ENERGY POLICIES

Germany Poland China Turkey Algeria - Brasil

Copyright: Artur Wyrma

Quick outlook & comparison

Before giving the detail results for each country it is helpful to provide some information
how these countries are developing economically. It is also important to compare what is
the average standard of living. Those questions can be partly answered by the graph
below which compares the electricity consumption and GDP per one habitant. To
illustrate the development process and changes that had taken place the Evolution over
1980-2000 of these two parameters has been presented.

Figure 1. Evolution over 1980-2000 of the Electric consumption per capita linked with GDP per capita
PPP (* for Poland evolution covers the period from 1990-2000).

The European Union Countries i.e. Germany and Poland have the biggest value of GDP
per capita and they also consume the most electricity per capita. It means that the
standard of living of average person is higher than in other countries. Poland has
significantly increased GDP (*in 10 years) with not so significant grow of electricity
consumption. Also Turkey and especially China have significantly improved the GDP
during analyzed 20 years period. This development was linked with to lower increase in
electricity use per capita for China. In case of Brazil one can noticed the relatively high

increase in electricity consumption but little growth in GDP per caita. Algeria seems to
be in worse situation as the electricity consumption has been increased while GDP per
capita went down. There are also very big differences in primary energy mix to produce
electricity in these countries. Before looking far in the past let us present the situation in
2000. Some countries are more dependent on one main energy source i.e. Algeria (natural
gas), Brazil (hydro), China and Poland (coal).

Algeria

China

Germany

Brazil

Poland

Turkey

The others like Germany and Turkey have more differentiated mix of primary energies
they use to generate electricity. The information mentioned above are helpful to better
understand the energy policies and decisions on energy development that have been made
by Governments.

Brazil
Brazil is the 10th largest energy consumer in the world and the third largest in the
Western Hemisphere, behind the United States and Canada. Total primary energy
consumption in Brazil has increased significantly in recent years. In addition, Brazil has
made great strides in increasing its total energy production, particularly oil, over the past
decade. Increasing domestic oil production has been a long-term goal of the Brazilian
government.
In time of first oil shock in 1973, Brazil was net importer of ca. 30 Mtoe. In 1975
regulation was introduced to blend to gasoline 10% of ethanol. The ethanol production
from sugar cane has started. This level was steadily raised to 25% over the next five
years. Very favorable conditions for new sugar industry were established (e.g. tax
exemptions, soft loans After the world's second oil-price shock, a Proalcool program (In
Brazil, ethanol is called "alcool") was started to even sped up the efforts towards ethanol.
As a result, oil imports started to decline as presented in the figure below:
R1-Brazil-Net oil imports/ net energy imports
140%

60

120%

50
40

80%
30
60%

[Mtoe]

ratio

100%

20

40%

10

20%
0%

0
1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

Brazil-Net oil imports/ net energy imports

Figure 2. Ratio of Brazil net oil imports to net energy imports.

2000

Oil import

Source: BP Statistical Review 2007

The policy of supporting ethanol production from sugar cane has been continued. As a
result Brazil decreased significantly it oil dependency and is close to become oil
independent.
In seventies Brazil decreased its energy consumption and improve energy intensity factor.
During eighties and early nineties the energy intensity remained almost constant (there
were some fluctuations). However, since 1995 the energy intensity started to increase
rapidly as the energy consumption has grown faster than GDP what is presented in the
figure below:

R2-Brazil-Energy consumption /GDP

155

2,E+06

ratio [TOE / M$]

1,E+06
145

1,E+06

140

8,E+05
6,E+05

135

4,E+05
130

[GDP constant 2000 PPP]

1,E+06

150

2,E+05

125

0,E+00
1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

Brazil-Energy consumption/ GDP

Figure 3. Ratio of energy consumption to GDP.

1995

2000

GDP

Source: World Development Indicators 2007

In seventies net energy imports (mainly oil) constituted more than 30 % of Brazil energy
consumption. Because of the strategic development of ethanol economy this ration has
been changed and at the beginning of 21 century the ratio decline down to 10%.
R3-Brazil-Net energy imports / energy consumption

50%
45%
40%
35%

ratio

30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
1966

1971

1976

1981

1986

1991

1996

2001

Brazil-Net energy imports / energy consumption

Figure 4. Ratio of net energy imports to energy conumption.

Source: BP Statistical Review 2007

2006

The figure below shows how successful has been the development program of ethanol
production. The country has switched from big oil importer to almost being oil
independent. The economy is not any longer dependent on foreign oil supply.
R4-Brazil-Net oil imports /GDP

70
60

ratio (TOE/M$)

50
40
30
20
10
0
1966

1971

1976

1981

1986

1991

1996

2001

2006

Brazil-Net oil imports /GDP

Figure 5. Ratio of net oil imports to GDP.

Source: BP Statistical Review 2007

The use of bioethanol enable Brazil to maintain the CO2 intensity at the almost stable
level.
R5-Brazil-CO2 emissions/ energy consumption

1,80
1,60

ratio (tCO2 /toe)

1,40
1,20
1,00
0,80
0,60
0,40
0,20
0,00
1966

1971

1976

1981

1986

1991

1996

2001

Brazil-CO2 emissions/ energy consumption

Figure 6. Ratio of CO2 emissions to energy consumption.

Source: BP Statistical Review 2007

2006

It is worth to note that CO2 intensity is almost 2 times lower than e.g. for Poland.
The example of Brazil shows that development of bioethanol economy can be a
successful strategy in terms of security of supply and energy independency. Also CO2
intensity stays in this case at almost constant level. However, one should not forget about
huge environmental consequences caused by transformation of Brazylian forests into
sugar cane plantations and losses in biodiversity. Because of the large scale of
irreversible changes in ecosystems it remains questionable whether such development ,
despite of all advantages, meets the sustainable energy development criteria.

POLAND
Polish primary energy mix differs from those of its European counterparts. Poland has
total hard coal reserves of close to 30 000 million tonnes, of which around 4000 million
tonnes are operational at present. That is why domestic solid fuels constitute 65 percent
of primary energy. Poland is close to be 100 percent selfsufficient from an electricity
production point of view, but also intensive in emissions of carbon and of other
traditional pollutants such as SOx, NOx and dust.
Poland has based on coal since a long time. The rich coal deposits were known the since
15th16th century. Because of this context during the time of first oil shock in 1973,
Poland was not so much affected (it was still exporting coal to other countries) as
presented in the figure below:.
R1-Poland-Net oil imports/ net energy imports
25

5000%
4000%

20
3000%
15

ratio

[Mtoe]

2000%
1000%

10

0%
1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

-1000%
-2000%

0
Polandl-Net oil imports/ net energy imports

Solid Fuel Exports

Figure 7. Ratio of Polish net oil imports to net energy imports (on the right). Source: BP Statistical Review
2007. Solid fuel exports (on the right). Source: DG TREN 2006.

The fluctuations on the figure can be explained as follows: Polands oil and natural
imports where in the past 30 years at the very close level to the hard coal exports. Oil
imports has been steadily increasing from over 11 Mtoe in 1973 up to almost 20 Mtoe in
2004. Up to 1981 Poland was net energy exporter. Then in 1981 the solidarity
movements has started and because of this the war state was introduced. Many miners
went on strike and coal production was dropped (we can observed the first peak on the
figure presenting the ratio of Polish net oil imports to net energy imports. In few years the
strikes were finished and again the coal was produced in big amounts. However, in late
eighties Poland started to introduced reforms to decrease coal mining (one can observe
the peak on the figure again). After that period the fluctuations are caused by changes in
solid fuel exports as a consequence of weather conditions (solid fuels exports, notably,
hard coal are marked with red dashed line on the Figure above). .

After transition of Polish system from communism to open economy the heavy industry
started to collapse. Naturally, new low energy intensive sectors have started to grow and
contribute to the increase of GDP. It resulted in the constant decrease of energy intensity.
R2-Poland-Energy consumption /GDP

400,00
350,00

ratio (TOE / M$)

300,00
250,00
200,00
150,00
100,00
50,00
0,00
1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

Poland-Energy consumption /GDP

Figure 8. Polands energy intensity.

Gas and oil imports have been steadily increasing since seventies. Both fuels are mainly
imported (recently the ambitious program has been lunched to increase domestic
production). In eighties Poland has started to developed the natural gas pipe system for
individual space heating systems. Currently, gas pipes are located almost in each village.
As mentioned above oil consumption has increased mainly due to development of
transport sectors. In parallel, because of transition of Polands economy, primary energy
consumption started to decrease. This can be illustrated by the Figure below:

R3-Poland-Net energy imports / energy consumption

20%
15%
10%

ratio

5%
0%
1966
-5%

1971

1976

1981

1986

1991

1996

2001

2006

-10%
-15%
-20%
Poland-Net energy imports / energy consumption

Figure 9. Ratio of net energy imports to energy consumption.

Source: BP Statistical Review 2007

Poland has been developing very since nineties. Just for illustration in 2006, GDP grew at
a rate of 5.3%, and in the first quarter of 2007 it expanded 7.4 percent. This
notwithstanding the ratio of net oil imports to GDP has remained at plateau during this
time (slight decrease can be observed). As presented in the Figure below It was possible
to decouple increase of economy from oil consumption.
R4-Poland-Net oil imports /GDP

60,00

50,00

ratio (TOE/M$)

40,00

30,00

20,00

10,00

0,00
1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

Poland-Net oil imports /GDP

Figure 10. Ratio of net oil imports to GDP.

Source: BP Statistical Review 2007

2002

2004

2006

Finally, mainly due to improvements of energy conversion efficiency after 1980 also
CO2 intensity has decreased. One could observe the slight increase of CO2 intensity in
2003. Perhaps the energy sector has nearly reached the potential for efficiency
improvements with the existing generation fleet. On the other hand, one could expect that
due to enhancing of co-firing of biomass with coal, the decreasing trend was kept in the
following years.
R5-Poland-CO2 emissions/ energy consumption

3,75
3,70
3,65

ratio (tCO2 /toe)

3,60
3,55
3,50
3,45
3,40
3,35
3,30
3,25
1966

1971

1976

1981

1986

1991

1996

2001

2006

Poland-CO2 emissions/ energy consumption

Figure 11. Ratio of CO2 emissions to energy consumption.

Source: BP Statistical Review 2007

The example of Poland shows that its strategy in terms of security of supply and energy
independency is to make use of the domestic fossil fuel. This made the country not so
much affected by oil crises. Big improvements has been made of conversion efficiency
from primary to secondary energy. It is worth to mention that the centralized heat and
power sector of Poland is one of the most efficient in EU thanks to large use of cogeneration.
This notwithstanding, the main fuels used are hard and brown coal. These are fossil,
exhaustible fuels having a strong impact on global warming. Partial solution may be to
replace the old generation fleet with new highly efficient coal technologies with carbon
capture and sequestration.

Electric power consumption (kWh per capita)

8 000,00
7 000,00
6 000,00
5 000,00
4 000,00
3 000,00
2 000,00
1 000,00
0,00
0,00

5 000,00

10 000,00

15 000,00

20 000,00

25 000,00

GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2000 international $)

30 000,00