Atlantic Community:Global Must Read Article "Free Markets For Real Energy Security"

On both sides of the Atlantic, foreign policy analysts have convinced politicians that the West faces a severe energy security challenge, stating that energy policy has become high politics, turning energy security into hard security. But, as Pierre Noël of Cambridge University argues, dreams about energy independence lead to expensive policies with no real energy security benefits. He argues that rather than getting NATO involved with securing the West's energy supply, as some call for, we should let the markets work and embrace the opportunities that higher prices offer. Thus, since the first oil shock, the energy intensity of the US GDP (the amount of oil used per a unit of wealth created) has declined by almost 60 per cent, and free markets have protected the US from shortages during recent crises, while import and price regulations are a central cause of the chronic oil shortages in China. The Financial Times, January 10, 2008