China’s upstream energy dealings: the Persian problem

View of a Sinochem-Total gas station in Beijing, China. Ensuring sufficient energy resources, in particular oil, is a key geo-political issue for China. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Matthew Hulbert, EER

This year presents a new set of challenges for Chinese energy endeavours, and nowhere more so than in oil.

Despite analysts bemoaning China’s ‘cavalier’ approach to risk as it strikes upstream deals in exotic locations, Beijing always knew it would have to cash in some of its chips when geopolitical cards were put on the table. Read more…

Securing China’s energy supplies

This photo taken on 11 August 2011 shows a coal fired power station in Huaibei, China. China produces most of the coal it consumes but now draws over half of its oil supplies from overseas. The IEA projects that, by 2035, China will import nearly 12.8 million barrels per day, or 84 per cent of its total supply. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, East Asia Forum

China’s spectacular industrial growth has been associated with equally spectacular growth in Chinese energy and resource consumption.

While Chinese energy efficiency (the amount of GDP produced per unit of energy consumed) has risen steadily, except for a few years early this decade, aggregate energy consumption has been lifted by a hugely energy-intensive phase of industrialisation and the spread of motorised transportation on a scale and at a speed that is unprecedented anywhere. Read more…

China’s petroleum predicament

A mechanical digger levels the ground to build new oil reservoirs at an under construction PetroChina oil refining plant in the Shandong province, 1 September 2009. China remains far more dependent on the outside world for oil than for any other energy source. China imported less than 4 per cent of its natural gas in 2009, but 53 per cent of its oil. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Andrew Kennedy, ANU

If China’s rise is one of the most important stories of this century, China’s growing appetite for energy is one of its most striking subplots.

China’s energy consumption more than doubled between 2000 and 2009, and the country is now the world’s top energy consumer. Read more…

Japan should not abandon nuclear power

A metal cylinder containing high-level radioactive vitrified waste is unloaded from a cargo ship upon its arrival from Britain at a port in Rokkasho in Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan, Thursday, 15 Sept 2011. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Tetsuya Endo, JIIA

In the wake of the Fukushima accident, a growing push for denuclearisation is playing out in Japan.

Under pressure from this movement, Japan’s nuclear power industry faces an immediate crisis.  Read more…

India’s power play

In a protest highlighting the lack of a continuous electricity supply, farmers hold lanterns aloft outside the Social Justice Ministry in New Delhi. (Photo: AAP)

Author: M Govinda Rao, NIPFP, New Delhi

In a recent public lecture at the India Policy Forum, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia underlined the new challenges of managing water, energy, urbanisation and environment as critical to accelerate growth, arguing it must fulfil a more substantial part of the 12th Plan.

On the energy sector, Ahluwalia stated that an increase in sustainable energy supply would increase the cost of energy and India can contain emissions from energy supply only when it reduces energy intensity. Read more…

Japan’s energy options after Fukushima

Protesters hold placards against nuclear power plants during an anti-nuclear demonstration in Tokyo. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF

A year or so ago nuclear energy was seen in Japan as the way forward to securing a clean energy future, with a government plan to boost nuclear power to 50 per cent of the total from its pre-Fukushima share of just over 30 per cent by 2030.

Since the Tohoku earthquake and the partial meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO’s) Fukushima plant, there has been a profound reversal of sentiment on nuclear power in Japan. Read more…

Indonesia’s energy challenge

Indonesian artists play role to mark Earth hour in Malang, East Java on March 26, 2011. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Fitrian Ardiansyah, ANU

Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest energy producer and consumer.

Its government energy policies are fostering reliance on dirty and subsidised fossil fuels and little progress has been made in increasing renewable energy usage. Read more…

Japan’s nuclear quandary

Toshio Nishizawa, left, president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., listens to a question during a press conference at the company headquarters in Tokyo Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Sheila A Smith, CFR

The Kan cabinet is facing a defining moment in Japan’s postwar nuclear debate.

With the bulk of nuclear reactors now offline, the country is holding its breath over how Prime Minister Naoto Kan will proceed. Read more…

Common ground in US-China energy relations

U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, left, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shakes hands with Gen. Chen Bingde, chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Husien Khamis, NTU

The acrimony between the United States and China is not new in the field of international relations, evident in the political, economic and strategic realms between the two countries.

Allegations are aplenty that China’s rise is a threat to the United States’ energy security, too. Read more…

Japan’s nuclear crisis sparks concerns over nuclear power in China

This photo shows the expansion construction site of Qinshan Phase II Nuclear Power Station located in Haiyan County, east China’s Zhejiang province. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Wen Bo, Pacific Environment

Unlike previous Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who had little interest in forming a strong bilateral relationship with Japan and focused on US China relations instead, the current leadership in China acknowledges the heavy interdependence of the two countries.

What happens in Japan has wide ranging effects in China. Read more…

Threat to Asia’s energy security

Gas flares burn near an oil well on the outskirts of Masjed Soleiman, Iran. (Photo: AAP)

Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF

The wave of political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa puts the spotlight once more on Asia’s oil dependence and energy security.

The pressure on oil prices and growing anxiety over energy security, until recently, have largely been driven by the surge in demand from emerging economies, notably China and India. Read more…