the defenses of friendly or allied states or, at least, encourage their cooperation.
Several essays on Canada US
Last fall, during a diplomatic dispute with Japan, China withheld supplies of rare earths—minerals crucial to the production of hybrid cars, computers, and cell phones, in which China has a virtual monopoly. This flare-up intensified an already pressing question: Are market-driven economies in the advanced countries in danger of losing access to critical minerals to emerging market governments?1 In the short term, the answer is a decided no. But governments in rapidly expanding, mineralshungry economies are transforming minerals markets through strategic investments and export restrictions. Governments in advanced countries need to consider policies to safeguard access, but not resort to restrictions that impair free trade in minerals or cross-border investment.
If an “Arab Spring” uprising completely disrupted Saudi oil production, the U.S. and the global economy would face a massive economic and strategic crisis. Russia and Iran as oil-producing states would likely exploit the crisis to increase their power around the world while undermining U.S. influence, especially in the Middle East. To guard against the economic and strategic dangers, the U.S. should prepare emergency measures before such a crisis.
GOOD, SECURITY PART OF CLASS MIDTERM EXAM QUESTION
USE IN SECURITY SECTION
this paper describes the salient characteristics of the contemporary competition for natural resources: the rapid rise of Chinese and Indian demand; the changing role of the United States as an energy supplier; the growing importance of climate change in moving from the traditional interaction between the territorial nature of raw materials; and the laws of supply and demand to a more complex, systemic approach. Some of the corresponding strategic implications, both global and regional, are outlined along with their potential consequences in terms of U.S.-European relations, and transatlantic policy recommendations are flagged. Although nonenergy minerals will be alluded to, the main focus is on nonrenewable energy resources.
LOOKS INTERESTING -- CHECK FOR SECURITY SECTION
Taken together, the increasing production and declining consumption have unexpectedly brought the United States markedly closer to a goal that has tantalized presidents since Richard Nixon: independence from foreign energy sources, a milestone that could reconfigure American foreign policy, the economy and more. In 2011, the country imported just 45 percent of the liquid fuels it used, down from a record high of 60 percent in 2005.
SECURITY SECTION
In energy, North America is becoming the new Middle East. The only thing that can stop it is domestic politics.
ENERGY SECURITY
Chinese company oil and gas deals in U.S. and Canada
SECURITY SECTION
Energy security has become a strategic as well as an operational imperative for U.S. national security. As tensions continue to escalate with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, it has become clear that the U.S. military urgently requires new approaches and innovative technologies to improve fuel efficiency, increase endurance, enhance operational flexibility and support a forward presence for allied forces while reducing the vulnerability inherent in a long supply-line tether. -- VERY GOOD -- SHORT, BUT PUT IN SECURITY PART OF CLASS
sanctions section, FAO
While the international community agrees that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons will destabilize the Middle East, responses to the West’s call for sanctions against Iran highlight diverse foreign-policy approaches, especially from India and China, ranked fourth and second, respectively, as the world’s largest oil consumers. China unequivocally prioritizes its domestic interests and energy needs. In its role as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, China emphasizes protecting national sovereignty over international solutions. Non-permanent member India expects Iran to address concerns from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear-inspection arm,
security part of class
security section of class
security part of class
Potential energy and economic revival through tight oil production. Expensive oil has undercut economic recovery and is arguably the main cause of the country's economic slowdown in early 2011. However, high oil prices have spurred production of 'tight oil' (or 'shale oil') in North Dakota, Texas, and other states, and these discoveries could have exceptionally beneficial economic consequences not currently appreciated by market players or policymakers.
energy security
security part of class
Instead of moving from plenty to scarcity or from plenty to even greater abundance, we are moving from “easy” sources of supply to “tough” ones. This distinction carries immense implications for international politics, the world economy, and the health of the global environment.
use in security part of class
The new legislation proposes a trade-off of short-term economic stimulus for fast-tracking a long-term project that is vehemently opposed by environmentalists. Part of the problem is that so little is being offered. Short-term tax cuts are among the least effective forms of fiscal policy. Has everyone forgotten the Bush administration’s one-shot tax rebate in the spring of 2008? It shot one big hole in the budget, reducing future fiscal room for maneuver, but it created only the most transient of boosts to economic activity. On top of that, social security itself is in need of long-term restructuring. Undermining its funding in the name of short-term stimulus just doesn’t make sense.
good, security part of class
very good, energy security part of class
Within five years or so manufacturing will have closed lbor gap with China in key industries and the country may be on its way in energy security.
Security part of class
security section of class
various essays -- look through for security part of class
energy security part of class
energy security part of class
security section of class -- conspiracy theory
use in security part of class
Security section of class
GOOD, developments in energy, security part of class
release from strategic reserves, security part of class
USE IN SECURITY PART OF CLASS
security part of class
oligopoly pricing
shifting geography of oil -- security section
security part of course -- countries will have to learn to work together
The major risk to the United States posed by reliance on oil is the economic costs of a disruption in global oil supplies. RAND researchers found no evidence that oil exporters have been able to use embargoes to achieve key foreign policy goals to stop terrorist groups that depend on oil revenues to launch attacks. The U.S. government would reduce the costs to U.S. national security of importing oil by supporting well-functioning oil markets and imposing an excise tax on oil.
We present evidence on one facet of energy security in OECD economies—the extent of diversification in sources of oil and natural gas supplies. Viewed from the perspective of the energy-importing countries as a whole, there has not been much change in diversification in oil supplies over the last decade, but diversification in sources of natural gas supplies has increased steadily. We document the cross-country heterogeneity in the extent of diversification. We also show how the extent of diversification changes if account is taken of the political risk attached to suppliers; the size of the importing country; and transportation risk.
very good -- use parts on macroeconomics globalzation, trade, finance and the g-20
Concern over the continued ability to secure energy supplies from increasing list in inaccessible, high-risk and less than reliable partds of the world has prompted policymakers to once again raise the issues of desirability and achievability of energy independence. Yet focusing on energy independence, although politically attractive is a misguided quest that can actually distract from the more important objective of managing the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy future.
Examines the acquisition of strategic national assets overseas. Japan's aim would be to ensure stable supplies of raw materials and other commodities while also engineering yen-weakening outflows of long-term capital from Japan.
use, security part of course
Examines various aspects of energy security
use in security part of class
Argues that the evolution of China's thinking about energy security presents an opportunity for the outside world and in particular the United States and its allies as they respond to China's rise. To appreciate the nature of this opportunity, a more thorough understanding of China's deliberations about external dependence and domestic challenges is needed.
use in security part of the class.
International Energy Outlook 2013 -- For Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 25, 2013Excellent presentation of important energy trends and forecasts
Global energy markets are changing at a staggering pace. In less than three years, the debate has shifted from how to deal with energy scarcity to how to deal with energy abundance
While roadblocks still exist, panelists at a Wharton Africa Business Forum (http://wabf2012.whartonafrica.com/agenda.php) said that with patience and an emphasis on the right niches, Africa could be a major player in the world’s energy future.
Saudi Arabia does not plan to increase its oil production capacity in the next 30 years as new sources of supply, from US shale to resurgent Iraqi output, fill the demand gap, according to Ali Naimi, the country’s oil minister. Mr Naimi said Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, did not expect demand for its oil to increase significantly before 2040 from current levels.
Investor Says Kingdom's Economy Increasingly Vulnerable. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has warned that the kingdom's oil-dependent economy is increasingly vulnerable to rising U.S. energy production, breaking ranks with oil officials in Riyadh who have played down its impact.
Little more than a year after its aggressive nationalist takeover of Spanish-owned oil company YPF, Argentina is now courting foreign investment once more for its energy industry – signalling a 180-degree reversal on its past “energy sovereignty” policies. This though should come as no surprise given yet another disappointing year for local oil and gas production; even as Argentina now has the world’s fourth largest reserves of shale oil.
Summarizes Asian Development Bank report -- doubling of carbon dioxide emissions at current rate
Energy security is a much discussed topic and is a vital element of energy policy as well as foreign policy. But it has not been defined precisely. This book starts with a working definition: ‘‘energy security means having access to the requisite volumes of energy at affordable prices”. The supply of energy must be “impervious to disruptions” and sufficient quantity must be available in time from a variety of sources.
