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Foreign dependency on energy and relations with Russia

Turkey is going through a serious social and political crisis process.



With especially the risks taken regarding its Syria policy, our country is being dragged into a new chaos by the day.



On the one hand there is the political, social and financial burden (nearly $7 billion) undertaken by accepting the millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria and taken refuge in Turkey, while on the other hand we are at the brink of war with different countries and groups.



Lastly, Russia's air operations on Syria, harassing our planes, violating our airspace and reciprocal tensions, has made it necessary to lay all ties with Russia on the table once again.



Thus, we scrutinized Turkey's importation and production of energy as well as it energy dependency on Russia.



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Energy, which has an undebatable place in human life, has no alternative in industrial, commercial and household use.



Energy is also a human right.



It is considered that there is a positive relationship between energy and the level of development.



Since Turkey is a developing country, its energy demand and hence production are rapidly increasing. Such that the electric energy production that was 34.219 GWh in 1985 has reached 240154 GWh by the end of 2013.



The foundation of the hot and cold wars worldwide is the effort to possess energy sources and to keep them under control.



The conflicts in various regions of the world, particularly the Middle East, need to be analyzed in this context.



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Turkey makes the majority of its import from Russia ($25 billion, according to 2014 data). Whereas Turkey's exports to Russia is only $5.9 billion. So, our foreign trade deficit against Russia is about $20 billion.



For a country with which we have such high trade ties to violate our airspace and display aggressive attitude is unacceptable neither in terms of economics, nor politics or neighborhood relations.



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In 2014, Turkey imported $54 billion in energy raw materials. The majority of this was from Russia and to purchase natural gas.



The share of energy source import among total imports reaching 25 percent is an indication of the extent of dependency on foreign energy.



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While 49.3 percent of the electric energy in 1985 was coal, 35.2 percent was obtained from the energy produced at hydroelectricity plants.



In 2013, the share of energy obtained from coal declined to 26.6 percent, with the share obtained from hydroelectricity plants dropping to 24.7 percent.



While the rate at which national power generation met the demand was 48 percent in 1990, in 2013 this figure dropped significantly to 28.5 percent.



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With factors such as low-cost, use of less staff and environmental cleanliness gaining prominence in the second half of the 1990s, obtaining energy from natural gas cycle plants was encouraged.



The fact that we have no natural gas in our country and that it is imported was almost kept a secret from the public. While the total energy production achieved from natural gas in 1985 wasn't even 1 percent, in 2013 this rate rose to 43.8 percent. With the build-operate (transfer) models gaining support particularly after 1999, the amount of energy obtained from natural gas rapidly increased.



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The total natural gas imported in 2014 reached 49 billion m3, with 54.76 percent of this purchased from Russia and 18 percent from Iran. In other words, the share of natural gas imported from Russia and Iran is about 73 percent. Of the 49 billion m3 natural gas purchased, 48 percent was used at cycle plants for electric energy, 25 percent in the industry sector, 19 percent in housing (9,304) and 6 percent was used in the service sector.



Once the approved natural gas cycle plant investments (26.3 MW) are completed, the capacity stock will reach 47.6 MW. Running cycle plants of this capacity requires an additional 15-16 billion m3 natural gas.



In other words, the new projects that have been approved will further increase the natural gas need.



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Gas transmission on the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) will begin in 2018 and Turkey will be given 6 billion m3 of gas.



The uncertainty surrounding the Egypt, Turkmenistan and Iraq natural gas pipeline agreements continue.



In other words, there is no project other than TANAP on the agenda to transmit extra gas to Turkey in the near future.



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What should be done:



Providing sufficient, quality, continuous, reliable, environmentally-sensitive and low-price energy to the people, should be the country's fundamental policy.



Realistic alternatives should be produced to show that the image that Turkey is dependent on Russia's gas is not true. Deals made with Russia should ensure a balance in foreign trade, the idea to have the Russians build the Mersin-Akkuyu Nucler Energy plant should be reviewed.



New investments should replace power generation based on natural gas and imported coal.



Realistic energy supply demand projections need to be made and implemented along with plans (short, medium and long term) to save Turkey from foreign dependency.



Strategies need to be developed to reduce the share of fossil fuels such as natural gas, petrol and imported coal in energy consumption and electric energy production.



Strategies should be developed to evaluate and activate the potential in environmentally-sensitive wind, solar, geothermal, biofuel and hydroelectric energy.







#Syria
#Russia
#energy
8 years ago
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