Continued Unabated Use of Fossil Fuels - Essay Example

Introduction Energy plays a key role in the evolution of human civilizations. In the past two centuries, fossil fuels (natural gas, coal, and oil) were important in the birth and development of industrial revolution and global economic wealth. Energy products are sure to uphold their nature as the ‘engine’ for improving and maintaining the human way of life. One of the key uniqueness of energy is the divergence between demand and resources. Major energy consuming nations and regions of the world (i.e. China, United States, Japan, India and Europe) do not have sufficient native energy resources to cater for their bulky and rising energy demands. Conversely, main energy producers (i.e. Russia, Middle East, Caspian Sea and Africa) use a small percentage of their energy resources. This wide disparity between production and consumption has made energy products the world’s biggest traded products. Just about each country in the world exports or imports a noteworthy volume of its energy products. This means a wide variation of energy prices play a key role in stability of payments universally. Currently, energy security is globally undermined by heavy over-reliance on non-renewable energy sources coupled with the uneven distribution of global energy deposits. However, this sense of susceptibility is not a novel phenomenon. Regardless of the available vast energy resources and a flattering economic and political environment, industrialized nations began expressing their distress over energy security as early as the beginning of the twentieth century. Winston Churchill decided that the Royal Navy needed to shift from coal to oil in order to maintain its global security dominance, and this demonstrated a growing passion in global contest for energy resources (primarily oil). The scramble for energy resources between global powers was evident in World War II, when the allies enjoyed access to large oil deposits, while Japan’s and Germany’s strategies to access oil failed and led to their eventual trounce. Subsequently, the accessibility of inexpensive energy resources played a critical role in the development and rebuilding of Europe and Japan following World War II. There was a lengthened era of assurance in the availability of secure and copious energy resources until the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Arab oil producing countries cut their production and placed oil embargo on the United States and its allies, to force a shift of their political support to Israel. The use of oil by oil producers to achieve political mileage crushed the consumer’s sense of energy security. Since then, frequent variation of energy prices (partly due response demand and supply changes and geopolitical changes) has only reinforced this sense of susceptibility. In the past few decades, there has been an increased understanding of the challenges that climate change predisposes to life on earth. Humanity has come to the realization that their lifestyles hasten and contribute to global warming. Additionally, action has to be taken to avoid human-made environmental degradation. This slowly mounting consensus adds a new twist to the concept of energy security. Energy security is no longer limited by the availability and affordability of energy resources. Environmental factors also limit the development and continued exploration of these energy resources and call for a shift to less polluting energy resources (Bahgat, 2011). The current trend of energy use globally is not sustainable and calls for exploration of alternatives to fossil fuels. This is a key challenge since most renewable energy development efforts are at the infancy stage (Peimani, 2011). On the other hand, military and industrial facilities require secure and dependable power generation. Grid outages can end up in cascading infrastructure failures, as well as security breaches and should be avoided. Increasing reliability can call for additional environmental, logistical, financial and other considerations. Vague scenarios consisting of evolving environmental conditions, regulatory changes, increase of regional energy demands, and other concerns result in more complications (Karvetski, Lambert & Linkov, 2011). Main body Energy security is more than competitiveness, sustainability, and secure supply. Energy security is a complex concept. Economic, political, and security measures have to be applied together to produce the necessary synergies. Energy security is generally defined as the reliable supply of energy at a realistic price. However, if one takes a closer look at what secure supply entails, the intricacy of this chore becomes clear. Additionally, an exclusively economic perception of securing the energy supply by means of trade and business is not adequate. Growing reliance on overseas energy supplies, as most industrialized countries experience it today, results in uncertainty, if not insecurity. The use of military instruments should not be viewed as an ultimate option in form of a militarization of energy policies. Rather, it should be viewed as a corresponding answer to supply risks that cannot be handled by other means alone. Simply stated, energy security, or stability, is all as regards security. Interruption of a stable and ample flow of energy would extremely harm a nation’s economic output, political stability, and the personal wellbeing of its citizens. Our societies are totally obsessed to energy services, such as gas stations or electricity. Additionally, the business sector and even public authorities and governmental agencies like the military are in the desperate need of energy to operate properly. Hence, an adequate supply with energy is a precondition for economic growth and also for the legality within a political individual (Baumann, 2008). Building and sustaining a military force in the 21st century, in an era of economic anguish requires the prudent use of resources plus energy resources. About every military capability requires some sort of energy. Consequently, some of the biggest single consumers of energy in the world are military defense institutions. Sadly, military defense institutions