6Energy Security: Challenges and Needs
Benjamin K. Sovacool
Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School, South Royalton, VT, USA
This chapter describes four broad categories of emerging global energy security threats. After defining energy security, it discusses threats related to the availability of energy resources and fuels, the affordability of the services they provide, the efficiency of their use, and the effective management of their negative environmental and social impacts, notably climate change. It concludes by noting how the energy security of many industrialized and developing countries has eroded over the past few decades and proposes potential areas of future research.
INTRODUCTION
Energy security is an urgent priority for policy makers and scholars worldwide. As the global economy continues its climb out of recession, satisfying the demand for available, accessible, affordable, and environmentally acceptable mobility, cooking, heating, and cooling will remain a precondition for sustaining economic development[1].
The collective energy security challenges facing the world are more than just an inconvenience and present a sizeable barrier to worldwide prosperity. They result in higher transportation and electricity costs that at the micro level can drive households into poverty[2]. Energy insecurity can also lead to bankruptcy of firms unable to pass on extra costs to their customers[3]. At the macro level, defending energy supplies, and the ...