Energy

The influence of oil on conflict is often poorly understood. In U.S. public debates about the 1991 and 2003 Iraq wars, both sides focused excessively on the question of whether the United States was fighting for possession of oil reserves; neither sought a broader understanding of how oil shaped the preconditions for war.

A new study by Belfer Center Geopolitics of Energy researcher Leonardo Maugeri finds that oil production capacity is surging in the United States and several other countries at such a fast pace that global oil output capacity is likely to grow by nearly 20 percent by 2020.  This could prompt a plunge or even a collapse in oil prices.  The findings by Maugeri, a former oil industry executive who is now a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, are based on an original field-by-field analysis of the world’s major oil formations and exploration projects.

During the recent oil boom the MENA region has seen job creation accelerate' given favorable economic prospects going forward, the region could see unemployment decline to nearly 7 percent by 2010

The swiftness with which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched its civil nuclear program presents a number of challenges for policymakers in seeking to ensure the program's safety and security. At the onset of its efforts, the UAE government consulted with a set of the world's leading nuclear suppliers to develop a framework that would help its nuclear program conform to the highest standards in terms of safety, security, and nonproliferation. The UAE drew on these consultations in making a sweeping set of international commitments in April 2008 to ensure that the sensitive nuclear materials and technologies it would acquire as part of its nuclear program would be securely controlled.1 While the UAE has been widely praised for the depth and breadth of the nonproliferation commitments it has made, it will be the UAE's efficacy at complying with them by which its success will be judged.

This policy brief explains the origins of the UAE energy crisis, forecasts developments for 2010-2020, and posits recommendations for overall sector rationalization. If Emirati authorities take a proactive stance and address the structural elements of the natural gas shortage, the more extreme elements of the crisis would be mitigated without lasting damage to Emirati economic growth. As the UAE has prodigious natural gas reserves, slight modification of the natural gas pricing and the power sector tariff structures would be able to resolve the most serious issues facing the UAE in its drive towards industrialization and diversification.