Energy geopolitics and Iran–Pakistan–India gas pipeline

With the growing energy demands in India and its neighboring countries, Iran–Pakistan–India (IPI) gas pipeline assumes special significance. Energy-deficient countries such as India, China, and Pakistan are vying to acquire gas fields in different parts of the world. This has led to two conspicuous developments: first, they are competing against each other and secondly, a situation is emerging where they might have to confront the US and the western countries in the near future in their attempt to control energy bases. The proposed IPI pipeline is an attempt to acquire such base. However, Pakistan is playing its own game to maximize its leverages. Pakistan, which refuses to establish even normal trading ties with India, craves to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees and other annual royalties from a gas pipeline which runs from Iran's South Pars fields to Barmer in western India. Pakistan promises to subsidize its gas imports from Iran and thus also become a major forex earner. It is willing to give pipeline related ‘international guarantees’ notwithstanding its record of covert actions in breach of international law (such as the export of terrorism) and its reluctance to reciprocally provide India what World Trade Organization (WTO) rules obligate it to do—Most Favored Nation (MFN) status. India is looking at the possibility of using some set of norms for securing gas supply through pipeline as the European Union has already initiated a discussion on the issue. The key point that is relevant to India's plan to build a pipeline to source gas from Iran relates to national treatment for pipeline. Under the principle of national treatment which also figures in relation to foreign direct investment (FDI), the country through which a pipeline transits should provide some level of security to the transiting pipeline as it would have provided to its domestic pipelines. This paper will endeavor to analyze, first, the significance of this pipeline for India and then the geopolitics involved in it.     

Pipeline politics—A study of India′s proposed cross border gas projects

India′s energy situation is characterized by increasing energy demand, high fossil fuel dependency, large import shares, and significant portion of population deprived of modern energy services. At this juncture, natural gas, being the cleanest fossil fuel with high efficiency and cost effectiveness, is expected to play an important role. India, with only 0.6% of proven world reserves, is not endowed with adequate natural gas domestically. Nevertheless, there are gas reserves in neighbouring regions which gives rise to the prospects of three cross border gas pipeline projects, namely, Iran–Pakistan–India, Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India, and Myanmar–Bangladesh–India. This study is a political analysis of these pipeline projects. First, it provides justification on use of natural gas and promotion of cross border energy trade. Then it examines these three pipeline projects and analyses the security concerns, role of different actors, their positions, shifting goals, and strategies. The study develops scenarios on the basis of changing circumstances and discusses some of the pertinent issues like technology options for underground/underwater pipelines and role of private players. It also explores impact of India′s broader foreign relations and role of SAARC on the future of pipelines and proposes energy induced mutually assured protection (MAP) as a concept for regional security.     

The potential role of hydrogen energy in India and Western Europe

We used the TIMER energy model to explore the potential role of hydrogen in the energy systems of India and Western Europe, looking at the impacts on its main incentives: climate policy, energy security and urban air pollution. We found that hydrogen will not play a major role in both regions without considerable cost reductions, mainly in fuel cell technology. Also, energy taxation policy is essential for hydrogen penetration and India's lower energy taxes limit India's capacity to favour hydrogen. Once available to the (European) energy system, hydrogen can decrease the cost of CO₂ emission reduction by increasing the potential for carbon capture technology. However, climate policy alone is insufficient to speed up the transition. Hydrogen diversifies energy imports; especially for Europe it decreases oil imports, while increasing imports of coal and natural gas. For India, it provides an opportunity to decrease oil imports and use indigenous coal resources in the transport sector. Hydrogen improves urban air quality by shifting emissions from urban transport to hydrogen production facilities. However, for total net emissions we found a sensitive trade-off between lower emissions at end-use (in transport) and higher emissions from hydrogen production, depending on local policy for hydrogen production facilities.     