Part 2 of report summarizes the energy situaton in Asia
Language and communication play a vital role in shaping government policies, and energy security is no exception. The struggle to coherently define and articulate a sound definition of energy security in American policy discourse has impeded the country’s ability to adequately address[1] the diverse risks to its energy security. Consistent, long-term policy approaches to managing insecurity are needed to ensure economic growth, international peace, and global governance regarding common issues.
This paper seeks to answer the question: what is a holistic definition of energy security for America and what is the best way to address insecurity? This paper seeks to construct a holistic definition of energy security based on review of the relevant literature, and argues that responsible technological advancement is the best long-term approach to addressing energy security. Before examining the concept of energy security in America, its change over time, and ways to address insecurity, the paper presents historical background and contemporary developments that are critical to understanding the complexities of energy security.
VERY GOOD OVERVIEW OF ENERGY SECURITY
In the second rebuttal in a Globalist debate on renewable energy supports, John Matthews answers Matthew Stepp's rebuttal. He argues Chinese support for renewable energy technology is serious, relentless and self-interested. Meanwhile, proponents of neoclassical economics in the OECD leave the field wide open to the Chinese. This is the unanticipated consequence of the West's push for privatization and deregulation, while eschewing industry policy.
A confluence of elements centered on Iraq’s energy sector, especially its oil component, is aligning to shape a strategic partnership between Baghdad and Beijing. The rapid evolution of Sino-Iraqi ties will have far-reaching implications for both countries and the Middle East as a whole. Chinese investments in the Iraqi energy sector have been instrumental in helping to restore the country’s energy production. Iraq’s return to energy prominence
Abstract: The need for massive amounts of energy supplies, raw materials, among other natural resources in part drives Beijing’s defence, energy, and foreign policies. The dynamic economic growth rates experienced over the past twenty years, coupled with increased manufacturing levels, rising exports of low-cost goods, rapid urbanisation, and higher demands for air and land travel and transportation, among other things, are increasing China’s appetite for crude oil, natural gas, timber, and other critical minerals. This article tackles the issue of how such demands shapes China and how the international community responds.
More oil on the global market generally lowers oil and gasoline prices. Oil is a globally traded commodity. It does not matter which company or country is pumping it or consuming it. If the Chinese want to gulp more oil, it's high time that Sinopec (SPH) and other big Chinese energy companies spend the money and take the risks of getting the stuff out of the ground. And if they want to do it in Iraq, all the power to them. Exxon Mobil (XOM), BP (BP), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) and other international oil firms aren't being more aggressive in bidding for Iraq's oil because the terms are pretty lousy.
Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world’s top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer. China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields.
Climate diplomacy urgently needs a new approach. Borrowing from Montreal’s playbook, the international community should shift its focus from setting targets that countries cannot meet to setting directives that multinational corporations have to follow. Relying on the threat of sanctions, the UN should compel the multinational corporations that dominate important sectors to define and adopt ambitious targets for driving down their greenhouse gas emissions. Third parties would evaluate the reductions throughout the corporations’ supply and distribution channels.
"There is no magic wand we can wave," said Russian President Vladimir Putin, acknowledging the abrupt drop in Russia's growth rate. "Prices for our main exports rose fast" for many years, he told the forum, but now "the situation has changed. There are no magic solutions."
Platts reporters monitor bids and offers for products from the blends that make up Dated Brent – the international crude benchmark – to jet fuel. Each day they publish prices or “assessments” that are used by traders to price oil deals worldwide. Assessments from price reporting agencies such as Platts underpin the Brent futures market, used by airlines to protect against price moves and by hedge funds to speculate; the British government uses Platts assessments to calculate taxes on oil producers; and ultimately Platts’ prices play a part in the cost of petrol at the pump.
The problem with government backing winners and losers in the marketplace is that the Law of Unintended Consequences inevitably kicks in. And never so demonstrably as in ‘squaring the circle’ of energy security ‘needs’ with ludicrously ambitious environmental ‘wants’. Not only is the hindering of fossil fuel generated power generation forcing a worrying trend in the early closure of national power plants – threatening power outages – it is also reducing the commercial viability of manufacturers in the global marketplace. From Australia to the United States to Asia, observers are increasingly noting how Europe has become the benchmark for how-not-to play the global power game.
Even as America looks towards an energy-independent future, debate continues to stir over the importance of green energy and natural gas exports. And although some have argued that government intervention is hindering industry growth, the threat of significant market failures can also hurt long-term economic and environmental sustainability
Rising Fuel Imports Could Hit Consumers Hard
Jordan is pushing ahead with plans to build the Middle East's first shale oil-fired power plant, a major step toward achieving energy security by the resource-poor Hashemite kingdom. Its fragile economy had long been shackled by dependence on imported energy, a problem sharply accentuated by high oil prices during the past three years and the turmoil in the Arab world since early 2011. The kingdom, whose economy has largely survived on hefty handouts from the United States and the petro-monarchies of the Persian Gulf, sits on top of an estimated 100 billion barrels of shale oil -- the fourth-largest shale oil reserves in the world after the United States, China and Russia.
There are two reasonable ways to gauge the climate danger of U.S. oil development. The first uses something called the social cost of carbon, which puts a dollar figure on the damage that a ton of carbondioxide emissions could be expected to cause. The methods that scientists and economists use to estimate this are complicated and controversial. In a 2009 review of the numbers, the U.S. government concluded that every ton of emissions causes a little more than $20 worth of harm -- though it acknowledged that the real figure might be three times larger, or possibly several times smaller. Others have argued that the actual damage is considerably higher. These figures can help us compare the climate costs of rising U.S. oil production with the economic benefits. Keep in mind that when U.S. oil production increases by one barrel, some OPEC members are likely to cut their own output to stabilize prices.
VERY GOOD ON COSTS AND BENEFITS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
U.S. oil and gas production is on the rise due to the remarkable surge in unconventional oil and gas development. The widespread realization of the economic, technological, and commercial viability of these tremendous oil and gas resources within North America and the potential for transferring this production success to other parts of the world with similar resources may alter the global energy landscape in several important ways. Speculation about the full extent of the geostrategic implications of this newly realized resource endowment runs the gamut: some analysts suggest that it will fundamentally change the geopolitical dimensions of energy that have prevailed over the last forty years, while others posit that the revolution will be short-lived both in terms of its production potential and resulting geostrategic impacts. There is even less consensus about what potential changes in energy relationships might mean more broadly for key international relationships and geopolitical dynamics.
Everyone wants energy security, but few seem to understand what it is. Energy security relates to the availability of oil as well as of refined oil products, natural gas, coal, and renewable energy and also how these systems operate. In the United States (US), the debate over energy security revolves around how much oil we import. This article therefore focuses on oil security, using the example of the United States. Oil security is about not just whether a country has enough oil for its needs, but also where imported oil comes from, how much crude oil is imported to the country, and how much refined oil is exported. Oil security increases as the need to import crude oil declines. In the US, people often just look at where we are getting the oil from and they often misunderstand what those sources are. The largest source of imported crude oil into the US is Canada, a stable democracy and a close ally of the US. The US exports some refined oil products to Canada, but it is not a large amount relative to the amount of crude oil we import from Canada. The second largest source of imported crude oil is Mexico, a country that seems to be increasingly unstable given its violence related to drug gangs. Mexico’s national oil company PEMEX is one of the most poorly managed and most indebted companies in the world. Its profits tend not to be reinvested in exploring and producing more oil, which are often the bread and butter of the leading oil companies. Many of the biggest oil fields of Mexico have been in decline for some time. Mexico imports about half of the crude its sends to the US back from the US as refined products. So the US net imports of oil from Mexico are actually around half the gross imports.
