International and Comparative Energy Policies

Abstract

It is the besetting sin of national energy planners to underestimate the degree of interdependence of the world energy economy which persists despite the strenuous efforts and ambitions of government programmes designed to create regional, if not national, energy self-sufficiency among the major industrial powers. The only antidote to this phenomenum is to stand back and survey the world energy economy as a whole and then go on to attempt to summarise the energy policies of the major powers who constitute by far the greater part of world energy production and consumption despite the crucial part played by the OPEC states in the world oil market.