A review on the natural gas potential of Pakistan for the transition to a low-carbon future

Natural gas is the world’s fastest growing and widely used fossil fuel which can be targeted for transitioning to a low-carbon future. Pakistan was ranked at seventh position among the utmost harmfully affected countries by climate change. It is, therefore, important to develop an effective energy policy toward the reduction of greenhouse gases in the country. This study evaluates the Pakistan’s natural gas industry development by reviewing reserves, production, consumption, infrastructures, and natural gas agreements in place. The total proven natural gas reserve of Pakistan is estimated to be 0.5 Tcm by the end of 2016. There are many active fields in Pakistan among which Sui gas reservoir is the largest. Currently, Pakistan’s natural gas industry is well matured with average size reserves, production capacity, and advanced and organized infrastructure for transmission and distribution network. Therefore, natural gas can be used to feed different sectors of the country, to decrease the financial burden of importing oil, and to reduce CO₂ emissions. However, increasing the gap of demand–supply for natural gas in the future, declining the average gas reserves, and postponing the gas import may challenge the natural gas industry, climate, and performance of Pakistan’s economy. Thus, these concerns must be addressed to help the natural gas industry for an easy transition to a low-carbon future.     

Identifying and addressing barriers for the sustainable development of natural gas as automotive fuel

In recognition of the risks associated with climate change, governments around the world have tried to develop and define policies to address greenhouse gas emissions with transport recognized as one of major sources of greenhouse gases and air pollution. Apart from climate change, there is another side to this coin, and that is the risks surrounding energy security and future oil supplies. Vehicle manufacturers are increasingly recognizing their role in contributing to the goal of decarbonizing the economy and reduce dependence on oil. Out of available alternate fuels compressed natural gas (CNG) is the one which is meeting the maximum needs of countries worldwide, who want to switch over to alternate fuels. However, despite the fact that CNG are often seen as a panacea by policy-makers, there are a number of barriers to their widespread market penetration and diffusion. This study aims to identify an approach to strategic framework for addressing the barriers to widespread adoption of compressed natural gas as transportation fuel. Besides assessing the barriers to natural gas vehicles, the study attempts to identify how they can affect various stakeholders. The paper systematically examines natural gas vehicles (NGVs) adoption patterns and the evolution of pertinent market structures throughout the world but majorly concentrated on eleven countries:, China, Iran, Pakistan, Argentina, India, Brazil, Italy, United States, Germany, Sweden and South Korea. The underlying paper set out an objective of presentation of the framework for supporting policy makers in aspects including; identifying and assessing qualitative aspects of the barriers and consequently defining measures for their resolutions.     

印度能源构成特点和发展趋势

印度是个经济发展较快的人口大国,它目前的经济和能源状况很像本世纪初的中国。印度的能源(特别是煤炭)消费增速自国际金融危机以来不断加快,但作为能源主体的煤炭、石油和天然气的生产、进口都处于一种被压抑的"欠帐"状态,成为影响经济社会发展的瓶颈,保障能源供应是印度发展中最急迫的现实问题。在印度能源构成中煤炭居首位,燃煤发电量占其电力的68%;石油资源,特别是天然气占能源消费总量的比例低于世界均值;水电占一次能源消费的比例较高。印度煤炭进口增长很快,现居世界第三位,且有可能在2020年成为世界第一大煤炭进口国。印度大量进口原油、出口油品,但天然气进口增长缓慢。印度能源生产和进口被压抑的原因在于强行压低国内价格、政府为财政补贴背上重负、能源被国营大企业垄断,以及基础设施落后、政府施政能力薄弱。但这并不能阻止印度在世界经济和能源格局中的地位逐渐增强。本世纪二三十年代,以中国和印度为领跑者的东亚-南亚弧形地带将成为世界重要的能源消费中心,世界能源格局的多元化亦将更加成熟。     

A policy study examining the use of imported LNG for gas-fired power generation on the southeast coast of China

Since China's energy demand is growing quickly, speeding up the development of natural gas is an important substitute and supplement for coal and oil. The development of the natural gas market in many developing countries has demonstrated that the success of the whole project hinges upon the success of gas-fired power generation. However, under the current energy pricing system in China, the advantages of gas-fired power plants, such as low investment costs and high efficiency, have not been able to offset the low price of coal. The gas-fired power plants, both at downstream of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industry and upstream of the power sector, are faced with a dilemma. In order to solve the problems facing gas-fired power projects while providing policy guidance for the future development of gas-fired power projects, the policy of gas-fired power generation using imported LNG on the southeastern coast of China was examined. This study aims to identify the position of the national energy strategy that China should import some LNG from the other countries, to guide the development of energy policy in this region, and to formulate some clear policy measures.     

