Luis de Sousa at European Tribune blog has put together a chart of oil dependency among most EU economies. Can you see a theme?
Look at the top five countries for oil as a proportion of energy, which comes from the EU’s 2008 Strategic Energy Review:Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. Greece should need no introduction, and the other four have often been spoken of in the same breath (and with an acronym that we won’t be using) because of their status as the most indebted European Union countries.
A country’s energy profile isn’t entirely within its own control, of course – geography, for example, affects transport needs, access to resources and the feasibility of renewable sources (and indeed de Sousa has excluded Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg for these sorts of reasons). A look at the oil-intensiveness of the overall economy would also be informative. But as de Sousa points out, even net oil exporter Denmark and the UK, still a relatively well-supplied oil producer, get a lower proportions of of their total energy consumption from oil. So the countries that are most indebted are also most exposed to oil price fluctuations.
Still, it would be interesting to see what a James Hamilton-style analysis made of the effect of crude oil prices on these economies.
Related links:
A gameplan for getting to 100% renewables – FT Energy Source
Shale gas in Europe and China: How promising is it? - FT Energy Source
Comment: Why a single energy market is critical to Europe’s renewable goals - FT Energy Source
