Energy outlook

Energy dependence as a historical phenomenon

People were able to settle anywhere where energy could be delivered, now the delivery of energy has become a constraint not only for opportunities for resettlement, however also for development opportunities.

Energy dependant to the full extent the world economy has become with the advent of railways. Coal as the main fuel for steam engines, as opposed to firewood and grass for animals, is found everywhere. Therefore, building the railroad tracks required the delivery of coal from the fields to the consumer, the establishment of interim storage facilities and storage of coal.

Indeed, consideration of energy as one of the branches of industry and the economy goes back to the era of steam engines. As a result of the first scientific and industrial revolution, with the prevalence of a steam engine, energy has become a specific sector of the economy. Since then, approximately starting from the second half of the XIX century, the price of any goods had to take into account the cost of energy consumed in its production.

Following this inertia energy is still often seen as one of the branches of the economy, although in the twentieth century, with the beginning of the use of petroleum products and electricity, it became something more significant than just one of the industries. Energy has acquired a political, ideological and even philosophical or world outlook dimension. There are several key events in the history of energy, that influenced the policies and vision of the contemporary humanity.

Genesis of the «energy» outlook

Let's start the countdown from the ideologies and world views dominant in the second half of the nineteenth century, when oil was seen not only as a source of energy, however rather as a rich mineral resource for the production of different useful goods. That period could be characterized by an idiom of a Russian chemist Mendeleev, who claimed that burning oil was like stoking with banknotes. There is a huge gap between this attitude of Mendeleev and the approach of one of the main ideologists of the industrialization of the twentieth century, who declared that Communism is «Soviet power plus electrification ....». Vladimir Lenin back then regarded energy already as having not economic but political importance. In developing the theory of socialism, Karl Marx based his analysis primarily on social relations, while socialism, introduced by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks largely based on the total control over the energy sources.

Even greater energy dependence, not only for the world economy, but also for the policies developed during the Second World War. The number of tank armies and air fleets, as well as the limits to which they could reach were identified by a possibility of fuel delivery. In no way belittling the heroism of soldiers of the anti-Hitler and anti-Japanese coalition and strategic talent of its generals, we must recognize that the victory in World War II would remain with the party, which would have controlled the regions rich in oil. That is why the Allies did everything possible not to allow Germany to reach the oil-rich Caucasus and the Middle East and blocked the transportation of Romanian oil to the Eastern front.

In the post-war period the world economy was determined primarily by the availability and cheapness of the oil produced in the underdeveloped countries. Almost 30 years of post-war world economy was highly energy consuming. The energy crisis of the early 70th's put an end to cheap energy. The ideologists of the Club of Rome, while analyzing the crisis, raised the question «about the limits of growth». Since then, the energy could no longer be considered as one of, albeit very important, sectors of the economy. The energy issue has become the basis of ideology and philosophy of the late 20th century. That outlook took several forms: from the primitive variety of Maltus theories to sophisticated environmental models, including the concept of sustainable development. While previously the competitiveness of national economies was assessed based on the amount of energy consumed, since the fuel crisis of the 70s countries started to compete with the energy-saving technologies and national economies. Since then a re-orientation of scientific and technological developments and research in the energy saving and conservation sphere was taking place. Countries started stimulating researches on alternative and renewable energies.

Hopes for intensive development of nuclear and thermonuclear energy had been exhausted even before the energy crisis of the 70th's. A follow-up survey made clear the fact that the field of nuclear fuel is also finite and not renewable. All developments in the field of fusion energy are yet far from industrial use, as it was in the 50s. Sources of renewable energy (hydro, wind, tidal and solar power) are still inefficient. The average use of the renewable resources within the EU is only 8.6% of all consumed energy, variation across countries ranges from 39.7% in Sweden, which is the bellwether, to 1.3% in the UK. Funds invested in the technology-based biofuel, too, yet do not give the expected effect. Energy basis for the modern economy is still mineral hydrocarbons - oil and natural gas. While oil and gas reserves have been far greater than is the analysts 70th years thought, all the problems associated with the exploitability remain valid to the date.

World oil and gas reserves are still high and still far from being fully explored. However their distribution on the planet is rather uneven and the countries that produce energy and consume more of the extracted, separated from each other by many thousands of kilometers. Despite the development of energy-saving technologies, the total energy consumption is growing steadily. The whole planet is covered with the energy transmitting networks. For several decades, the main conflict of the twentieth century in the world politics relationships was between the less developed oil-exporting countries and the developed countries the consumers. By the end of the twentieth and early twenty-first century this geopolitical layout was diluted by the transit countries, which are neither exporters nor the main users of energy. Oil and gas conflict with Ukraine and Belarus over the past decade, forced to reckon with the transit countries. As a result, they become parties to the large regional and global policies.

