Sustainability and risk – a review of energy security

Abstract

Evidence is growing for the effects of using fossil fuels on the climate and of environmental degradation caused by excessive resource extraction. As a result of these challenges, and with gathering uncertainty in the geopolitical sphere, the topic of energy security is climbing the agenda of decision-makers around the world. Individual nations as well as supranational blocs have assessed their energy security status using indicator sets, indices, and frameworks taking account of their reliance on different fuels, their general economic position, policies on energy pricing, access to renewables, international relations, and so on. However, few of these attempts are reported as making an impact on policy. The main difficulties are uncertainty of what energy security involves, poor handling of risk, and a lack of methodological rigour and consistency in the development of frameworks for selection of indicators and metrics. There are similarities between energy security and sustainability, and we suggest that improvements in assessing energy security can be made by learning from established and robust sustainability assessment methods. Future research should be directed at developing broader and more robust methodological analyses of actual risks in energy systems using methods from risk analysis research. Both supply chain risk and systemic risk are under-researched topics, with potentially serious consequences for long-term energy security.