The International Energy Investment Dilemma

There is today no such phenomenon as a unified international energy market. It is a myth, and a very dangerous one. Let us dispose of it at the outset. There never has been a global energy market. What there is, at the consumer end, is an amalgam of national energy systems developed from local resources onto which have been grafted various energy imports. Of these, the only truly internationally traded energy commodity is oil. For their base-load energy needs, most national economies have relied on committed systems of domestic supply usually embedded deeply in their own public utility infrastructure and industrial systems. The prices to the consumer of all these forms of energy are heavily masked by subsidy, taxation, and other forms of government control. The availability of domestic energy varies greatly from country to country. There are therefore great variations between countries (and also within countries) in the resource cost of energy and the price to the consumer.