エネルギーセキュリティと原子力の役割に関する考察

摘要

地球規模での3E問題である，環境保全（Environmentalpreservation），経済成長（Economic growth），およびエネルギーセキュリティ（Energy security）の問題を克服して世界で持続可能な発展（Sustainable Development）を達成することは，21世紀最大の課題であろう。そのため，最近になり国家エネルギー政策に関わる様々な提言が行われている。総合科学技術会議，原子力委員会や資源エネルギー庁などから，地球温暖化の問題における原子力の役割やその推進への期待が示されている。%Energy security was a major concern for OECD governments in the early 1970s. Since then, successive oil crises, volatility of hydrocarbon prices, as well as terrorist risks and natural disasters, have brought the issue back to the centre stage of policy agendas. Here, an energy security concept has been proposed, which is defined by time frame and space frame as well. Wide-meaning energy security is divided broadly into two categories. One is short-term (～10 y) energy crisis, which is narrow-meaning energy security. Short-term energy crisis is further divided into contingent crisis, such as energy supply chain (sealane) interruption due to conflict, accident, terrorism, etc., and structural crisis, such as price fluctuations, supply shortage, energy demand increase in Asia, technology development stagnation, etc. The other is long-term (～100 y) energy crisis and global energy problems, such as fossil fuel exhaustion and global warming.