The Competing Dimensions of Energy Security (original) (raw)
America’s Energy Security Options
2011
As US gasoline prices approached $4 a gallon in spring 2011, energy security moved to the forefront of the American political debate. Politicians have been quick to offer silver bullet solutions to lower gas prices and make America more energy secure. Houser and Mohan analyze the various recent policy proposals, from expanded offshore drilling to new vehicle efficiency standards, and
Rethinking energy, climate and security: a critical analysis of energy security in the United States
Understanding the complicated relationship between energy, climate and security is vital both to the study of international relations and to ensure the continued survival of a world increasingly threatened by environmental change. Climate change is largely caused by burning fossil fuels for energy, but while discussions on the climate consider the role of energy, energy security debates largely overlook climate concerns. This article traces the separation between energy and climate through an analysis of US energy security discourse and policy. It shows that energy security is continually constructed as national security, which enables very particular policy choices and prioritises it above climate concerns. Thus, in many cases, policies undertaken in the name of energy security contribute directly to climate insecurity. The article argues that the failure to consider securing the climate as inherently linked to energy security is not just problematic, but, given global warming, potentially harmful. Consequently, any approach to dealing with climate change has to begin by rethinking energy security and security more broadly, as national (energy) security politics no longer provides security in any meaningful sense.
Arctic Alaska’s role in the pursuit of US National Energy Security
Polar Geography , 2013
For decades, Arctic Alaska has provided US mainland states with plentiful oil supplies. As reserves in the Prudhoe Bay fields decrease, however, the USA has been forced to consider new options to guarantee the nation’s energy security. While debates continue to rage about its reliance on foreign oil, increased prices, consumption levels, and climate change, the USA is now contemplating whether predicted new discoveries might actually allow it to become an exporter rather than importer of oil and gas in the near future. This paper considers the role Arctic Alaska might play in helping secure future US energy security and independence. It also considers what other options exist for securing the State of Alaska’s own future post-Prudhoe Bay.
Environment, Development and Sustainability, 2007
Contrary to claims from American politicians, lobbyists, and oil and gas executives, allowing energy development in the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will harm the environment, compromise international law, erode the social significance of wilderness protection, and ultimately fail to increase the energy security of the United States. After exploring a brief history of the ANWR controversy, this piece argues that the operation of oil and gas refineries in ANWR will release discharged solids, drilling waste, and dirty diesel fuel into the ecosystem's food-chain, as they have from oil operations in Prudhoe Bay. Less obvious but equally important, oil and gas exploration in ANWR will violate a number of international treaties on biodiversity protection. In the end, development in ANWR will threaten the concept of wilderness protection, and will do little to end US dependence on foreign sources of energy.
Future United States Energy Security Concerns
2004
The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is an organization for research, independent policy analysis, and public education in global environmental change. It seeks to provide leadership in understanding scientific, economic, and ecological aspects of this difficult issue, and combining them into policy assessments that serve the needs of ongoing national and international discussions. To this end, the Program brings together an interdisciplinary group from two established research centers at MIT: the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS) and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR). These two centers bridge many key areas of the needed intellectual work, and additional essential areas are covered by other MIT departments, by collaboration with the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, and by short-and long-term visitors to the Program. The Program involves sponsorship and active participation by industry, government, and non-profit organizations. To inform processes of policy development and implementation, climate change research needs to focus on improving the prediction of those variables that are most relevant to economic, social, and environmental effects. In turn, the greenhouse gas and atmospheric aerosol assumptions underlying climate analysis need to be related to the economic, technological, and political forces that drive emissions, and to the results of international agreements and mitigation. Further, assessments of possible societal and ecosystem impacts, and analysis of mitigation strategies, need to be based on realistic evaluation of the uncertainties of climate science. This report is one of a series intended to communicate research results and improve public understanding of climate issues, thereby contributing to informed debate about the climate issue, the uncertainties, and the economic and social implications of policy alternatives. Titles in the Report Series to date are listed on the inside back cover.
Tensions Between Environmental, Economic and Energy Security in the Arctic
The notion of security is being increasingly employed in debates regarding energy consumption, economies, and human relationships to the environment, not least the issue of climate change. This chapter looks at the tensions present across many arctic communities and states reliant upon or impacted by natural resource development, where environmental concerns collide with economic and energy vulnerabilities. The purpose of this chapter is to elucidate different understandings of security in relation to the extraction and consumption of non-renewable energy resources, and what is valued or prioritized within these different conceptions. The chapter then moves briefly to the "ethical oil" debate that focused on the Alberta oil sands in 2010, and the ways in which Norwegian oil and gas politics are also making ethical claims about continued extraction.
Energy Security in the Framework of Human Security, Oil, and Gas in the North Atlantic Basin
2019
Since the energy crises of the 1970s, the management by government authorities of the relation between energy needs and economic growth has been a priority.1 During the last century, the energy system has relied on fossil fuels. Today fossil fuels still represent more than 80% of total energy demand. Furthermore, their geographical distribution implies that the principal oil and gas production fields are not located in the same areas as the largest energy consumers.2 Therefore, developed countries (mainly located in the Atlantic Basin) have suffered from a lack of energy sources, so energy security has become a priority for them. However, this has changed recently as a result of the ‘Atlantic energy renaissance’. While import dependency continues to be a driver for energy security concerns in Europe, the rest of the basin is increasingly self-sufficient and more and more a net exporter.3