I work on energy policy for a national security think tank, so I am often asked to talk about energy security. Last week, I participated in a conference in which we were asked to comment on “U.S. Energy Security: How Do We Get There?” As I listened to the presenters at the conference, I realized that how you viewed the problem of ‘Energy Security’ depends on how you identify it. We all seem to have determined that energy security is a problem, but we each had different understandings of what the term ‘energy security’ actually means! Of course, that means there were very different prescriptions for how to ‘solve’ the problems of ‘energy security.’
VERY GOOD ON THE DIFFERENT INTERPRETATONS OF ENERGY SECURITY
The electric power grid in the United States is vulnerable to attacks that have already begun, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey said in Chicago Thursday night, and America needs distributed generation as backup—primarily in the form of natural-gas cogeneration and solar power.
America's growing energy self-sufficiency raises a number of geo-political and geo-economic questions, says the State Department's Robert D. Hormats. These developments present enormous opportunities not just for strengthening the U.S. economy and reducing U.S. financial outflows, but also for enabling the United States to pursue new kinds of energy diplomacy. The world's new energy geography and increased American self-sufficiency should not be seen in the United States—or abroad—as foreshadowing, or justifying, an American pullback from the rest of the world. Energy shortages, price volatility or disruptions anywhere can threaten economic growth everywhere.
The shale boom has major implications for US and other countries’ energy security, not least possible US disengagement from the Middle East. However, the effects of US progress towards self-sufficiency may be overstated and the positive external impacts underrated. Technological developments also suggest that Malthusian approaches to food, water and demography need re-assessment. Until recently the principal vision of the future for the US, a country heavily dependent on crude oil imports and expecting a burgeoning dependency on imported LNG, was one of intense competition for natural resources with the emerging economies of Asia.
The outlook for the U.S. energy market has improved dramatically in the last several years, with the country importing 90% less light sweet crude than it did a decade ago and cheap natural gas being produced in abundance. The change is due almost exclusively to advances in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the controversial practice of using water under high pressure to extract hydrocarbons from the earth. Almost 90% of the wells being dug in the U.S. today are fracked, and the "shale revolution" has brought jobs and economic vitality to areas rich with shale. While some producers bemoan the low cost of natural gas, low-cost fuel has benefits for many other industries, and could help spur a manufacturing revival in the U.S. Yet fracking remains controversial because of concerns about the environment, particularly the possibility of water supplies being contaminated below ground.
Just because the United States is gaining energy independence from foreign oil doesn't mean the Pentagon shouldn't remain on mission to secure energy supplies. That's the argument made in a new book by Michael Levi, senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations and director of its program on energy security and climate change. The book, Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future, was released Thursday. "Achieving American energy self-sufficiency wouldn't make us independent in the way that people would like to think it would," Levi told the E-Ring, in an interview Friday. And, he added, it won't decrease U.S. vulnerability in energy or other areas. Since most national security wonks are not energy wonks, and vice versa, we'll allow Levi (who might be a triple wonk: he studied string theory at Princeton and his last book was on nuclear terrorism) to explain. He argues that the United States still remains so tied to the decades-old global oil-supply market that only a significant drop in total U.S. energy consumption would do anything real to free the United States from foreign security concerns.
The axiom of “resource scarcity” has been one of the dominant forces shaping global geopolitics and economics since the end of World War II. Now, thanks to the U.S. oil and gas industry’s technological and entrepreneurial savvy, we have ushered in an era in which “resource abundance” will be the norm. The technology will be used to turn the U.S. into an energy exporter and also unlock hidden reserves in other countries. The resulting surge in supply means that the energy sector will begin to behave like a more “normal” market, one in which demand and supplyglobal are in better balance and less power is concentrated in the hands of select producers. Energy-rich countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia or Venezuela could be in serious trouble. Higher prices and market power have allowed their rulers to boost their domestic popularity with subsidies and other social spending projects, but when their customers produce more of their own energy or have other suppliers available, they will be forced to adapt quickly and intelligently or deal with the consequences. The other great shift will come from a change in U.S. foreign policy. At the beginning of World War II, the United States supplied about 63 percent of the world’s oil and Texas was the global supplier of last resort. The Arabian Peninsula, Iran and Iraq together produced less than 5 percent. But in 1960, new discoveries encouraged Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Venezuela to band together to form the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Over the next decade, Middle Eastern and North African countries ramped up production by 13 million barrels per day, and OPEC members began to claim a bigger share of profits from Western oil companies operating on their territory. Qatar, Indonesia, Algeria, Libya, the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria joined the cartel.
VERY GOOD
The third and fourth sections of Russia’s “South Stream” will be completed by 2018. However, supranational structures in Brussels and their representatives in still cannot set forth a predictable and unified position on this project of undisputed geopolitical importance. Bureaucratic hurdles like “Third Energy Package” or even more mysterious “Southern Gas Corridor” create non-competitive and non-transparent advantage to the EU initiatives on the .energy market
The discovery of shale gas has been the biggest driver in the reversal of decades of decline in U.S. oil production and has already transformed North Dakota, for example, into an economic powerhouse, boasting the nation's lowest unemployment rate and fastest-growing GDP, as well as an oil production level surpassing that of some OPEC nations. But will Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom with not only the largest proven oil reserves but also the largest repository – by far – of low-cost oil reserves, allow the U.S. oil boom at its expense?
All this combines to mean that America must redefine “Energy Security” in the 21st Century. Energy Security no longer means that all energy produced at home is good, no matter how polluting it is. Instead of focusing on where energy comes from, our country needs an energy policy that considers the real costs and benefits of our energy production and use. Increased investment in R&D; for renewable energy sources and improvements are essential. We need to realize that economic stability and environmental sustainability are as much a part of energy security as the threats of supply shortages.
Cyber threats to oil and gas suppliers pose an increasingly challenging problem for U.S. national se-curity and economic competitiveness. Attacks can take many forms, ranging from cyber espionage by foreign intelligence services to attempts to interrupt a company’s physical operations. These threats have grown more sophisticated over time, making them more difficult to detect and defend against. So, too, have the actors behind them, which have evolved from lone hackers with few resources to state-sponsored teams of programming experts. Several of the world’s major oil and gas producers, including Saudi Aramco (officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company) and Qatar’s RasGas, have fallen victim to cyberattacks since 2009. Others, such as Chevron, have also had their networks infected
The so-called Shale Revolution, in which United States producers developed new drilling technologies for recovering gas and oil trapped in vast shale beds in the country's mountain states, is changing the geopolitical and economic map of the world and certainly Asia. In particular, according to a study by Research Fellow Lee Dae-sik and reprinted by the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, the shale revolution is threatening Russia's global status. With Russia depending on energy exports to deliver half of its government revenue, the rising US production is cutting into both prices and exports, with Russia having to cut its 2013 gross domestic product growth rate from 4.6 percent to 2.4 percent last April.
Energy Security Definition – Before we discuss the factors that affect energy supply performance it’s important to clearly define ‘energy security’. Energy security is normally defined as the level of energy supply reliability, or inversely, the level of supply disruption risk. Generally local or domestically produced and supplied energy is the most reliable and secure source. Imported energy supplies are normally less reliable or secure depending on the imports’ origin and often the distance or routing the imports must be transported. On average, the greater the percentage of domestically or locally produced-supplied energy, the greater the level of energy security.
The Energy Security conference provided a wake-up call. Europeans, and with them the Germans, have to face the fact that energy security in the Gulf might one day be no longer guaranteed by the US. The European Union would then have to step in. In the wake of the euro crisis. This might make a mayor upgrading of European armed forces imperative.
The signs are everywhere. Britain has been unable to reach a deal for its first new nuclear power station since the 1990s. Spain, once a clean-energy enthusiast, has slashed its backing for wind and solar power. Even the European Union’s flagship environmental achievement of recent years, its Emissions Trading System for carbon dioxide, is beset by existential doubts. On Tuesday, the European Parliament batted away an effort to bolster anemic carbon prices on the E.T.S. Prices for permits to emit greenhouse gases, which have fallen as low as €3 per metric ton, are just a fraction of what they were a few years ago, meaning that they are no longer doing their intended job of inducing utilities and manufacturers to invest in new technology and switch to cleaner fuels.
policies. It argues that impressive foundations have been laid for a more coherent and proactive international climate and energy strategy, but that critical issues remain unresolved. Crucially, the EU’s leadership in global climate policy is increasingly compromised by tensions between its internal and external policies, as well as between traditional energy security and climate change aims. Internal European cooperation on both climate change and energy market integration serves as the launch-pad for EU global influence; but the lack of clarity in these same internal policies also increasingly detracts from the EU’s international projection
Despite fears over the UK’s offshore oil industry, investment is set to hit a record as complex projects are pursued Hostile
SIGNIFICANCE:The May 22 European Council summit seems to confirm a shift in emphasis towards competitiveness and affordability. Renewed concern with short-term competitiveness and energy prices is hard to reconcile with the 2020 goals of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, increasing the share of renewables in energy consumption and improving energy efficiency, let alone any post-2020 trajectory. ANALYSIS: Impacts. EU energy prices will remain substantially above US prices, mainly owing to US development of shale gas and oil. Economic conditions and policy uncertainty risk keeping energy investment well below the estimated 1.3 trillion dollars needed by 2020. EU's 2020 targets for renewables and efficiency will be increasingly at risk. It is becoming clear that the EU's energy and climate policy is one of the major casualties of the wider economic and political crises facing the Union (see EUROPE: Euro-area crisis may jinx 2020 energy goals - February 6, 2013). For much of the last decade, the EU has been committed to an energy policy that stressed tackling climate change. This, it was claimed, would also aid energy security and offer opportunities to develop competitive advantage in 'green' industrial ventures. The policy seemed initially to survive the crisis -- indeed, energy was part of the 'green Keynesianism' that was to stimulate an economic recovery. However, as economic conditions have worsened and austerity has prevailed, the short-term costs of the policy have become more apparent, particularly as economic decline has left energy demand stagnant and carbon prices at record lows.
The systemic waste of natural resources in the Gulf is eroding economic resilience to shocks and increasing security risks. The six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries now consume more primary energy than the whole of Africa. Yet they have just one-twentieth of that continent’s population. Almost 100% of energy is produced from oil and gas without carbon dioxide abatement. If the region’s fuel demand were to continue rising as it has over the last decade, it would double by 2024. This is a deeply undesirable prospect for both the national security of each state and the global environment. Output generated is not commensurate with energy used. Energy intensity regionally (units of energy per unit of GDP) is high and rising in contrast to other industrialized regions, and this is driven by systemic inefficiencies. The situation threatens sustainability on several levels, and is exacerbated by groundwater depletion and an increasing reliance on oil- or gas-fuelled desalination.
Understanding the history of how humans have interacted with the rest of nature can help clarify the options for managing our increasingly interconnected global system. Simple, deterministic relationships between environmental stress and social change are inadequate. Extreme drought, for instance, triggered both social collapse and ingenious management of water through irrigation. Human responses to change, in turn, feed into climate and ecological systems, producing a complex web of multidirectional connections in time and space. Integrated records of the co-evolving human-environment system over millennia are needed to provide a basis for a deeper understanding of the present and for forecasting the future. This requires the major task of assembling and integrating regional and global historical, archaeological, and paleoenvironmental records. Humans cannot predict the future. But, if we can adequately understand the past, we can use that understanding to influence our decisions and to create a better, more sustainable and desirable future.
Abstract Civilization’s advances during the twentieth century are closely bound with an unprecedented rise of energy consumption in general, and of hydrocarbons and electricity in particular. Substantial improvements of all key nineteenth-century energy techniques and introduction of new extraction and transportation means and new prime movers resulted in widespread diffusion of labor-saving and comfort-providing conversions and in substantially declining energy prices. Although modern societies could not exist without large and incessant flows of energy, there are no simple linear relationships between the inputs of fossil fuels and electricity and a nation’s economic performance and social accomplishments. International comparisons show a variety of consumption patterns and a continuing large disparity between affluent and modernizing nations. The necessity of minimizing environmental impacts of energy use, particularly those with potentially worrisome global effects, is perhaps the greatest challenge resulting from the twentieth century’s energy advances.
Human institutions—ways of organizing activities—affect the resilience of the environment. Locally evolved institutional arrangements governed by stable communities and buffered from outside forces have sustained resources successfully for centuries, although they often fail when rapid change occurs. Ideal conditions for governance are increasingly rare. Critical problems, such as transboundary pollution, tropical deforestation, and climate change, are at larger scales and involve nonlocal influences. Promising strategies for addressing these problems include dialogue among interested parties, officials, and scientists; complex, redundant, and layered institutions; a mix of institutional types; and designs that facilitate experimentation, learning, and change.
not always successful. Ineffective institutions such as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization or the Organization of African Unity exist alongside effectual ones such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the European Union. In recent years, we have gained insight into what makes some institutions more capable than others-how such institutions best promote cooperationa mongs tates and what mechanicso f bargainingt hey use. But our knowledge is incomplete, and as the world moves toward new forms of global regulation and governance, the increasing impact of international institutions has raised new questions about how these institutions themselves are governed.
Despite this profusion of theoretical approaches and the clear and evident importance of energy in international relations, it is striking that there has been limited direct application of IR theories to understanding energy- and mineral-related conflicts and modes of collaboration and competition.
Attention by international relations scholars to the transformation underway stemming from the rise of China has not been matched by that given to the transformation underway in the international energy system. This article looks at three dimensions of that transformation: the end of cheap oil and the rising trend of energy prices; the changing role of the traditional international oil companies and the rise of national oil companies; and the growing energy importance of the Middle East and Russia. It looks at how these changes have already affected or are likely to affect three strategic relationships: US-Middle East; US-China; and Europe-Russia-US. It concludes that more attention needs to be given by scholars to what will be major changes in global geopolitical relationships with considerable consequences for the foreign policies of the major powers.
How well are industrialized nations doing in terms of their energy security? Without a standardized set ofmetrics, it is difficult to determine the extent to which countries are properly responding to the emerging energy security challenges related to climate change: a growing dependency on fossil fuels, population growth, and economic development. In response, this article first surveys the academic literature on energy security and concludes that it is composed of availability, affordability, efficiency, and environmental stewardship. It then analyzes the relative energy security performance, based on these four dimensions, of the United States and 21 other member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 1970 to 2007. Four countries are examined in greater detail: one of the strongest (Denmark), one of the most improved in terms of energy security ( Japan), onewith weak and stagnant energy security (United States), and one with deteriorating energy security (Spain). The article concludes by offering implications for public policy.
Despite an emerging literature on global energy governance, there so far is no extensive intellectual rationale for it. This article seeks to fill this gap by putting forward a public policy framework to analyze global energy. With that lens, energy security relates to problems of market failure at a transnational scale. These may occur due to imperfect competition; negative externalities; lack of information; or the presence of public goods. It is argued that major global energy risks such as oil price volatility, lack of transport infrastructure, and insufficient upstream investments can be convincingly conceptionalized as markets failing to provide for a crucial good—energy security. This article thus proposes market failure as an analytical justification of and as an intellectual foundation for further research in global energy governance, and sketches possible research agendas in that field.
Very good -- various theories concerning oil depletion
By focusing on major international oil companies (IOCs), this paper examines the balance of power in the oil industry in the current decade, which, unlike the previous two cooperative decades, can be characterised as ‘conflictual’. In this decade, due to their weak relative bargaining power, the IOCs have generally been unsuccessful in bargaining with oil-exporting countries and national oil companies (NOCs). As a result, we are witnessing the return of the obsolescing bargain. Various factors endow oil-exporting countries and their NOCs with increased bargaining power vis-à-vis the major IOCs. High oil prices, increased industry competition, the lack of alternative investment options for IOCs and an increasingly hostile political climate in many oil-exporting states, translate to weaker bargaining power and unfavourable outcomes for IOCs. Their future as viable business entities is further compromised by the changing policy and regulatory environment in response to global climate change. By examining the strategies that major IOCs have adopted and may adopt to deal with systemic changes in the international oil industry, this paper proposes that to ensure the majors’ long-term survival and viability, home governments should assume partial control of major IOCs and thus transform them into NOC-IOC hybrids.