Bounds test approach to cointegration and causality between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth in India

This paper attempts to examine the dynamic relationship between economic growth, nuclear energy consumption, labor and capital for India for the period 1969–2006. Applying the bounds test approach to cointegration developed by Pesaran et al. (2001) we find that there was a short- and a long-run relationship between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth. Using four long-run estimators we also found that nuclear energy consumption has a positive and a statistically significant impact on India's economic growth. Further, applying the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) approach to Granger causality and the variance decomposition approach developed by Pesaran and Shin (1998), we found a positive and a significant uni-directional causality running from nuclear energy consumption to economic growth without feedback. This implies that economic growth in India is dependent on nuclear energy consumption where a decrease in nuclear energy consumption may lead to a decrease in real income. For a fast growing energy-dependent economy this may have far-reaching implications for economic growth. India's economic growth can be frustrated if energy conservation measures are undertaken without due regard to the negative impact they have on economic growth.     

Offshore wind energy policy for India—Key factors to be considered

Indian Economy is growing at a healthy pace during the last few years. To sustain this growth, power sector needs to build additional generation capacity. However, continued dependence on fossil fuels to power the growth of electricity generation capacity, is hardly sustainable. Renewable Energy source forms a miniscule portion (25 GW,∼12%) of India's overall power generation today (202 GW). The share of wind energy (17 GW) is 67% of the total renewable energy basket. But the contribution from offshore wind farms is non-existent, as all the wind energy generated in India is only through onshore wind farms. India needs a policy framework to encourage the development of offshore wind farms. Several European countries have effective offshore wind energy policies that have helped them to accelerate the growth of their offshore wind energy sector. This paper does an exhaustive literature survey, to identify 21 building blocks of a successful offshore wind energy policy initiative adopted by select European countries, which have been classified under 5 broad categories—Government support, Fiscal and quota based incentives, Availability of local expertise, Capital for investments and Building an enabling ecosystem, which can be leveraged by India to articulate its own offshore wind energy policy.     

我国天然气消费利用现状和发展趋势

分析了我国的天然气消费利用现状：天然气消费量增长迅速,在全国一次能源中的消费比例仍较低（2％～3％）;开始大规模利用境外管道气;国家天然气基干管网框架基本形成,天然气供应格局呈现“西气东输、海气上岸、北气南下”及“就近外供”的局面;天然气市场已基本覆盖全国,西南地区是天然气主要消费市场;消费结构逐渐由以化工为主的单一结构向城市燃气、工业燃料为主的多元结构转变;天然气定价机制不完善,天然气价格相对较低。对我国天然气消费利用发展进行了展望：天然气消费量仍将快速增长,2020年全国天然气需求量将超过2500×10^8m^3;天然气消费中心将继续“南下东移”,长三角、东南沿海和环渤海地区是未来的天然气主要消费市场：天然气消费结构不断优化,城市燃气和工业燃料将成为主要利用方向;天然气定价机制逐步理顺,市场对气价的承受能力不断提高。     

Renewable energy in India: Current status and future potentials

Renewable energy sources and technologies have potential to provide solutions to the long-standing energy problems being faced by the developing countries. The renewable energy sources like wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, ocean energy, biomass energy and fuel cell technology can be used to overcome energy shortage in India. To meet the energy requirement for such a fast growing economy, India will require an assured supply of 3–4 times more energy than the total energy consumed today. The renewable energy is one of the options to meet this requirement. Today, renewable account for about 33% of India's primary energy consumptions. India is increasingly adopting responsible renewable energy techniques and taking positive steps towards carbon emissions, cleaning the air and ensuring a more sustainable future. In India, from the last two and half decades there has been a vigorous pursuit of activities relating to research, development, demonstration, production and application of a variety of renewable energy technologies for use in different sectors. In this paper, efforts have been made to summarize the availability, current status, major achievements and future potentials of renewable energy options in India. This paper also assesses specific policy interventions for overcoming the barriers and enhancing deployment of renewables for the future.     