Control over production, transportation and consumption of energy by the end of the twentieth century have become a universal explanatory principle of any world events. Every military or economic conflict in the eyes of an ordinary person, a reader of newspapers or the TV looks like a struggle for control over the production or transportation of oil. This perception of the world economy and politics, with all its naïveté is not groundless. In the end, policy decision-making is guided by the same ideology. To some extent one can say that in today's globalized information society, not only the economy but also the outlook has become energy-dependant.

However it can not save us from the criticism of such worldviews. Such worldview should have at least two parts. The first part consists of an explanatory principle, which is attached to the universalistic meaning that everything is happening in the world is due to the struggle for energy resources. The second part focuses on the constructive motivating function of the world outlook, i.e. with what should one be preoccupied while engaging in politics, economics and science. The world politics is not confined to the Gulf War and to the political conflict between Ukraine and Russia over the price of gas transported and consumed. Of equal importance for the fate of the world has the Kyoto Protocol, a peaceful way of redistribution of costs and responsibilities between the rich countries, consuming the lion's share of energy, and poor countries, deprived of the benefits arising from the consumption and spending power, while maintaining the ecological balance of the planet. Energy outlook is neither good nor bad, it is a given. The question is, what decisions and conclusions we come to in the end. Energy outlook can lead to destructive or aggressive commercial envy, and can stimulate scientific and technological development in the area of energy conservation, retrieval and exploitation of alternative energy sources.

Belarus as a complex of contemporary energy issues

Contemporary Belarus, albeit very late, was included in global processes, and put if not in the center, however close to the center and focus of the entire range of the world's energy problems. We do not belong to the countries with the highest consumption of energy however energy consumption per unit of output in our economy is very high. We are not an exporter of energy, but to a large extent, control the transit of energy resources. The share of energy products in our exports reduces their competitiveness in the global market, but the development and introduction of energy-saving technologies and alternative energy sources is in its infancy. We are a country that preserved large tracts of nature untouched by the industry, also a very large part of our territory was exposed to radioactive contamination caused by man-made disaster at a nuclear power plant. Ensuring energy security and independence of the country is one of the priorities of the policy of the Belarusian state and at the same time, the country is preparing to build a nuclear power plant, purchased by outside technology, which will be built and operated by foreign professionals and firms, and work on the exported raw materials.

Belarus has a syncretic set of energy issues and, despite the fact that we, as the rest of the world, distribute energy outlook, we can say that and the mentality of today's Belarus is also energy dependant. We have largely discussed and accepted destructive decisions in the energy sector, while motivated by a constructive part of the energy outlook has still weak impact on policy at the national level. Manifestations of this can be found everywhere.

We all heard about the construction of the nuclear power plants. It is justified and necessary to build a nuclear power plant in the country? From an economic point of view, we obviously need to increase our energy potential. However so far there is no constructive dialogue between the supporters and the opponents of the construction.

Price for exported energy is also a very painful issue for the Belarusian economy. And it has several dimensions. What price Belarus is ready to pay for cheap energy? What we do and should do to reduce energy dependence of national economies from external supply? Whether the modernization and restructuring of the Belarusian economy is not hampered by our unwillingness to move towards world energy prices? Development and exploitation of alternative sources of energy can be cost-effective for small and medium-sized enterprises, and unattractive to the large ones. However in order to target small and medium-sized businesses to invest in this are, tax policy as well as the general attitude of the state towards private enterprise and private ownership of means of production and land should be reviewed. Without all this, all the talks about alternative energy sources will remain talks only.

In this brief essay, we identified only a small portion of the energy problems that are lying on the surface. Going into this issue, it would be necessary to affect the content of higher education and vocational training, environmental education and environmental awareness of all people, from preschoolers to retirees, regarding policies to stimulate research and high technology, population policy and planning process, land registration, the restructuring of rural economy. All these issues must be considered in addition to strictly economic issues, starting with the basic decisions about the appropriateness and conformity with the national interests of the current industry structure in the country, and ending with the critics of the traditional consumer behavior with inefficient lifestyle of the residents of rural and urban homes in Belarus.

Since energy has become an integral part of philosophy of a modern man, then one should work with this world outlook without superficial ideological pumped, however at the level of philosophical criticism and modern techniques.

Uladzimir Matskevich

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