Most scholars and policymakers believe OPEC can and does influence the price of oil by acting as a cartel. This paper argues that most of the conventional wisdom about OPEC is wrong. OPEC rarely if ever influences the oil production rate in its member states. Further, OPEC has almost no lasting impact on world prices, except under rare conditions. There was one occasion on which OPEC did have a significant impact on world oil prices, namely the 1973 oil crisis, but OPEC’s role in the event has been greatly misunderstood. The circumstances of the crisis were highly exceptional, making it unlikely that the organization could ever have a similar impact on world oil prices again. This paper seeks to correct the misunderstanding about OPEC’s role, and replace it with a better understanding of the organization. I argue that OPEC is dysfunctional as a cartel, as it has little or no causal impact on its members’ choices about production levels or investment in production capacity. OPEC’s role is obscured in part by the complexity of the world oil market, and in part by misdirection by policymakers, especially within OPEC. Many scholars, especially economists, have argued that OPEC should be understood as a cartel designed to solve a Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) coordination game. Yet OPEC’s persistence is better understood as a widespread failure to update beliefs about the organization, a failure that is driven by information asymmetry and politics. The fact that such a widespread belief about the world’s most important commodity market could be wrong can help us better understand international regimes. Acknowledgements
This articleconceptualizestheenergyproblemsfacingsocietyfromaglobalgovernanceperspective.It argues thatanotionof‘‘globalenergygovernance,’’takentomeaninternationalcollectiveactionefforts undertakentomanageanddistributeenergyresourcesandprovideenergyservices,offersameaningful and usefulframeworkforassessingenergy-relatedchallenges.Thearticlebeginsbyexploringthe concepts ofgovernance,globalgovernance,andglobalenergygovernance.Itthenexaminessomeofthe existinginstitutionsinplacetoestablishandcarryoutrulesandnormsgoverningglobalenergy problems anddescribestherangeofinstitutionaldesignoptionsavailabletopolicymakers.Itbriefly traces theroleofaselectionoftheseinstitutions,frominter-governmentalorganizationstosummit processes tomultilateraldevelopmentbankstoglobalactionnetworks,inrespondingtoenergyissues, and pointsouttheirstrengthsandweaknesses.Thearticleconcludesbyanalyzinghowthevarious approaches toglobalgovernancedifferintheirapplicabilitytoaddressingtheconundrumsofglobal energy problems.
The presentpaperreviewsthereactionsandthepathofacceptanceofthetheoryknownas‘‘peakoil’’. The theorywasproposedforthefirsttimebyM.K.Hubbertinthe1950sasawaytodescribethe production patternofcrudeoil.AccordingtoHubbert,theproductioncurveis‘‘bellshaped’’and approximatelysymmetric.Hubbert’stheorywasverifiedwithgoodapproximationforthecaseofoil production intheUnitedStatesthatpeakedin1971,andisnowbeingappliedtotheworldwideoil production. Itisgenerallybelievedthattheglobalpeakofoilproduction(‘‘peakoil’’)willtakeplace during thefirstdecadeofthe21stcentury,andsomeanalystsbelievethatithasalreadyoccurredin 2005or2006.Thetheoryanditsconsequenceshaveunpleasantsocialandeconomicalimplications.The present paperisnotaimedatassessingthepeakdatebutoffersadiscussiononthefactorsthataffect the acceptanceandthediffusionoftheconceptof‘‘peakoil’’withexpertsandwiththegeneralpublic. The discussionisbasedonasubdivisionof‘‘fourstagesofacceptance’’,looselypatternedaftera sentencebyThomasHuxley.
Energy is fundamental for present societies. In particular, transportation systems depend on petroleum-based fuels whose production levels are unsustainable. The inevitability of a peak of oil production (‘‘Peak Oil’’) is a now an accepted concept, although its date is still not consensual. In this work we discuss the peak of oil production and analyze the problems it will create. As much as can be inferred at this moment, the impact of the Peak Oil will certainly be significant but can still range from relatively benign to almost catastrophic scenarios. As a direct effect of Peak Oil, the increase in energy prices will be concentrated on the liquid fuels and the transportation sector will be specially affected. We believe that the cheap, wide-scale air transport that our present societies take for granted will revert to a more expensive and restrictive model closer to the selective commercial air transport of the early jet age. In our opinion the present road transportation systems will suffer an important transition that includes a reduced incidence of long distance road cargo movements, partially replaced by increased railway transportation, and, in terms of people commuting, a significant increase of mass transit and electrical vehicles. During this phase of forced adaptation, some countries will face greater challenges than others. However, the future of overall mankind and of particular countries, regions, or any groupings of people, is not yet fixed: it depends on decisions that are being taken at the present moment and on decisions that will still be taken in the future. As such, predicting the impact of the Peak Oil is something that must be done through a continuously refined process of information collection and analysis.
Peak oiltheorypredictsthatoilproductionwillsoonstartaterminaldecline.Mostauthorsimplythat no adequatealternateresourceandtechnologywillbeavailabletoreplaceoilasthebackboneresource of industrialsociety.Thisarticleuseshistoricalcasesfromcountriesthathavegonethroughasimilar experienceasthebestavailableanalyticalstrategytounderstandwhatwillhappenifthepredictionsof peak oiltheoristsareright.Theauthorisnotcommittedtoaparticularversionofpeakoiltheory,but deems theissueimportantenoughtoexplorehowvariouspartsoftheworldshouldbeexpectedto react.Fromthehistoricalrecordheisabletoidentifypredatorymilitarism,totalitarianretrenchment, and socioeconomicadaptationasthreepossibletrajectories.
The non-combustion based renewable electricity generation technologies were assessed against a range of sustainability indicators and using data obtained from the literature. The indicators used to assess each technology were price of generated electricity, greenhouse gas emissions during full life cycle of the technology, availability of renewable sources, efficiency of energy conversion, land requirements, water consumption and social impacts. The cost of electricity, greenhouse gas emissions and the efficiency of electricity generation were found to have a very wide range for each technology, mainly due to variations in technological options as well as geographical dependence of each renewable energy source. The social impacts were assessed qualitatively based on the major individual impacts discussed in literature. Renewable energy technologies were then ranked against each indicator assuming that indicators have equal importance for sustainable development. It was found that wind power is the most sustainable, followed by hydropower, photovoltaic and then geothermal. Wind power was identified with the lowest relative greenhouse gas emissions, the least water consumption demands and with the most favourable social impacts comparing to other technologies, but requires larger land and has high relative capital costs.
Report -- very good
Plotting theperformanceofatechnologyagainstthemoneyoreffortinvestedinitmostoftenyieldsan S-shapedcurve:slowinitialimprovement,thenacceleratedimprovement,thendiminishingimprove- ment. TheseS-curvescanbeusedtogaininsightintotherelativepayoffofinvestmentincompeting technologies, aswellasprovidingsomeinsightintowhenandwhysometechnologiesovertakeothers in theracefordominance.AnalyzingrenewableenergiesfromsuchatechnologyS-curveperspective revealssomesurprisingandimportantimplicationsforbothgovernmentandindustry.Usingdataon governmentR&Dinvestmentandtechnologicalimprovement;(intheformofcostreductions),weshow that bothwindenergyandgeothermalenergyarepoisedtobecomemoreeconomicalthanfossilfuels withinarelativelyshorttimeframe.TheevidencefurthersuggeststhatR&Dforwindandgeothermal; technologies hasbeenunder-fundedbynationalgovernmentsrelativetofundingforsolartechnologies, and governmentfundingoffossilfueltechnologiesmightbeexcessivegiventhediminishing performanceofthosetechnologies.
