Factors Affecting National Energy

  • Supply: determined by the availability of energy resources in a country, its ability to harness these and its ability to purchase energy resources from abroad

    • Management: ensuring supplies are sufficient to meet demand. May be achieved by investing in renewables

  • Demand: most influenced by the size of a country’s population and its economic development

    • Management: decreasing demand to match supply

Physical Factors

  • Resource endowment: the natural resources within the borders of a country. Energy resources are not evenly distributed around the world

    • A country with a richer supply of fossil fuels is likely to use those as their primary resource supply

    • Russia: 177 billion tons of proven coal reserves

    • Middle East: 836 billion barrels of oil reserves

  • Climate: the weather conditions for an area over a long period

    • Countries with windier, sunnier or wetter climates are more likely to harness energy from respective renewables

    • New Zealand: 27mph average winds in Wellington so have installed 62 turbines for 73,000 homes

    • Canada/Scandinavia: very cold countries use more energy than warmer HICs to keep warm in winter

Economic Factors

  • Level of development: there is a global imbalance in energy demand that correlates with development

    • HICs use at least 5 equivalent oil tonnes more than LICs

    • HICs: can afford high energy use (cars, heating…)

    • MICs: have rapidly increasing demand (manufacture)

    • LICs: have little demand

  • Income: to meet demand by producing energy from supplies, heavy investment is required

    • HICs have this income available so are able to maintain control of their energy policy and develop the energy supplies they need

    • LICs lose freedoms to Trans-National companies who produce energy for them

    • Oil: offshore rigs cost at least $500 million

    • Coal power stations: around $2 billion

    • Wind turbines: around $5 million per turbine

  • Technology available: required to exploit resources, involved in production and use of energy over time

    • Supply: creation of nuclear plants, discovery technology, fracking methods and advanced coal mining techniques in 20th century meet demand

    • Demand: invention of internal combustion engine has increased petrol demand and online world requires lots of power

Environmental Factors

  • Sustainability: meeting the current energy demands without compromising the needs of the future generations’ demands, or the natural environment

    • Supply: to achieve sustainable supply, non-renewables will be used sparingly, and there will be investment into renewable energies

    • Demand: can be sustainably managed by advising locals on their usage, and opting for more efficient energy using devices

    • Energy conservation: 56% of UK’s usage could be cut by using available strategies and technologies

  • Pollution: the critical role of energy in economic development is more important than pollution consequences

    • CO2 is to blame for much of the Global Warming Effect

    • As a country develops, the environmental consequences of energy production become more important to locals and therefore the political agenda

    • West Virginia, USA: whole mountains destroyed for coal

    • Northern Russia: covered in oil spills from pipe leaks and oil tankers running aground. Kills wildlife

    • Gulf of Mexico, Deepwater: 2010 oil disaster

Political Factors

  • Energy policy: legislation, treaties, taxation and investment incentives to either increase supply (more power stations etc.) or decrease demand (focus on efficiency, sustainability and pollution reduction)

    • Kyoto Protocol: 192 countries agreeing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an extension of the 1992 ENFCCC agreement. Superseded by Paris 2020

  • Energy security: uninterrupted availability of energy sources at a price that people and industry can afford

    • Short term: ability to react promptly to sudden demand changes

    • Long term: future energy supply deals are inline with future economic development and environmental needs

    • In a capitalist economy, energy supply is dictated by demand and the production companies. However, governments step in to ensure security and prices

    • Is required for solid environmental growth. Some countries may interfere with the market to secure supplied

LIC/MIC/HIC Consumption

  • 2012

  • 2019: renewables and natural gas increased. Coal consumption reduced in HICs, constant in LICs/MICs

  • Fossil fuel trends

    • Coal: used least in the Middle East, most in Asia Pacific (55%), about 25% in Europe, Africa, N.America

    • Oil: used most in the Middle East (45%), > 30% in 5/7 countries

    • Natural Gas: 5% increase in the middle east

  • Nuclear power trends: significantly greater share in South/Central America (despite N.America being big producer) and Europe than rest of the world

  • Renewables trends: small increase 7 years on, but still <5% in all countries. None in Middle East or CIS

  • HEP trends: huge 25% in S.America, around 10% in all other countries except the Middle East

local Effects of Energy

  • Dry deposition

    • Gasses and particles never mix with water

    • NOx, SO2, CO2 cause the air to become acidic – absorbed by plants and trees

    • Larger particles deposit directly onto the ground or in bodies of water, causing acidic effects on limestone

  • Nuclear disaster: see Chernobyl example

    • Examples included in energy production descriptions indicate local environmental and economic effects

Global Effects of Energy

  • Wet deposition (acid rain)

    • Gasses and particles mix with water vapour in the sky

    • NOx, SO2, CO2 cause the precipitation to become acidic – causing erosion of alkaline rocks and structures such as Limestone

    • Carried by wind – eg. UK greenhouse gasses cause acid rains in Germany and The Netherlands

    • Ocean acidity increased by 0.05pH over 40 years

    • Soil acidification

  • Global warming

    • Burning fossil fuels causes an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gasses (methane, CO2, SO2 etc…)

    • Cause the enhanced greenhouse effect. More insolation trapped inside the atmosphere, causing warming that if there were no additional gasses

    • Temperature has risen by 0.5°C over the last 40 years

    • Increased CO2 (340ppm to 410ppm over 40 years) increases ocean acidity

  • Ozone depletion

    • Ozone is a protective layer of O3, 90% between 10 and 50km from Earth’s surface, absorbs UV radiation

    • Destroyed by CFCs, that react with O3 causing it to decrease

    • Reached a maximum size of 28.4km2 in 2000, now decreased to 9.3km2

    • Causes increased cancer rates, eye cataracts and effects aquatic/agricultural ecosystem