As almost everyone in the entire world knows, the G8 are meeting in St Petersburg in July 2006. And the big topic will be "Energy Security", and some people are saying "Energy Security ? More like Energy Destabilisation !" and having a little chuckle about the fact that Russia thought it was simply fine to throw its huge Gas Weight about at the start of the year in its little pipeline prices spat with its next door neighbour. So, why is Energy Security important, considering that Climate Change is the world's largest ever threat apart from the American War Machine ? Well, it's like this : cheap petroleum and cheap natural gas are the props for the international economy, and supply margins are getting very thin, rather like a worn out carpet, or Tony Blair's hair (or his popularity). There are many reasons why supply is nearly breached by demand, and one of them is the kind of theatrical brinkmanship we're seeing from Iran, who, being the world's fourth largest oil producer, have rather a lot of cards in their hands to play with and are currently toying with the American psyche through the proxy of civil nuclear power, while making threats about restricting oil flow. Clearly nobody in their right minds is going to be able to justify waging war on Iran, even if they could make a legal case for it. But how else can the world's oil consumers guarantee the supply from such "dodgy" countries who laugh behind your back ? (Please note : I am merely rehearsing the military-intervention argument - I do not agree with it at all as I am a pacifist.) This is where the idea of Energy Independence comes in - somehow promoting and pursuing fuel and electricity generation policies that do not rely on "foreign" oil or gas. It seems like a great, survivalist idea, to secure your national and continental energy supply, until you look at the numbers. You can get 100 units of energy out of burning petroleum oil, for every 1 unit of energy put in, compared to at best 30 times units of energy out of equivalent wind power generation, or 20 units of energy out of equivalent nuclear fission power generation. Figures for biomass are much less. So how exactly will we sustain our current energy consumption if we "go native" and only source energy and fuel from Europe ? Will this not require absolutely stinkingly gigantic amounts of investment in energy infrastructure and plant ? We cannot possibly resort to using our vast supplies of Coal - that would lead to certain Climate Chaos - even if "Clean Coal" Carbon Sequestration could be made to work (and cheaply). To safeguard energy supply - would it not make sense to cut Energy Demand ? For example by Carbon Rationing ? And to make the most of energy and minimise Climate impacts, what about moving from centralised energy-wasteful State provision to decentralised energy production owned and managed by the ordinary people (cue the Marxist applause) ? Anyway, I have a native-speaking reporter embedded in St Petersburg to be able to report from the G8, with particular emphasis on the protests that are inevitably going to attract a lot of repressive State control. Expect the news to flow (all for the price of a crate of vodka) if it doesn't get scanned right out by censors. In the mean time, say your prayers/chants/invocations for the Western European activists who are cycling or training their way over to Russia to protest at the Big Energy Summit. I think the row over Nuclear Power will be nothing compared to the skirmishes that might evolve. It appears that the Russian Police are rather brutal. |
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