India's emissions in a climate constrained world

Scientific studies have repeatedly shown the need to prevent the increase in global emissions so that the planet's average temperature does not exceed 2 °C over pre-industrial levels. While the divisions between Annex 1 and non-Annex nations continue to prevent the realization of a comprehensive global climate treaty, all members of the G-20 (incidentally also major emitters) have agreed to prevent the rise in global temperatures above 2 °C. This requires that nations consider budgeting their carbon emissions. India presents a unique case study to examine how a major emitter facing a desperate need to increase energy consumption will meet this challenge. The Greenhouse Development Rights (GDR) framework, perhaps considered the most favorable with respect to the responsibility and capacity of India to reduce emissions, was used to explore India's emissions trajectory. India's emissions have been pegged to the pathway required to meet the 2 °C target by non-Annex countries. The results have been compared to the expected emissions from 11 energy fuel mix scenarios up to the year 2031 forecasted by the Planning Commission of India. Results reveal that none of the 11 energy scenarios would help India meet its emissions target if it were to follow the 2 °C pathway. A thought experiment is followed to explore how India may meet this target. This includes a sensitivity analysis targeting coal consumption, the biggest contributor to India's emissions.     

Energy efficiency in India: Assessing the policy regimes and their impacts

In the recent years, India has emerged as one of the fast growing economies of the world necessitating equally rapid increase in modern energy consumption. With an imminent global climate change threat, India will have difficulties in continuing with this rising energy use levels towards achieving high economic growth. It will have to follow an energy-efficient pathway in attaining this goal. In this context, an attempt is made to present India's achievements on the energy efficiency front by tracing the evolution of policies and their impacts. The results indicate that India has made substantial progress in improving energy efficiency which is evident from the reductions achieved in energy intensities of GDP to the tune of 88% during 1980–2007. Similar reductions have been observed both with respect to overall Indian economy and the major sectors of the economy. In terms of energy intensity of GDP, India occupies a relatively high position of nine among the top 30 energy consuming countries of the world.     

Natural gas corridors between the EU and its main suppliers: Simulation results with the dynamic GASTALE model

Growth in gas demand poses a challenge for European energy consumers and other gas-importing countries in terms of an increasing dependency on gas imports and consequently also supply security. This paper focuses on interactions among demand, supply, and investments in natural gas corridors, namely pipeline transport, LNG, and storage facilities, affecting the European natural gas market over the period 2005–2030. A number of policy scenarios, including a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, are formulated to study the impact of demand uncertainty and delays in investment on the gas transport infrastructure required in the long run in Europe. The analyses indicate that substantial investments in gas transport corridors are needed to accommodate imports and seasonal demand variations. Analysis of scenarios of supply interruption, in the form of suddenly reduced import capacity for particular pipeline routes, indicates that portions of Europe could experience price increases of up to 100% in the case of a year-long interruption. To accommodate import needs and to mitigate possible disruptions, pipeline connections running from East to West need to be given special priority.     

Global energy security and the implications for the EU

The following article will analyse the global and geopolitical dimensions of the future international energy security and its implications for Europe and the EU-27. In this context, I will discuss to which extent the EU's newly proclaimed “Energy Action Plan” of the EU Spring summit of 2007 and its declared common energy (foreign) policy are a sufficient strategy to cope with the new global and geopolitical challenges. The article concludes the following: (1) The interlinkage between globally designed traditional energy security concepts – that rely just on economic factors and “market-strategies” – and domestic as well as regional political stability demands new thinking with regard to both energy supply security and foreign and security policies. (2) Although after the Russian–Ukrainian gas conflict in January 2006, energy security has forced its way up the European energy and foreign policy agendas, the EU-27 member states have largely failed to forge a coherent European energy security and energy foreign policy strategy after their Spring summit of 2007 because its declared political solidarity has been still lacking. But the 2nd Strategic Energy Review of November 2008 has recommended new initiatives to overcome this lack by promoting concrete infrastructure and other projects for enhancing Europe's supply security and its political solidarity as part of a common energy (foreign) policy. If the EU is able to implement the March 2007 and November 2008 decisions, the EU oil and gas demand will drastically reduce and freeze at current levels. In this case, Putin's energy policies by using Russia's energy resources and pipeline monopolies as a political instrument to enforce its economic and geopolitical interests will be proved as self-defeating in Russia's long-term strategic interests. It will reduce Gazprom's gas exports to a much smaller EU gas market than originally forecasted as the result of a deliberate EU policy of decreasing its overall gas demand and by diversifying its gas imports.     

Turkey's natural gas policy

This article deals with natural gas policy of Turkey. Natural gas became important in the 1980s. In recent years, natural gas consumption has become the fastest growing primary energy source in Turkey. Natural gas becomes an increasingly central component of energy consumption in Turkey. Current gas production in Turkey meets 3% of the domestic consumption requirements. Natural gas consumption levels in Turkey have witnessed a dramatic increase, from 4.25 Bcm (billion cubic meters) in 1991 to 21.19 Bcm in 2003. Turkish natural gas is projected to increase dramatically in coming years, with the prime consumers expected to be industry and power plants. Turkey has chosen natural gas as the preferred fuel for the massive amount of new power plant capacity to be added in coming years. Turkey has supplied main natural gas need from Russian Federation; however, Turkmen and Iranian gas represent economically sound alternatives. Turkey is in a strategically advantageous position in terms of its natural gas market. It can import gas from a number of countries and diversify its sources. Turkey's motivation for restructuring its natural gas ownership and markets stems from its desire to fulfill EU accession prerequisites in the energy sector.     

Potential contribution of ethanol fuel to the transport sector of Pakistan

Pakistan is an energy-deficient country. The indigenous reserves of oil and gas are limited and the country is heavily dependent on the import of oil. The oil import bill is a serious strain on the country's economy and has been deteriorating the balance of payments situation. The country has become increasingly more dependent on fossil fuels and its energy security hangs on the fragile supply of imported oil that is subject to disruptions and price volatility. The transport sector has a 28% share in the total commercial energy consumption in Pakistan. About 1.15 million tonnes of gasoline was consumed by this sector during 2005–2006. The gasoline consumption in the transport sector is also a major source of environmental degradation especially in urban areas. Consequently, Pakistan needs to develop indigenous, environment-friendly energy resources, such as ethanol, to meet its transport sector's energy needs. Pakistan produces about 54 million tonnes of sugarcane every year. The estimated production potential of ethanol from molasses is about 500 million liters per annum. Ethanol can be used in the transport sector after blending with gasoline, in order to minimize the gasoline consumption and associated economical and environmental impacts. This paper presents the assessment of the potential contribution of ethanol in the transport sector of Pakistan. It is concluded that 5–10% of the annual gasoline consumption in transport sector could be met from ethanol by the year 2030 under different scenarios. About US$200–400 million per annum could be saved along with other environmental and health benefits by using gasol in the transport sector.     

Time series models (Grey-Markov,Grey Model with rolling mechanism and singular spectrum analysis) to forecast energy consumption in India

The present study applies three time series models, namely, Grey-Markov model, Grey-Model with rolling mechanism, and singular spectrum analysis (SSA) to forecast the consumption of conventional energy in India. Grey-Markov model has been employed to forecast crude-petroleum consumption while Grey-Model with rolling mechanism to forecast coal, electricity (in utilities) consumption and SSA to predict natural gas consumption. The models for each time series has been selected by carefully examining the structure of the individual time series. The mean absolute percentage errors (MAPE) for two out of sample forecasts have been obtained as follows: 1.6% for crude-petroleum, 3.5% for coal, 3.4% for electricity and 3.4% for natural gas consumption. For two out of sample forecasts, the prediction accuracy for coal consumption was 97.9%, 95.4% while for electricity consumption the prediction accuracy was 96.9%, 95.1%. Similarly, the prediction accuracy for crude-petroleum consumption was found to be 99.2%, 97.6% while for natural gas consumption these values were 98.6%, 94.5%. The results obtained have also been compared with those of Planning Commission of India's projection. The comparison clearly points to the enormous potential that these time series models possess in energy consumption forecasting and can be considered as a viable alternative.     

Renewable energy in India: Historical developments and prospects

Promoting renewable energy in India has assumed great importance in recent years in view of high growth rate of energy consumption, high share of coal in domestic energy demand, heavy dependence on imports for meeting demands for petroleum fuels and volatility of world oil market. A number of renewable energy technologies (RETs) are now well established in the country. The technology that has achieved the most dramatic growth rate and success is wind energy; India ranks fourth in the world in terms of total installed capacity. India hosts the world's largest small gasifier programme and second largest biogas programme. After many years of slow growth, demand for solar water heaters appears to be gaining momentum. Small hydro has been growing in India at a slow but steady pace. Installation of some of the technologies appears to have slowed down in recent years; these include improved cooking stoves (ICSs) and solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. In spite of many successes, the overall growth of renewable energy in India has remained rather slow. A number of factors are likely to boost the future prospects of renewable energy in the country; these include global pressure and voluntary targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction, a possible future oil crisis, intensification of rural electrification program, and import of hydropower from neighbouring countries.