Foreword
Article Type: Foreword From: International Journal of Energy Sector Management, Volume 7, Issue 2
The Gulf Co-operation Countries (GCC) are experiencing fast economic growth created by the discovery and exporting of primary energy resources (oil and natural gas (NG)). As a result, the GCC populations increased more than 13 million (M) from 2003 to 2011 to peak at 46.8 M at the end of 2011 and it is projected to rise to 49.8 M in 2013. As an example, Qatar population reached 1.951 M as of July 2011, compared to 0.62 M in January of 2001, more than three times in ten years.
The GCC’s gross domestic product (GDP) is predicted to reach $1.5 trillion in 2013, according to Qatar National Bank (QNB) study. The study forecast that the GCC’s real GDP growth would reach 4.6 per cent in 2012-2013, outperforming the global GDP growth, which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects at 3.6 per cent. The report said GCC real GDP grew at an annual rate of 4.7 per cent from 2007 to 2011 compared with a global growth rate of 2.8 per cent. Nominal GDP, which was US$341.6 bn in 2000, is forecast to soar to US$2trillion in 2020.
It is difficult to sustain such economic growth. Although the GCC is rich in fuel resources, all the GCC, except Qatar, face NG fuel shortage to operate their power plants, and started to import NG. The excessive domestic consumption of energy is draining the fuel resources and as such domestic wealth at higher rates than that of produced fuel rates. Water scarcity and very hot summer environments necessitate extensive productions of electric power (EP) and desalted seawater (DW). The EP is mainly used to run air conditioning (AC) in almost all buildings. The DW is to satisfy the municipal water requirement. As an example Qatar and Kuwait depend on DW to satisfy 99.9 and 93 per cent of their municipal water needs, respectively. AC load is responsible for 67 per cent of summer EP load in Kuwait. The consumptions of EP and DW are rising at alarming rates. The fuel produced in some of these countries can be totally consumed within 2-3 decades. Most of the fresh natural ground waters (GW) are over-exploited, depleted, and deteriorated. GW is used inefficiently for irrigation system that produce very low share of food requirements.
A key challenge for the GCC is to manage energy, water and food resources to ensure both high living standards and sustainable growth in the long term.
From 2000 to 2010 the fuel oil production increases at an average close to 20 per cent, while oil consumption rate increased close to 120 per cent.
Although, the NG productions rate is more than its consumption rate for the GCC as whole, on an individual country basis, and except for Qatar; all GCC,consumption rate is much more than the production rate. Consequently, the GCC,except Qatar are looking to import NG.
Continuous growing of primary energy local demands would decline its export, and thus would decline the main income of these countries. Saudi Arabia currently consumes over one-quarter of its total oil production – some 2.8 M barrels a day.
It becomes difficult for oil and NG supply to match the demand of growing population and economy. The current consumption patterns are not sustainable,and hard to manage in the region, where energy prices are very low or even free because of heavy subsidy.
While it is possible that high oil prices could persist and result in significant revenues over a long period in the future, a major question remains as to whether it is advisable to proceed with expenditures on excessive energy and water use against the alternative of allocating the resources involved to the development of the non-oil sector and the creation of employment opportunities for newcomers in the job market.
The EU-GCC Clean Energy Network creates a good opportunity for the GCC in the thinking of alternatives to abundant low cost energy with fewer concerns to energy efficiency. It provides opportunities in communicating with the EU experiences of expensive prime energy with real concern of energy efficiency and looking for alternative renewable energy. Both EU and GCC have common interest to mitigate the emission of greenhouses gases (GHG), develop clean energy especially solar energy, promote energy efficiency, and energy and water demand management, and electricity interconnection.
Concerning this issue, its aim is to provide structured information and comprehensive studies, based on the results obtained from the collaboration of EU and GCC stakeholders, on issues related to energy efficiency and sustainability.
We do hope that this special issue, presenting an indicative part of the scientific work carried out so far, within the network, will contribute to the wide dissemination of clean energy opportunities for EU-GCC clean energy cooperation, as well as trigger further the interest to enhance such collaborative efforts.
Rabi Mohtar, Mohamed Ali DarwishQatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, QEERI, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar
