Great Energy Power

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A Great energy power is a state is one that possesses large (or incredible) amounts of energy reserves or potential reserves in areas like oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, and perhaps even renewable energy. However, for a state to qualify for such a status, it must be a net exporter of energy, possess a large quantity of at least one of these resources, and be fairly influential in the prices and production of at least one energy field. A great energy power cannot be any state that has shown recent signs of instability or had a recent government takeover. Such states, for example Nigeria, lack the stability to use their energy reserves as a leverage in the international community. A great energy power can also be a state that has incredible amounts of energy reserves but has not yet exploited them. Such a state is often referred to as an "emerging energy superpower".

An example of such a country is Canada, which has far lower production rates than its enormous reserves of energy would lead one to believe it capable of. Canada is often considered an emerging energy superpower because of this.

Great energy powers, it should be noted, lack the incredible power of energy superpowers in the influencing of prices of the global market. Such states, like Saudi Arabia & Russia, can almost instantly influence world energy prices, which sets them apart from the states listed here.

1 Great Energy Powers of the World
2 Notes

[edit] Great Energy Powers of the World

These are states with large amounts of energy production and large (or incredibly large) reserves of differing energy resources. Many of their leaders refer to their countries now as "emerging energy superpowers". Some of these states are in position to increase their production of energy to be on par with the world's two energy superpowers in the future, but currently cannot produce as much. However few great energy powers are in the position to become an energy superpower, as should be noted by the fact that there are only 2 energy superpowers in the world today.

[edit] Australia

In 2006, Prime Minister John Howard stated that he believes Australia will become an "energy superpower".^[1] Australia produces the 3rd highest quantity of coal in the world, and has the 3rd largest reserves at some 76 billion tons.^[2] Australia also possesses large reserves of natural gas and the world's largest reserves of uranium (40% of known global uranium reserves), both energy resources it produced in great quantities.

[edit] Canada

Canada claims to be an emerging energy superpower due to its vast reserves of oil, gas, and uranium. This was declared by its Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a speech to the Canada-U.K. Chamber of Commerce, and later in the speech to the Economic Club of New York.^[3]^[4] The Prime Minister has also criticized Russia's alleged use of energy as a direct tool to increase the national government's power as "self-serving", stating that Canada believes "in the free exchange of energy products based on competitive market principles, not self-serving monopolistic political strategies".^[3] Canada has however threatened during Prime Minister Paul Martin's government to use oil shipments as a tool to help Canada negotiate a better softwood lumber trade deal with the United States. It is the world's fifth largest energy producer overall, ranking first in hydroelectric power production, third in natural gas production, and seventh in oil production.^[5]

The Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical wing of the U.S. Department of Energy, has listed Canada as having the world's second-largest oil reserves (179 billion barrels) following Saudi Arabia (260 billion barrels), however, this includes unconventional output from oil sands; conventional output is estimated at 4.9 billion barrels.^[6] EIA's estimate is based on numbers from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) and released in the publication International Energy Outlook 2006. According to CAPP it has among the largest potentially exploitable oil reserves in the world, the oil sands of northern Alberta, estimated at 1.7 trillion barrels.

Canada is also the largest producer of uranium on earth, and exports the CANDU reactor nuclear technology it has developed. As mentioned above, Canada's current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has referred to Canada as an "energy superpower", as well as an "emerging energy superpower".^[7]

[edit] Norway

Norway is the third largest oil exporter on earth (8th largest producer), producing around 3 million barrels of oil/day, and world sixth largest producer of natural gas, having significant gas reserves in the North Sea.^[8]^[9] Norway possesses also some of the world's largest potentially exploitable coal reserves (located under the Norwegian continental shelf) on earth.^[10] Norway is perhaps unique in the world in how it uses its windfall energy earnings, depositing all its oil royalties in its massive Government Pension Fund of Norway, which was the largest pension fund in Europe at the end of 2006, having a market value of over 266 billion dollars (US). Norway has used its energy money to become increasingly influential in global business practices, using ethical guidelines to justify bans on investing in a number of public companies worldwide. With the increasing amount of financial influence this large and growing fund has on the global stock market, Norway could be said to be using its energy resources in the manner of an energy superpower (influencing the global market through the leveraging of money generated from energy assets), albeit in a more subtle fashion than either Russia or Saudi Arabia. Norway's production of energy & the fund as of yet are too small to make it a energy superpower, despite its status as the world's third largest exporter of oil.