Energy Parallels
Reading 'The Independent' (the Bangladeshi one) the
editorial was questioning the amount of foreign direct investment, increasing
the burden on the people of Bangladesh, but more importantly calling for an
energy strategy. Now where have we heard
that before - ah yes the UK.
Strange how a country such as Bangladesh can have
very similar parallels as, I hate to say, a developed country. Jury is still out on that one me thinks. However, I digress. Looking at it coldly - the UK's balance of
payments is going up increasing overall debt.
Likewise Bangladesh. The
difference - Bangladesh is using OPM (other people's money) as its leverage. UK, just adding it to the bottom line and
hoping for the best.
Secondly, the UK has gone through a series of
consultations over the last two years to get to, some would say, a maligned
Energy Bill. The Bill is designed to
'create' investment but define an 'energy strategy' for the remaining years
before the lights go out around 2017.
Bangladesh, around two years ago hired in temporary power to stop the
lights going off (they still do). Why
the temporary power, due to not having an energy strategy and not investing in modern
power plants and ultimately a diverse energy mix. Realising this, they are using OPM to do
this. Not the best solution.
Bangladesh’s dilemmas either to use all the new oil
and gas finds in the Bay of Bengal for the country, export the lot or do a
mixture reinvesting the income. This
seems a hard decision to do for the government. All they have to do is look at the UK and what
was done with the North Sea fields from the 70’s and fail to reinvest in
it. Hence the UK trying to design an
energy strategy, when the price of energy is rising etc. In the meantime, they will let foreign companies
give them the cash to develop power plants which the company owns etc etc etc
Only if one could look at the other and see how not
to do it, then maybe there are strategies rather than parallels for both
countries and not the headache that currently exists.
Footnote
Since writing this blog there has been another look at the energy alternatives (30Dec12) - The Energy Scenario - Alternatives
Footnote
Since writing this blog there has been another look at the energy alternatives (30Dec12) - The Energy Scenario - Alternatives