Issue Content

Energy in Transition: The Sahara Wind Power Project

Thursday, 01 May 2014 00:00 Khalid Benhamou

Rarely has the future of energy been more aggressively targeted by what many may consider some of the world’s most staid institutions. However with cooperation and support over the last decade from the World Bank and even NATO, the Sahara Wind Project is bringing much needed power to one of the neediest regions of the world. From its operating 380 MW wind power base, Morocco’s wind capacity will reach 800 MW by the end of 2014. Mauritania is also a partner and beneficiary country of this project that may hold the key for unlocking the human, and industrial, potential of this region of the world.

Oil in the Hourglass: The Energy-Conflict Nexus in the South China Sea

Thursday, 24 April 2014 00:00 Blaise Zandoli

China’s interest in the South China Sea and its potential sub-sea fossil fuel resources has implications for nations across the region and beyond. Answering when and how these interests may manifest themselves in concerted foreign policy actions exercised by China or other littoral states in the region is a major analytical objective of Part I of this two part article series focused on the nexus between natural resources and potential military action in the South China Sea neighborhood.

Asian Oil Markets in Transition

Thursday, 24 April 2014 00:00 Adi Imsirovic

While Asia has quickly become a major magnet of global oil demand, less noticed have been Asian efforts to develop regional oil hubs. This article explores the challenges and benefits to Asia of developing significant oil storage capacity and the complexities of launching benchmarks (markers) against which regional trading and price adjustments can be made.

Will Korea be the next Ukraine?

Thursday, 24 April 2014 00:00 Gal Luft

Russia has just written off 90 percent of North Korea’s debt in exchange for Pyongyang’s agreement to build a natural gas pipeline that would run from Russia through North Korea to South Korea, the world’s second largest gas importer. Indeed, while the U.S. invests a great deal of political capital on reducing Ukraine’s dependence on Gazprom, South Korea, its key ally in Asia might soon be heading in the opposite direction. Vladimir Putin has demonstrated how competent he is as a spoiler of U.S. foreign policy in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Having his Gazprom meddling in the heart of the combustible Korean Peninsula is an idea which America should resist with all vigor.

Doing the Numbers on European Natural Gas Security

Tuesday, 08 April 2014 00:00 Kevin Rosner

A team of researchers lead by mathematician Dr. Rui Carvalho at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, have come up with a model that demonstrates how Europe can bolster its natural gas resiliency through cooperation and access to each others’ energy markets. Natural gas pipelines, and moreover the networks they create, are expensive to build and even more so to operate if not utilized at or near capacity. Therefore these researchers set about the task of calculating how in times of conflict or crisis European economies could weather a major disruption in gas supplies without adding new capacity. The result was the publication this month of their research in a report entitled, “Resilience of natural gas networks during conflicts, crises and disruptions.”

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