Proponents of oil-led development believe that countries lucky enough to have “black gold” can base their development on this resource. They point to the potential benefits from enhanced economic growth and the creation of jobs, increased government revenues to finance poverty alleviation, the transfer of technology, the improvement of infrastructure and the encouragement of related industries. But the experience of almost all oil-exporting countries to date illustrates few of these benefits. To the contrary, the consequences of oil-led development tend to be negative, including slower than expected growth, barriers to economic diversification, poor social welfare performance, and high levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment. Furthermore, countries dependent on oil as their major resource for development are characterized by exceptionally poor governance and high corruption, a culture of rent-seeking, often devastating economic, health and environmental consequences at the local level, and high incidences of conflict
Recent studies assert that natural-resource abundance (particularly of minerals) has adverse consequences for economic growth. But these two economists argue that it is inappropriate to equate development of mineral resources with terms such as “windfalls” and “booms.” Contrary to the view of mineral production as mere depletion of a fixed natural “endowment,” they argue that “nonrenewable” resources have been progressively extended through exploration, technological progress, and advances in appropriate knowledge.
Abstract On average, resource-abundant countries have experienced lower growth over the last four decades than their resource-poor counterparts. But the most interesting aspect of the paradox of plenty is not the average effect of natural resources, but its variation. For every Nigeria or Venezuela there is a Norway or a Botswana. Why do natural resources induce prosperity in some countries but stagnation in others? This paper gives an overview of the dimensions along which resource-abundant winners and losers differ. In light of this, it then discusses different theory models of the resource curse, with a particular emphasis on recent developments in political economy.
Countlesss tudiesd ocumentt he correlationb etweena bundantm ineralr esourcesa nd a serieso f negativee conomica nd political outcomes,i ncludingp oor economicp erformanceu, nbalancedg rowth,w eaklyi nstitutionalizedst ates,a nd authoritarianre gimes acrosst he developingw orld.T he disappointinge xperienceo f mineral-richco untriesh asg enerateda largeb odyo f scholarshipa imed at explainingt his empiricalc orrelationa nd a list of prescriptionfso r combatingt he resourcec urse.T he most populars olutions emphasizem acroeconomicp olicies,e conomicd iversificationn, aturalr esourcef unds, transparencayn d accountabilitya, nd direct distributiont o the generalp opulation.T he successo f theses olutionsh as been limitedb ecauset hey eitherp resupposes trongs tate institutions,w hich arew idelya bsenti n the developingw orld,o r assumes tateo wnershipo verm ineralw ealtha nd thus the need for externala ctorst o constraint he state.A t the samet ime, domesticp rivateo wnershipi s rarelyp roposeda nd often maligned.Y et,i n some countries,i t would servea s a morev iablew ay to avoidt he resourcec urseb y fosteringi nstitutionst hat moree ffectivelyc onstrains tate leaders,e ncouragingt hem to investi n institutionb uilding,a nd enablingt hem to respondm ores uccessfullyto commodity booms and busts.
Abstract Environmental policy is made in a context of both market failure and government failure. On the one hand, leaving environmental protection to the free market, relying on notions of corporate social responsibility and altruistic consumer and shareholder preferences, will not deliver optimal results. On the other hand, nationalizing the delivery of environmental protection is likely to fail because nation states rarely have the depth and quality of information required to instruct all the relevant agents to make appropriate decisions. Thus, as for many areas of policy, appropriate models of environmental intervention will lie between these two extremes. While it is impossible to specify general rules concerning the precise form of intervention, in part because the type of intervention depends upon value judgements, this paper sets out some of the considerations that are particular to environmental policy, and explores several principles for policy design, including information, coordination, and principal–agent problems, with a particular focus on the international context. Key words: environmental policy, environmental
The global trade in goods depends upon reliable, inexpensive transportation of freight along complex and long-distance supply chains. Global warming and peak oil undermine globalization by their effects on both transportation costs and the reliable movement of freight. Countering the current geographic pattern of comparative advantage with higher transportation costs, climate change and peak oil will thus result in peak globalization, after which the volume of exports will decline as measured by ton-miles of freight. Policies designed to mitigate climate change and peak oil are very unlikely to change this result due to their late implementation, contradictory effects and insufficient magnitude. The implication is that supply chains will become shorter for most products and that production of goods will be located closer to where they are consumed.
Since the late 1990s, there has been a flood of research on natural resources and civil war. This article reviews 14 recent cross-national econometric studies, and many qualitative studies, that cast light on the relationship between natural resources and civil war. It suggests that collectively they imply four underlying regularities: first, oil increases the likelihood of conflict, particularly separatist conflict; second, ‘lootable’ commodities like gemstones and drugs do not make conflict more likely to begin, but they tend to lengthen existing conflicts; third, there is no apparent link between legal agricultural commodities and civil war; and finally, the association between primary commodities – a broad category that includes both oil and agricultural goods – and the onset of civil war is not robust. The first section discusses the evidence for these four regularities and examines some theoretical arguments that could explain them. The second section suggests that some of the remaining inconsistencies among the econometric studies may be caused by differences in the ways they code civil wars and cope with missing data. The third section highlights some further aspects of the resource–civil war relationship that remain poorly understood.
Abstract A broadening research program focused on environment and security emerged over the past 30 years. But the meaning and operationalization of environment and security have been an implicit and increasingly explicit part of the scholarly debate. Approaches range from the more specific focus on the linkages between environmental change and violent (deadly) conflict, the possible role of environmental conservation, cooperation, and collaboration in promoting peace, and the broader focus on potential relationships between environmental change and human security (understood as freedom from both violent conflict and physical want). In addition to the different conceptions of environment and security, the type and direction of causal relationships among different factors continue to be a focus of research. With respect to the environment and violent conflict, which constitute the largest explicit research stream on environment and security, the debate has centered on whether and why environmental scarcity, abundance, or dependence might cause militarized conflict. Less research has been conducted on the environmental effects of violent conflict and war or traditional security institutions such as militaries and military-industrial complexes. Rigorous research on the consequences of peace or human security for the environment is virtually nonexistent.
There is a growing consensus that insurgent access to natural resource revenues prolongs armed conflicts and presents significant hurdles to peacekeeping missions. This article examines the effectiveness of resource-related conflict termination instruments, focusing on revenue sharing, economic sanction and military intervention. Observing the outcomes of these three instruments for 26 conflicts between 1989 and 2006, we suggest that military intervention and revenue sharing seem to have a better record of successful implementation than sanctions, but that sanctions and sharing agreements have a stronger correlation with durable peace than military interventions. We also note that the effectiveness of conflict termination initiatives seems to respond to the types of conflicts and resources involved, and discuss implications for mechanisms linking resources and conflicts.
VERY GOOD USE FOR SURE
American national security policy is based on a misunderstanding about U.S. oil interests. Although oil is a vital commodity, potential supply disruptions are less worrisome than scholars, politicians, and pundits presume. This article identifies four adaptive mechanisms that together can compensate for almost all oil shocks, meaning that continuous supply to consumers will limit scarcity-induced price increases. The adaptivemechanisms are not particularly fragile and do not require tremendous foresight by either governments or economic actors. We illustrate these mechanisms at work using evidence from every major oil disruption since 1973. We then identify the small subset of disruptive events that would overwhelm these adaptive mechanisms and therefore seriously harm the United States. Finally, we analyze the utility of U.S. foreign military policy tools in addressing these threats. Our findings suggest that the United States can defend its key interests in the Persian Gulf—the world’s most important oil-producing region—with a less-intrusive, “over the horizon” posture.
With the end of the supercycle, copper prices have dropped 30% from their 2011 peak, and iron ore is down 32%.
ABSTRACT The displacement of traditional military security policy by the primacy of economic interests—the economization of security—constitutes a paradigm shift that is about to change international security policies. It is becoming visible in the commercialization of nuclear proliferation, which makes the international security environment increasingly harder to predict; in the emergence of new security threats that challenge the adequacy of military means in a nation’s political–economic calculus; in the global financial crisis that forces Western nations to reduce defense budgets and military ambitions; and in the specter of ‘‘resource wars,’’ that is, economically motivated competitions that might turn into military conflict. All of these developments suggest that the relationship between security and economics is changing profoundly, posing major challenges to the cohesion of traditional military alliances.
FINAL EXAM USE FOR SURE IN SSECURITY SECTION
Though Russian oil production continues to rise and is currently approaching Soviet-era levels, forecasts predict it will soon peak and then decline, causing potential problems both for global oil importers and the Russian government’s budget.