classify energy as a commodity that will always be voluntarily available in spite of the operational, strategic, and tactical costs. Nowadays, those costs can be frequently measured in terms of the lives lost when moving and guarding fuel across the battle field. In future, enemies equipped with precision weapons may be able to target military supplies. Simultaneously, energy security is vital for the security for all nations globally. Energy security for military operations implies having access to dependable supplies of energy and the capacity to transport and protect adequate energy to meet operational requirements. This includes energy used daily at the military installations, energy used overseas, and energy used daily by the military in execution of missions. Currently, the energy requirement for the military is going up, at the same time, battlefield and global energy supplies are under stress. At the strategy and operational level, fuel logistics have been susceptible to attack in latest conflicts. With nations around the globe scrambling for the identical energy resources, predominantly petroleum based fuels, volatility and susceptibility of supplies will continue to pose risks and costs for the military operations around the globe (Lynn, 2011). Currently, the United States is the global authority, granted this crucial role by other powers for the preservation of the liberal order. As the lead capitalist with the biggest economy, it has been extensively concerned with ensuring the security of the world’ energy supply. This led to a post-war approach of economic, political, and military intervention in oil rich regions, in order to capitalize on and stabilize global energy production. The US imposing strategy in relation to the rest of the world is steadfastly founded on establishing and retaining control of major oil reserves; meaning, there is an economic as well as geostrategic logic motivating concerns over energy security. In particular, the continued display of US military might is predicated upon getting a constant supply of infinite quantities of oil. The Pentagon is by far the leading consumer of oil in the world. For example, the US military used 3.8 billion kilowatts and 330,000 barrels of oil in a day- 80% of the U.S total energy consumption (Collins, 2012). The USA plays a chief role in stabilizing global oil production which in turn provides the USA with often slight form of control over other great powers. America has key strategic and economic interests in the Middle East that are reliant on the regions energy supplies. America only gains economically from the low prices of the Middle Eastern oil, but its security responsibility in the region gives it indirect politically decisive leverage on economies from Asia and Europe that also rely on energy exports from the Middle East. This is why the US control over the Persian Gulf has long been considered as critical. In fact, 61% of all proven energy reserves in the world are located in this region (Collins, 2012). Controlling the Middle East region and Saudi Arabia specifically is vital to any state seeking unmatched energy security and or wider geopolitical authority (Collins, 2012). Recently, American policy makers called for the protection of energy production and transportation infrastructure, because the current global market is deeply reliant on distant trans-global energy sources in usually insecure places. The US navy currently guards oil transportation sea lanes to ensure uninterrupted flow of oil from overseas. Additionally, China and Japan have also voiced their intentions to depend on the military to secure their claims of offshore natural gas fields in East China. Clearly, the reliance on military means to ensure access to overseas oil supplies and warranty their safe delivery is not only an American special strategy, but one that is shared by many other major oil consuming countries. Currently, there is a global inclination to consider the use of military force to ensure safe production and transportation of oil. This is because current global oil supply levels are expected to face an unprecedented decline in the near future. Initially, oil deposits globally were perceived sufficient to satisfy the needs of major oil consumers and global oil flow considered to be immune to disruption. Second, reason for skepticism for future global energy sufficiency arises from the steady decline in the rates of new oil field discovery. Any new oil field discoveries being made have a tendency to be located in areas that are hard to tap into for political, geographic, security, and environmental reasons (Moran, & James, 2008). The modern energy history began with the outbreak of the 1973-1974-Yomm Kippur- Arab-Israeli war. The Arab-Israeli war led the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to declare the ‘Oil weapon’. OPEC’s embargo on many of the major energy consumers led to the realization of how energy security was crucial to ordinary citizens, businesses, and governments. Energy security became an issue of national and international concern. Oil subjugated energy security deliberations from the oil shocks of 1970’s to the mid- 1980’s. A consistent supply and declining oil prices lowered oil’s position on the security agenda for a while, but it energy security returned to prominence after the September 11th 2001 terror attacks in the US the subsequent military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the current political scenario provides reasons for energy security concerns, the present situation has not turned out to be ‘OPEC versus the West’ thought of the 1970’s (Barton, Redgwell, Ronne & Zillman, 2004). Five countries that currently impact the global energy condition include China, India, Russia, the UK, and the US. China, India, the UK, and the US are all net importers of energy and are profoundly reliant on imports of fuel to maintain their energy burden. Their individual local oil reserves will merely last 9, 6, 7 and 4 years respectively. China, the up-and-coming economy in the world, is however making commendable development in renewable energy. In 2004, renewable energy in China rose by 25% against 7–9% growth in