Abstracts
Climate Change Implications for Energy Security: Responding to the Challenges
Larry Hughes1, Alain Joseph
1Dalhousie University
larry.hughes@dal.ca
In a time of rising energy costs driven by supply tightness and increasing demand from new actors, energy security is becoming a concern to many governments. Conventional views on energy security include the threat of international terrorism, the long-term availability of non-domestic fuel sources, the dangers of relying on a limited number of fuel mixes, and the rising cost of energy.
The impact of climate change on energy security presents a new set of problems that is typically an internal domestic matter rather than an international one and, at present, focuses primarily on electrical generation. Reductions in precipitation or increases in temperature can force the closure of both hydroelectric and nuclear facilities. Similarly, extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, ice-storms, and heavy snowfalls, can play havoc with transmission and distribution grids.
With electricity demands increasing in most developed countries, addressing the issue of internal energy security means adapting to climate change. When transmission and distribution facilities are susceptible, solutions include strengthening, rebuilding, or even burying the grid.
Local, small-scale, distributed generation is another response to climate change and energy security. The first signs of this are occurring in jurisdictions where grid failures are becoming a matter of course: individuals and businesses are purchasing electrical generators to ensure a secure supply of electricity. Such solutions, although understandable, are expensive to purchase and operate, consume fossil fuels, and have serious environmental implications.
This paper examines some of the implications and challenges for energy security with respect to climate change in Nova Scotia, a small Canadian province with a grid that has failed on numerous occasions over the past several years because of extreme weather events.
2005-04-05 |
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