The implication for policymakers is clear. More than at almost any time in recent years, international coordination to avoid excessive austerity will be essential for global economic success. Ensuring that national strategies are not just locally prudent, but also globally consistent should be the central task for the G-20 and the International Monetary Fund in 2013. Otherwise, the global growth equation may not add up.
MIDTERM? -- 28 PAGES
sanctions -- very good, put in section
This year, the U.S. will likely surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia as the largest liquids fuel producer in the world.
security section, World politics After the boom in unconventinonal energy
short -- Midterm?
Should countries care about where they and others buy their oil from? The answer has wide ranging consequences for public policy. As Middle Eastern oil exports to Asia rise while shipments to the United States and Europe fall, analysts are asking whether this trade shift will carry geopolitical consequences, drawing China politically closer to the Middle East while driving the West further away
VERY GOOD, SECURITY SECTION
Voestalpine, an Austrian maker of high-quality steel for the auto industry, announced that it would build a plant in North America that would employ natural gas to reduce iron ore to a kind of raw iron that would then be used in the company's European blast furnaces. Asked whether he had considered building the plant in Europe, Voestalpine’s chief executive, Wolfgang Eder, said that that “calculation does not make sense from the very beginning.” Gas in Europe is much more expensive, he said.
The shale energy revolution is likely to shift the tectonic plates of global power in ways that are largely beneficial to the West and reinforce U.S. power and influence during the first half of this century. Yet most public discussion of shale’s potential either focuses on the alleged environmental dangers of fracking or on how shale will affect the market price of natural gas. Both discussions blind policy makers to the true scale of the shale revolution.
very good, security section
BRANDS reviving the “Made in the U.S.A.” slogan to attract buyers for American-produced goods are relying less on patriotism and more on data that shows consumers are willing to pay a premium for better quality, quicker availability and product safety. But many companies are stepping gingerly, avoiding sweeping claims and spelling out what “Made in the U.S.A.” means for their products. Consumers are more shrewd about how few consumer goods actually are made in the United States, leaving companies less wiggle room about the origin of products.
In general, the coming of shale gas will magnify the importance of geography. Which countries have shale underground and which don't will help determine power relationships. And because shale gas can be transported across oceans in liquid form, states with coastlines will have the advantage. The world will be smaller because of unconventional gas extraction technology, but that only increases the preciousness of geography, rather than decreases it.
VERY GOOD, SECURITY SECTION FOR SURE
We're just beginning to tap the continent's vast hydrocarbon resources.
Very good -- security section
The International Energy Agency recently confirmed what market watchers have been saying for a year: oil and gas production in the United States is surging and is expected to continue to rise. This trend has led a parade of analysts and even the government’s National Intelligence Council to predict that, after four decades of failed attempts, America might soon become energy independent. This view, if taken too far, is not only wrong, it is dangerous. The United States would remain entangled with the global oil market indefinitely even if it were to import no oil. Political leaders lulled into a false sense of security by rising domestic oil and gas output run the risk of making big mistakes.
Very good Security section
With Saudi Arabia and Saudi America both in agreement, the threat – or for consumers, the promise – of significantly lower oil prices is unlikely to be fulfilled.
SECURITY, FAO, CCMR
As long as we run our economy on oil, we'll still be vulnerable to the world market. (
SECURITY SECTION
Arguably no commodity is more important for the modern economy than oil. This is true in terms of both production and financial market activity. Yet its pricing is relatively complex. In part this reflects the fact that there are actually more than 300 types of crude oil, the characteristics of which can vary quite markedly. This article describes some of the key features of the oil market and then discusses the pricing of oil, highlighting the important role of the futures market. It also notes some related issues for the oil market.
The 2011 IEA release provided policymakers with valuable lessons about three critical aspects of these emergency interventions: their effect on oil prices and market perception, their implications for international cooperation, and the logistical issues they raise about the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Energy officials in IEA countries should bear in mind those market-imposed constraints when structuring future releases, tailor their cooperation with influential oil-producing and -consuming countries to evolving geopolitical realities, and address potential operational impediments to the U.S. SPR, informed by the experience of the 2011 release.
SECURITY SECTION MIDTERM QUESTION
Abstract The ethanol mandate in the federal Renewable Fuel Standard increases corn prices and food prices. This harms consumers and distorts the domestic and international commodity market. While waiving the mandate would be an improvement, eliminating it is the best choice.
Government subsidies to green energy and high-speed rail have led to mounting losses and costly bailouts. This is not a road the U.S. should travel.
America will halve its reliance on Middle East oil by the end of this decade and could end it completely by 2035 due to declining demand and the rapid growth of new petroleum sources in the Western Hemisphere, energy analysts now anticipate.
Lowering the Price of something means more of it will be consumed
North America's massive resources are going to shift market power away from OPEC and Russia and to consuming nations.
good, security section
Forty years ago, humanity was warned: by chasing ever-greater economic growth, it was sentencing itself to catastrophe. The Club of Rome, a blue-ribbon multinational collection of business leaders, scholars, and government officials brought together by the Italian tycoon Aurelio Peccei, made the case in a slim 1972 volume called The Limits to Growth. Based on forecasts from an intricate series of computer models developed by professors at MIT, the book caused a sensation and captured the zeitgeist of the era: the belief that mankind's escalating wants were on a collision course with the world's finite resources and that the crash would be coming soon.
The first, and least foreseen, development since 2008, is that America is rapidly turning from a consumer into a producer nation. On economic grounds, its expanding energy horizons are manna from heaven. When Mr Obama was elected, the US was importing almost two-thirds of its oil. That number is down to below almost half and falling. In 2008, King Coal still dominated US electricity production. Last month natural gas supplanted coal as the largest source of US power supply.
So dramatic are America’s finds, analysts talk of the US turning into the world’s new Saudi Arabia by 2020, with up to 15m barrels a day of liquid energy production (against the desert kingdom’s 11m b/d this year). Most of the credit goes to private sector innovators, who took their cue from the high oil prices in the last decade to devise ways of tapping previously uneconomic underground reserves of “tight oil” and shale gas. And some of it is down to plain luck. Far from reaching its final frontier, America has discovered new ones under the ground.
SECURITY PART OF CLASS
Meet the winners and losers of the coming age of plenty.
sanctions
So dramatic are America’s finds, analysts talk of the US turning into the world’s new Saudi Arabia by 2020, with up to 15m barrels a day of liquid energy production (against the desert kingdom’s 11m b/d this year). Most of the credit goes to private sector innovators, who took their cue from the high oil prices in the last decade to devise ways of tapping previously uneconomic underground reserves of “tight oil” and shale gas. And some of it is down to plain luck. Far from reaching its final frontier, America has discovered new ones under the ground.
Security Section
Complex and far-reaching shifts in the global economic order over recent years have created a fundamentally new configuration of natural resource markets and trading relationships.1 Accelerated economic growth in emerging market economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the BRICS countries) has provided the European Union (EU) with tangible competition for access to natural resources, but has also led to increased protectionism in the context of scarce natural resources, as in the case of rare earth metals.
VERY GOOD, SECURITY PART OF CLASS, FAO
very good, but 86 pages
VERY GOOD, SECURITY SECTION 4 PAGES
VERY GOOD, SECURITY SECTION. U.S. has turned around as an energy producer and is on a major upswing
As global energy supplies come under increasing attack by non-state actors and private energy holdings become key targets of political maneuverings and criminal activities, Oilprice.comdiscusses the nature of the growing threat and how to reverse the risk with "smart power."
GOOD ON CURRENT OPEC DILEMMA
Oil and the Middle East are by all accounts Siamese twins. It is tough to mention one without the other. Even other words and characteristics that are also commonly associated with the Middle East are invariably perceived as having links to oil: cartels, boycotts, sanctions, terrorism, military expenditures, corruption, dictatorship, conflicts, wars, revolutions, foreign meddling, oil prices, oil shock, and yes, Islam. How did these countries become so associated with oil? How did these perceptions and associations come about? What is fact and what is fiction? How has oil affected these societies - their human, political and economic development? What does it all mean for the future?
