Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Energy Pathways
- The geographical mismatch between energy demand and the availability of energy resources means that many countries rely on energy imports
- The flows of energy from producer to consumer are the pathways
- In physical terms, the pathways take the form of gas and oil pipelines,
the sea routes of tankers carrying oil and gas, and electricity power lines
- Europe, Asia and the Asia-Pacific region are now heavily reliant on energy imports
- Since the early 1990s there has been a significant increase in the exports of
fuels, particularly from the middle east, Africa and the former Soviet Union
- Oil and gas
- In the case of oil, there is a complex global pattern of pathways and players
- The middle east exports around 15,000 barrels per fay, mainly to Japan, Europe and China
- Substantial amounts flow from Africa, Europe, Canada and South and central America to the USA
- Russia supplies some oil to China, but the bulk of its exports now head in the direction of Europe
- Gas pathways are different in that they tend to be localised and regional rather than global
- This is because natural gas has traditionally been transported through pipelines, whereas oil is mainly shipped
- It is likely that, as delivery via pipelines becomes less dependable for political reasons, there will be a switch towards shipping gas in tankers as liquified natural gas
- One of the most
significant gas
pathways is the
trans-Siberian pipeline,
the main conveyor of
Russian natural gas
exports
- The Russian section of this pipeline is operated by the Gazprom
corporation, but its monopoly is being challenged by a new pipeline
- Europe's gas pipeline war
- The Nabucco pipeline, first planned in 2004, will transport natural gas over 3,000km from the Caspian region to Austria via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary
- Construction is expected to start in 2010 and be completed by 2013 at a cost of €8 billion
- The European Union and Russia are involved in a battle over a pipeline aimed at diversifying Europe's energy imports
- The Nabucco pipeline will be supplied with gas from Iran, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Egypt and Syria
- It will deliver a huge amount of gas, making the EU much less dependent on Russian supplies
- Russia's reliability as a supplier has been in doubt since it temporarily shut
off the gas supply to Ukraine in January 2006
- Clearly, it is in the EU's interests to diversify its gas imports
- Iran and Syria remain politically unstable and the central Asian countries have also promised huge amounts of gas to China and Russia
- Coal
- There are also coal pathways from countries as far apart as Australia and Poland
- At the moment, far less coal is moved than oil and gas
- However, there is a prospect of greater movements of coal, if only because
supplies seem more dependable and less threatened by geopolitical considerations