electricity demand (Asif & Muneer, 2007). Additionally, wind energy in China saw a growth of 35%. China is also first in the global solar thermal market as has already set up solar collectors in over 65 million square meters, equivalent to more than 40% of the worlds collector area (Asif & Muneer, 2007). The worlds main oil-consuming nations, led by the USA, China, and Western European countries, are also fascinated by the current progress in African oil reserves, making colossal bids for any exploration blocks that become readily accessible, and investing huge sums in drilling platforms, pipelines, loading facilities and supplementary production infrastructure. Definitely, the quest of African oil has taken on the nature of a gold rush, with key companies from globally competing ferociously with one another for access to potential reserves. Major oil importing countries and oil producers from Africa have suffered great consequences due to the ‘oil rush’. For the producing countries, it promises a new-found affluence and a possible severe internal dispute over the distribution of oil revenues. For the consuming countries, it demonstrates an increasing reliance on imports of an important substance from a region of persistent instability, with apparent national security overtones. Both trends are reflected in the US policy towards African oil, desperate to acquire extra supplies of foreign oil (to compensate for the decline in domestic production). However, insecurity in Africa is an impediment to such investment. The US has boosted the internal security capability of sociable African states, and has laid the foundation for direct US military participation in Africa. Simultaneously, Washington has become intensely troubled by Chinas rising interest in African oil, aggravating a strong competitive contest between the two, with mounting military overtones. Eventually, African societies will most likely suffer from this rivalry as an influx of arms boosts the capacity of well-established African regimes (Professor & Volman, 2006). With increasing oil prices and the demand for energy escalating at a rate equal to the speed of globalization, energy supply and access takes an important facet for the national security of all nations. The concept of energy security is also related to the aspirations of developing nations to attain economic growth through improved consumption levels. Considering the substantial consequences for the future, the concept of energy security is a universal theme in research, curricula, and agendas of many military institutions, ministries of defense, and international security think-tanks. The contemporary idea of ‘energy security’ began in the nineteenth century as war became mechanized and began to require significant inputs, first as coal for trains and warships. Prior to the First World War, the British Admiralty decided to switch from coal-fired to oil-fired vessels and this served as the traditional relationship between security and petroleum. Since then, the concept of energy security is broad in dimension and does not only entail the flow of oil like in the past six decades, but now extends to the complete infrastructure that supports the whole global economy. Amid globalization, the issue of energy security is pertinent to the security boundaries of a nation. A security boundary refers to the contours and scope of a nation’s interest. Where a countries interests lead, there must pursue capabilities to defend those interests. Consequently, as a nation’s interests develop into the global market, it must consider the predicament of protecting its regional and global interests. As world economy globalizes, the national engines of trade are fuelled by more and more global sources of energy. The key national concern thus becomes security and access of a nation’s energy supply from cross-border suppliers and locations (Stringer, 2008). Conclusion Continued unabated use of fossil fuels is set to face various challenges. These include exhaustion of fossil fuel deposits, global warming and other environmental issues, geopolitical military conflicts, and sustained and significant fuel price increase. These problems demonstrate an unsustainable scenario. Renewable energy is the solution to these mounting energy security challenges. Renewable energy resources such as solar, biomass, wind, tidal, and wave energy are plentiful, infinite, and environmentally friendly. Tightening energy markets and increasing threats to energy infrastructure ask for a new thinking of how to safeguard energy supplies. Thus, states should start to recognize the intricacy of energy security and respect energy as a vital interest. Instead of handling it in either political, economic, or security means, they should perceive security as an umbrella of energy strategy. To defend our acquired values, economic development, political stability, and individual safety, a steady and adequate supply of energy is required and thus a prerequisite for a nation’s security. Lack of energy or secondary energy services our lives would be difficult. So energy security to maintain military defense operations should be prioritized and treated as a security matter, because the days of easily accessible energy are over. . Reference List Asif, M. & Muneer, T. Energy Supply, its Demand and Security Issues for Developed and Emerging Economies. Retrieved November 5, 2013, from http://econpapers.repec.org/article/eeerensus/v_3a11_3ay_3a2007_3ai_3a7_3ap_3a1388-1413.htm Bahgat, G. (Eds.). (2011). Energy Security: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Chichester: John Wiley & Son’s Ltd. Barton, B., Redgwell, C., Ronne, A. & Zillman, D. N. 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Heng Mui Keng Terrace: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Professor, M. K. & Volman, D. (2006). The African ‘Oil Rush’ and US National Security. Retrieved November 5, 2013, from http://www.liv.ac.uk/~jan/teaching/References/Klare%20&%20Wolman%202006.pdf Stringer, K. D. (2008). Energy Security Applying a Portfolio Approach. Retrieved November 5, 2013, from mercury.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/91228/.../6ab9b2fe.../6.pdf‎ Read More