VERY GOOD -- USE AS MARKET EXAMPLE OF PRICE DETERMINATION
VERY GOOD -- FACTORS THAT MAKE FOR A STRONG CARTEL -- PUT IN MONOPOLY SECTION
Subsidies distort markets and discourage development of substitutes. Subsidies for fuel are especially problematic, because energy is a backbone of any economy. In terms of energy production and consumption, the world is an uneven playing field in terms of reserves, taxes, regulations, public versus private ownership and income availability. An abrupt end to fuel subsidies would crush the poorest. With few ready alternatives, fossil fuels are highly inelastic products in economic terms – as prices rise, consumption of such necessities do not decline by much. Wealthy countries purchasing oil often set contract terms that benefit a few, and developing countries that are oil rich arrange subsidies as one benefit for the middle class and poor. Subsidies, even in countries lacking energy resources, contribute to political and economic stability. Ending subsidies – without putting alternative support programs into place – only adds to the ranks of the poor and threatens global security
GOOD -- USE IN MARKET DISTORTION SECTION ALONG WITH PETER'S EGYPT ARTICLE
The United States and China, the world's top users of energy, are heading in opposite directions. It is a trend that has major geostrategic implications for the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. is more certain that most of its future oil and gas will be produced at home. It is becoming less reliant on imported oil and natural gas as it ramps up domestic output and consumes fewer liquid fuels because of falling demand and energy saving advances, particularly in transport and industry. Meanwhile, China is becoming ever more dependent on oil and gas shipped or piped into the country, mainly from faraway sources of supply that are often in politically volatile parts of world, including the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. As a result, Beijing's sense of insecurity about future energy supplies is rising.
Oil-producing nations have watched from the sidelines or nodded in approval as crude prices have fallen in recent weeks, but if the trend continues it will only be a matter of time before they flex their muscles. Rising government spending in many of these countries means they can't afford for prices to slip much below $100 a barrel, analysts say.
VERY GOOD -- oil prices
VERY GOOD, PUT IN MARKETS/PRICE SECTION
Technology has led to a revolution in energy supply. Advanced seismic techniques and complex drilling methods have opened previously unknown or inaccessible deposits. As a result, the US now has a 100-year supply of natural gas. On the oil side, production in the US, Canada, Brazil and possibly Mexico is projected to grow sharply. All of these nations might rank among the world’s seven largest energy producers within the next 20 years. Oil production could match consumption across the western world for the first time since 1952.
GOOD -- OPEC SECTION
The outlook for global oil refining. Global oil refining has suffered from over capacity, volatile margins and significant upheavals in supply and demand. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast that surplus refining capacity could be some 6 million barrels a day (b/d) by 2016 unless more refineries are closed or new investment scrapped.
LONG -- GOOD SLIDES FOR PRESENTATION
New energy extraction technologies will overcome bad policies and geopolitical risks.
VERY GOOD ESSAYS, SECURITY SECTION, MIDTERM
Riyadh is less and less able to cushion supply shocks as it consumes more and more of its own oil.
use in OPEC Oligopoly MODEL
USE IN SECURITY SECTION
The linkages between food and oil prices have become more complex with the increasing use of biofuels. Rising food prices were a factor contributing to unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, which in turn provoked a sharp increase in oil prices
VERY GOOD USE IN MARKETS AND PRICES SECTION
gasoline vs. natural gas.
GOOD TO USE IN MARKETS AND PRICES
this paper describes the salient characteristics of the contemporary competition for natural resources: the rapid rise of Chinese and Indian demand; the changing role of the United States as an energy supplier; the growing importance of climate change in moving from the traditional interaction between the territorial nature of raw materials; and the laws of supply and demand to a more complex, systemic approach. Some of the corresponding strategic implications, both global and regional, are outlined along with their potential consequences in terms of U.S.-European relations, and transatlantic policy recommendations are flagged. Although nonenergy minerals will be alluded to, the main focus is on nonrenewable energy resources.
LOOKS INTERESTING -- CHECK FOR SECURITY SECTION
Taken together, the increasing production and declining consumption have unexpectedly brought the United States markedly closer to a goal that has tantalized presidents since Richard Nixon: independence from foreign energy sources, a milestone that could reconfigure American foreign policy, the economy and more. In 2011, the country imported just 45 percent of the liquid fuels it used, down from a record high of 60 percent in 2005.
SECURITY SECTION
In energy, North America is becoming the new Middle East. The only thing that can stop it is domestic politics.
ENERGY SECURITY
Today’s fragile global economy faces many risks: the risk of another flare-up of the eurozone crisis; the risk of a worse-than-expected slowdown in China; and the risk that economic recovery in the United States will fizzle (yet again). But no risk is more serious than that posed by a further spike in oil prices.
But election-year politics aside, the forces driving up prices at the pump are very different today than they were four years ago. In 2008, it was primarily the surge in oil consumption in emerging markets, disruptions, and a belief that the world was running short of oil (the so-called peak oil crisis). In 2012, the reason is mainly geopolitics. Last November, the United Nations declared that Iran was clearly developing nuclear-weapons capabilities. The West is responding with sanctions aimed at reducing Iran's ability to export oil, on which it depends for more than half of its government revenues, to get it to halt its nuclearweapons program. Tehran has answered by conducting large naval exercises and threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes some 35% of the world's oil exports
VERY GOOD, MARKETS AND PRICES
MARKETS AND PRICES
Energy security has become a strategic as well as an operational imperative for U.S. national security. As tensions continue to escalate with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, it has become clear that the U.S. military urgently requires new approaches and innovative technologies to improve fuel efficiency, increase endurance, enhance operational flexibility and support a forward presence for allied forces while reducing the vulnerability inherent in a long supply-line tether. -- VERY GOOD -- SHORT, BUT PUT IN SECURITY PART OF CLASS
The outlook for OPEC policy in 2012. Oil prices face opposing pressures from geopolitical instability and global economic woes. In this context, OPEC will start 2012 with an agreement -- reached in December -- for its members to produce a combined 30 million barrels/day (b/d) of crude oil. However, this agreement does not include country allocations determining precise target levels for each of the cartel's members. There is no formal mechanism for members to reduce output to accommodate the expected increases from Iraq and Libya, and possibly from other OPEC members as well.
Good -- use in security part of class
The scrapping of the U.S. ethanol tax credit and import tariff is likely to have only a marginal effect on corn and ethanol prices as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) upholds domestic demand for ethanol. We expect ethanol prices to rise 4% y/y to average US$2.7/gallon in 2012. • The U.S. market is now open to cheaper sugar-derived ethanol imports from Brazil, but this is unlikely to have an effect in the short term, with Brazil struggling to meet its own domestic consumption needs and importing U.S. ethanol as a result—a trend we believe will continue through 2012.
very good, use in protectionism
security part of class
Potential energy and economic revival through tight oil production. Expensive oil has undercut economic recovery and is arguably the main cause of the country's economic slowdown in early 2011. However, high oil prices have spurred production of 'tight oil' (or 'shale oil') in North Dakota, Texas, and other states, and these discoveries could have exceptionally beneficial economic consequences not currently appreciated by market players or policymakers.
energy security
security part of class
The new legislation proposes a trade-off of short-term economic stimulus for fast-tracking a long-term project that is vehemently opposed by environmentalists. Part of the problem is that so little is being offered. Short-term tax cuts are among the least effective forms of fiscal policy. Has everyone forgotten the Bush administration’s one-shot tax rebate in the spring of 2008? It shot one big hole in the budget, reducing future fiscal room for maneuver, but it created only the most transient of boosts to economic activity. On top of that, social security itself is in need of long-term restructuring. Undermining its funding in the name of short-term stimulus just doesn’t make sense.
A Beijing-inspired drive in wind and solar power now faces its own set of market difficulties
S. Rashid Husain, New OilReserves Pose threat to OPEC Dominance, Arab News, November 27, 2011
impact of shale oil -- very good
shale
FAO