The Challenge of Energy Security in the 21st Century: Trends of Significance

7. Conclusion

Conclusion 161 7 CONCLUSION Hooman Peimani Without a doubt, energy is a major challenge of the twenty-first century for all economies, large and small alike. The economic upheaval of 2007–10 led to a deep recession in many countries, particularly the largest energy consumers, with the effect of sharply decreasing economic activities and, therefore, energy consumption. In January 2011, there are weak signs of recovery in their respective economies. Nevertheless, the first eleven years of this century have clearly reflected the growing importance of energy for all economies, especially the vibrant and growing Asian ones, both to meet their current needs and also those of their future. As a general trend in the twenty-first century, energy consumption has been increasing, corrected only for short periods of economic meltdowns throughout the world.This is a reflection of enlarging economies and growing populations whose energy requirements are expanding due to their improving living standards. This reality has increased the importance of energy security as a crucial, if not vital, policy to ensure the ability of all consuming nations to meet their energy requirements while preparing for any potential eventuality. Regardless of their level of economic development and the living standard of their populations, all countries operate within the international system and its regions to meet their energy requirements. Because of this, various trends in this system and, particularly, in the global energy markets, will affect them all, though to a varying extent, of course, depending on their level of dependency on imported fuels. Such trends could take different shapes and 07 EnergySecurity 4/18/11, 3:34 PM 161 162 Hooman Peimani thereby forms of introduction to energy consuming countries, but, regardless of their specific form of implication, they will have short-, medium- or longterm impact on the affected countries.These trends could also have implications for a specific market or markets, while others may have an impact on the entire international energy market. Among the many trends affecting global markets, some of them are especially important for their long-term salience for these markets in one form or another, of course, to a varying extent. Within this context, the contributors to this book have elaborated on certain major trends of special importance to the realities of the early twenty-first century that have not been adequately studied. In his approach to renewable energy, the focus of Benjamin K. Sovacool on the trends in the energy markets for renewable electricity, renewable fuels, and renewable heating and cooling sheds light on a field of special significance for addressing the ever-growing demand for energy in an environmentally sustainable manner. His very informative chapter provides evidence of an impressive global growth in renewables as he covers the geographic areas of special progress in this regard, including the large Asian economies of China, India, Japan, and South Korea, as well as the smaller ones such as the Philippines, in addition to the Middle East, the European Union, the United States, and Latin America. This growth is especially evident with respect to the two fastest growing sources of renewable energy, namely wind and solar electricity, which constitute the author’s areas of special attention as he explores market trends for many other technologies and areas. His study identifies four sets of advantages of renewable energy systems and their markets, which underpin their growth. First, renewable energy technologies are modular and flexible since solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal heat pumps, and biomass plants can operate both in centralized configurations and in smaller decentralized configurations. Likewise, heat pumps, solar panels, and solar thermal devices operate on diverse scales of heating in active/passive and grid connected/off grid modes. Second, apart from their environmentally sustainable nature, these technologies have security benefits for their consumers. Accordingly, they reduce the exposure of households, businesses, utilities, and countries to disruptions in supply for imported fuels (e.g., natural gas and crude oil), and sudden changes in their prices. Moreover, many of these types of energy also run a lower risk of technical system failures compared with fossil fuel; under certain conditions, they may even decrease the risk of outages and interruptions. Third, they are different from fossil energy in terms of availability and access. Unlike the latter, which are highly concentrated in a few key locations, combinations of 07 EnergySecurity 4/18/11, 3:34 PM 162 Conclusion 163 renewable energy (hydro, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and...