Security of energy supply - a critical issue

The G7 recently declared in favour of a target on global warming - of limiting warming to a 2 degrees centigrade average increase from the pre-industrial period, by 2050. This has already been adopted as a target by the EU and is the best scenario for the UN scientific panel on climate change. Energy is critical in all this and it is worth looking at the energy security situation of the G7, in assessing this in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December.

There are some key facts in an era of Peak Oil. The world’s oil and gas reserve base is moving eastwards, as US and UK North Sea reserves deplete and Mexican oil fields mature. The majority of these reserves are now located in the centre of the Eurasian triangle, in Russia and the central Asian Republics, and due south in the Gulf.
Among the G7 countries, only Canada has access to secure, long-term indigenous fossil fuel reserves - oil, gas and coal. The US is a major energy importer although it has access to long-term coal reserves and by 2020 the UK, from its recent self-sufficiency, it will have very few long-term fossil fuel reserves now it has closed all but a handful of its coal mines. Japan, Germany and Italy are highly dependent on imported energy, while France which has nuclear and hydro generated electricity is nevertheless highly dependent on imported energy for transport and other sectors.

Looking globally, the energy economy has entered a period of growing instability. This instability has led recently to higher oil and gas prices and then to a sharp drop as the financial and economic crisis hit home and demand fell. At the same time the large, rapidly developing countries (China, India, Brazil) have increased their energy consumption and especially their fossil energy use. For China and India, a rapid move away from fossils is not possible in the medium term, although plans for improved energy efficiency could contribute to less rapidly increasing demand in China.

China is now the second largest energy consumer, after the US, using 17.7% of the world’s primary energy, compared with 20.4% in the US in 2008 (BP, 2009). In million tonnes of oil equivalent this corresponds to 2002.5 and 2299 respectively. While there is still some debate about the calculations, China has now overtaken the US in the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from energy consumption and flaring of fossil fuels - 6017.69 versus 5902 million tonnes ((EIA, 2008).

As the world economy comes out of recession, however slowly, rising demand will once again drive up prices at the pump. President Obama has ordered the US car industry to build more fuel efficient cars. He is quite right. Now is the time to dump the gas guzzler.