Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Security of
supply
The serious business of keeping a
nation switched on
Absolute energy security, like immortality for humans, is unachiev-
able. Too much can go wrong in the way of conflict, natural disaster
or technical failure for total reliability to be possible.
But governments know they cannot afford to adopt a fatalistic, passive
attitude to the possibility of their electorates freezing in the dark. And
risks of interruptions in oil and gas supplies are increasing because of:
a continued rise in oil demand for transport among virtually all
developing countries, while climate-change concerns drive a demand for
relatively clean natural gas.
insufficient investment in oil exploration and production, because
national oil companies lack the incentive to increase capacity, but refuse
to give Western oil majors - which have that incentive - access to their
reserves.
an ever-greater concentration of oil reserves and therefore of
production in the hands of fewer countries. This means more energy
passing through various chokepoints. In 2006, forty percent of oil
transited through the four conduits of the straits of Hormuz, Malacca,
Bab-el-Mandeb and the Suez canal. By 2030 this ratio will be sixty
percent, the IEA estimates.
Any disruption in oil flows has an immediate ripple effect in price terms
throughout the world oil market. So a serious shortfall of supply to one
country, or in one country, does not necessarily result in a physical short-
