A close look at energy policies

Unfortunately, the most recent figures I could find on the International Energy Agency (IEA) website belong to 2008 and according to them, Turkey in that year consumed energy that corresponds to a total of 99 million tons of oil.

This indeed is the country’s total energy consumption. In other words, from the fuels of trucks and cars to the natural gas we use at home to cook or heat meals, to electricity we consume at home and industry, everything is included in this.

Turkey imports 72 percent of the energy it uses. This is the reason why we have an incredibly high current account deficit.

Moreover, we must be consuming more energy today than 2008, because our economy has grown since then and exactly because of this, the rate of our imported energy must have also increased. In other words, as we want economic development and more prosperity, our external dependency in energy has also increased.

I am not here to chant full independence slogans; in today’s world there is nothing such as 100 percent independence. We live in a world of mutual dependencies.

Nevertheless, again, energy dependency of 72 percent is very high. It is very natural for any government that loves its country to work to decrease this dependency rate.

Turkey has also been talking about decreasing the dependency rate for many years and, at the same time, is trying to guarantee its own energy supply. To this end, from the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline to the Blue Stream, to the Nabucco natural gas pipeline, many things have been done. At the essence of our Syria and Iraq policies, which is currently occupied with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), actually lies the energy supply assurance.

I wrote about solar and wind energy...

Continue reading on: