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Another issue that is completely ignored in the course is the question of energy security. This has been a niche concern for many years and has also been raised by military experts as a potential serious problem. At the political level this has simply been ignored, until early 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Gas, and oil, prices dramatically increased followed by electricity (as gas-fired power stations dominate most western nations). Economic chaos ensued with massive hardships imposed on whole populations. The folly of being dependent on just one primary energy source from an unfriendly country – viz Russian gas – has been exposed as the stupidity that was always warned about.
The problems have also been compounded by the global reliance on an economic model that fixes energy prices largely independent on the actual costs of supply, but on an artificial free-market. The economics of energy supply, and hence oil supply, are clearly broken and not fit for purpose, but the whole economic model is so imbedded in political thinking that there is little chance of it changing soon. For this course material to be so obviously in hock to the current economic models is disappointing given the existential threats we now face. We are now realizing that these concerns are of far greater importance than the economics, but that is not reflected in this course.
So overall, interesting with some useful factual data but largely overtaken by events since it was written. The emphasis is wrong nowadays and it’s relevance for today’s world is debatable.