Redefining Energy Security: The New Prize in a Time of Arctic Petroleum Resources and Technological Development

Abstract

This chapter challenges the traditional notion of energy security, arguing that new and emerging technologies pertaining to petroleum production and transport are creating a new energy paradigm. The production of previously inaccessible shale gas in North America and petroleum in the Arctic is challenging the existing energy paradigm that postulates energy security is built around security of supply, price affordability and environmental sustainability. This holds the Middle East as the major producer of petroleum and the US, Europe and Asia, the major consumers. Petroleum production from shale formations and offshore Arctic is changing this global dynamic as countries race to unlock new resources in the Arctic, potentially at any cost.

The new energy paradigm and the resultant realignment of international energy security that results from these developments will be examined. Technological developments, when combined with a changing physical world, are creating a new prize in petroleum: Arctic oil and gas, which will forever alter the traditional energy paradigm that has existed since the early twentieth century.