• Home
• Articles
• Essays
• Add site

Energy Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection in the Euro-Atlantic Area

Today's condition in development of world energy branch, with its orientation on benefiting separate individuals, transporting and simply destroying natural resources don't really correspond to the goals that humanity has set in front of itself. This fact can't leave anyone careless about the destiny of now-living and future generations. Situation that we are facing right now seems more like a disaster rather than a sustainable development process. We can see how natural gas and oil resources decrease with every day, prices increase with every hour, terrorism is much more connected with fighting for being able to posses these resources than any other reasons. This might lead to global energy security problems. At this point it is getting really hard to control growth of extraction, transportation and burning of mineral fuel. All these factors render negative, oppressing influence on environment; destabilize world economy, life and health of people.

Let me start out with political issues that are tied to my country and how they connect with the whole world. It is wide known that Russian and Ukraine, as neighbor states and allies in the past are still cooperating in oil and gas branch. This crisis between two countries can be viewed at two different points. In my opinion Russia has picked a bad role for itself in terms of keeping up the image on the international arena. After the Orange revolution in Ukraine it has claimed Ukrainian president in being pro-American and thus, canceling all the discounts that were given to Ukraine for gas and oil imported from Russia. Russia's attempt to politicize its energy supplies and blow up the image of Ukraine's president might have been a mistake. This step made many people doubt that Russia can actually be a reliable energy resources supplier for many countries. Making a country, which is in a deep political crisis pay between 5 and 10 percent of its GDP to cover the new cost of energy doesn’t make a great image of an exporter on the international arena. Ukraine can also be criticized in a way that it did not prepare its economy for unavoidable price increases and ensuring the readiness of professional management. I think that possible ways out of this situation could be steps that Ukrainian government had to take in order to ensure its safety. For example, money, set aside to handle the problem or store some gas. Now, it is obvious that many European countries will turn to Algeria, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Nigeria in order to diversify their gas supplies. This is not necessarily bad, but a red-flag issue in international relations, for sure.

I think that energy security is directly connected to the oil supplies in the region of Caspian Sea. It is expected that oil industry in such countries as Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan will experience a stable growth and might even double during next five years. As I see it right now, it is needed to build up new ways of transmitting energetic resources through Europe from Asia. Building new pipelines is crucial both in terms of expanding cooperation and renovating technologies. Oil that is moved to different location this way (especially being transmitted through the Sea) usually passes the same route and has to go through few checkpoints. These points are extremely important to be safe because of being easily accessed by criminals, who want to possess this oil illegally. Douglas R. Bohi mentions "gas pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum that is being built right now is a great way to raise efficiency of shipping gas from Asia to European destinations"(1). However, such transitions, in my opinion cannot influence environment positively. Since this pipeline will carry a big amount of gas under pressure it is under a high risk of an accident, which can cause a major environmental crisis. And this is the example of what we should fear in developing our craving for getting profits out of natural resources. I think that at this point it is extremely important to develop some alternative ways of processing and transporting energy resources.

"System of critical infrastructure is a complicated scheme of interdependent systems and networks on which we depend in our daily lives" (2). Such systems should be safe in order to keep our society functioning. Industries that support our daily activities should be both safe and reliable. Energy infrastructure is definitely among such crucial things, which should function properly to keep providing us with all necessary things. We should develop a better understanding about cooperation between sectors of critical infrastructures and strive to work towards protecting them. Protecting these infrastructures should become a priority not only for our well being, but also our ways of life.

Since natural resources are being exhausted quicker and quicker, and besides, ways of their development are becoming more and more dangerous for environment, governments should start thinking about implementing something new into work. Craving for money and sacrificing our health and environment seems to take over, but it is easy to see where it will lead. Natural resources will end, even though they renovate very slowly, and this planet will look more like a damp than a developed civil society. I think that all resources should be directed towards developing new technologies. But before doing that, countries should have standardized demands towards each other in order to prevent international misunderstandings, conflicts, and overcome terrorism.

There are few ways that I can think of right now, that could be effective in terms of international cooperation. Countries should set common energy, economy and ecology standards in order to broad processes of energy saving. Involving all countries (no only the Big Eight) into a step-be-step process of decreasing of air, soil and water pollution by monitoring all newly developed technologies of developing, processing, transporting, storing, and damping of waste. All the information on prices, amount of supplies and financial resources should be available.

And the most important, in my opinion, is to create a common system of monitoring of all these works. It is very important to understand and watch after all the processes that are being done with natural gas and oil, and even bigger attention should be given to controlling atomic energy, which can become an alternative energy source.



WORKS CITED

1. Bohi, Douglas R., and Toman, Michael A. Oil Prices, Energy Security, and Import Policy. Springer; 1 edition (January 31, 1996)

2. George Mason University of Law, Critical Infrastructure Protection Program.
<http://cipp.gmu.edu/clib/reports.php>

Posted by:

Best Custom Writing Sites

Sites that provide custom writing services are better alternative to downloading pre-written paper samples, especially if you temporarily can't handle writing your own paper for some reason, and can not afford risking your course and reputation for plagiarism detection failure. The prices for custom written essays are affordable, but if you need 15-pages long master level report overnight, you better prepare to spend a noticeable sum.