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Energy is development. It is not
possible to develop economically and socially if a country or economy has
little electricity and hence, energy prices are high and there is frequent
brown out.
In many economic literatures, growth in
energy use is often used as proxy or “checking mechanism” for GDP growth as
there is a generally one on one correspondence in energy use and real GDP
growth.
A data from the Asian Development Bank
(ADB) is very interesting, below. Countries are grouped into three: Northeast
Asia, Southeast Asia, and others.
Some interesting notes here, that as of
2010: (a) China has 5x energy use than Japan; (b) Japan's energy use has almost
flatlined over the past two decades; (c) Singapore has twice the energy use of
HK; (d) Vietnam has overtaken the Philippines with 50 percent more energy use;
(e) from 1990 to 2010, these countries have generally tripled (3x) their energy
use: China, S. Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore; and (f) Vietnam has
expanded almost 4x.
One possible explanation here is
Kyotoism, the Kyoto Protocol (KP) of countries reducing if not backsliding
carbon emission (indirectly, energy use) that is not too far from their 1990
levels. Japan, Hong Kong and Australia must have tried hard to obey the global
ecological central planning while real socialists and central planners China
and Vietnam have totally disobeyed the ecological targets. This is one reason
why KP was abandoned. When it expired in December 2012, there was no succeeding
binding agreement among countries and governments. Many developed countries do
not want to de-industrialize, they do not want to have electricity black outs
soon.
Growth in electricity consumption and
energy use in Japan, HK, Australia and several other countries was due to more
efficient energy use. For instance, by using only 50 kwh bulb to produce the
same street light as a 200 kwh bulb, they could expand street lights 3x or 4x
even without adding another power plant. Still, it is good to have more energy
capacity while improving energy use efficiency.
Another interesting data from the same
publication by ADB, HK and Singapore just keep modernizing and industrializing
by relying almost 100% from imported energy for their power needs. HK gets it
mainly from China (mainly nuclear, coal and natural gas) while Singapore gets
it mainly from Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
There are at least three lessons for the
Philippines from the above tables.
One, there is an urgent need to expand
energy capacity, to have more power generation plants, in the Philippines as
more businesses, more houses and schools, other economic activities, are
demanding for more stable power supply and prices.
Two, “energy independence” sounds cool
but HK and Singapore show no interest in such goal. They are almost 100 percent
dependent on imported energy yet they seem to be not bothered. Aas long as they
have the money, they can buy energy from anywhere.
Three, energy prices here must go down
through more competition among more private energy producers. Also, government
can share the burden by reducing the taxes, fees and royalties for energy
projects.
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See also:
Energy Econ 12: EPIRA, WESM, PSALM and DOE Bureaucracy, January 28, 2013
Energy Econ 13: Universal Charges and Thin Power Reserves, February 13, 2014
Energy Econ 14: Power Rate Hike, Who Colluded?, February 22, 2014
Energy Econ 15: Electricity Angsts, Presentation at UP Diliman, March 08, 2014
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