Turkey's energy insecurity.

At the crossroads where East meets West, the energy demands of the future confront the unsustainable policies of the present.

The economic boom underway throughout much of the developing world today is spurring a surge in energy markets the likes of which have not been seen since the 1960s. The International Energy Agency projects that developing countries' energy use will nearly double by 2010, and that their share of the world total will grow from the current 27 percent to 40 percent. While such figures can be seen as signs of progress, they bear seeds of danger as well. If the new demand is met mainly by fossil fuels, rising oil prices and spreading environmental damage could undermine the economic development that extended energy use is intended to trigger.

Turkey is a country that epitomizes the dilemma. A cultural bridge between East and West, and a geographic one between oil producers and consumers, Turkey lies at the crossroads of the industrial and developing worlds. Occupying a territory more than twice the size of Germany or Japan, it has a population of 60 million - projected to reach 80 million by 2010 - and a rapidly industrializing economy. Yet, in its per capita income and energy use, it is closer to Brazil or Thailand than to its industrialized fellow members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

As it strives to catch up with its European neighbors, one of the biggest challenges Turkey faces is providing the energy needed to fuel the engine of economic development. With limited domestic energy resources, on top of growing economic and ecological constraints, Turkey is at the brink of critical decisions regarding its energy options. Will it slavishly follow the West's outdated example, and rely heavily on fossil fuels and nuclear power generation - or will it make the leap to an energy system based on high efficiency, natural gas, and renewable resources? As many other developing countries have discovered, these rapidly evolving new technologies can be more economical than the conventional sources of the past.

Turkey's energy use has doubled since the early 1980s. The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources estimates that it will jump another 148 percent between 1994 and 2010. Following these projections, the government has embarked on an ambitious campaign to maximize existing energy supplies and tap into new ones.

Because much of the increased demand is for electricity, to provide household amenities as well as to power industries, this is the government's most immediate concern. Projections by the state-owned Turkish Electricity Authority (TEK) reveal that the country may soon face power shortages unless new investments are undertaken. Accordingly, plans are proceeding for 44 coal-fired, 14 gas-fired, and 2 nuclear power plants, as well as for scores of hydro-electricity projects to be in service by 2010. This translates into 40,000 megawatts (MW) of new capacity to be added between 1995 and 2010, bringing the total to nearly 60,000 MW (see table).

Unlike its neighbors, Iraq and Iran, Turkey is not endowed with significant oil reserves. Four-fifths of its oil is already imported, and dependence on imports is rising as domestic production dwindles further. Because oil is both expensive and limited in supply, it is used mainly for transportation and industry, rather than for power generation.

TURKEY'S PRIMARY ENERGY AND ELECTRICITY SUPPLY
(percent share of total)

                 PRIMARY ENERGY           ELECTRICITY

                1995        2010      1995           2010

COAL             33          42        35             41
OIL              48          28         6         [less than]1
GAS              13          19        17             25
HYDRO             5           4        41             28
RENEWABLES   [less than]1     4    [less than]1   [less than]1
NUCLEAR           -           3         -              5

Source: International Energy Agency

Turkey's most abundant fossil fuel is lignite, a low-quality, highly polluting coal, so coal-fired power generation is the backbone of the country's power system. To add capacity, the government plans to start constructing four more large lignite-fired power plants in 1995 alone. However, burning this kind of coal emits enormous quantities of carbon dioxide, sulfur oxides, ash, and particulates, all of which cause heavy environmental damage. Several of the existing lignite-fired plants are located on beautiful coastal sites along the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, which attract thousands of tourists each year. Despite protests by local citizens and environmental groups, the government has gone back on its promises to shut these down. Its only response to pollution from coal-fired power generation has been to invest in flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems in new plants and some of the existing ones. But FGD systems are expensive, and they only remove sulfur. Environmental damages caused by other pollutants continue to mount.

Turkey obtains more than 10,000 MW - nearly half of its electricity - from hydropower. The new Southeast Anatolia Project alone, which involves 21 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, will supply an additional 7,500 MW of capacity when completed in 2005. But the future potential of hydropower, too, is limited, since by then about three-quarters of the country's hydro potential will have been exploited.

To supplement the country's coal-fired and hydropower plants, Turkish policymakers have again turned to nuclear power - an option that was considered in the past but abandoned after the 1986 Chernobyl accident irradiated Turkey's Black Sea coast and contaminated its staple tea and hazelnut crops. After memory of the disaster faded, the Turkish government announced early this year that it will build the country's first nuclear power plant in Akkuyu on the southern Mediterranean coast, to be followed by another in the next few years. Local mayors and citizens, as well as international environmental groups, have objected strongly to the massive 1,200 MW facility, and a contentious national debate over nuclear energy has now begun.

Government officials claim that nuclear power generation is needed to supplement the country's other power sources, but the total generating capacity from the two planned nuclear plants - around 2,000 MW - will meet only 5 percent of Turkey's projected electricity demand in the year 2010. On the other hand, the financial costs of these nuclear plants, not only of construction, but also of fuel handling, waste disposal, maintenance, and R & D, will easily exceed the cost of simply importing that much electricity.

In addition, all nuclear plants, even the supposedly more reliable Western designs, carry risks of catastrophic accidents - risks that can be heightened by the extremely demanding maintenance requirements of these plants. And there is still no safe disposal method for nuclear waste, some forms of which remain deadly for thousands of years. Because of such heavy financial and safety costs, nuclear power makes up only 5 percent of the world's electricity supply. Of the 25 members of the OECD, only two were still building nuclear power plants in 1994. Even the World Bank, the largest lender to power projects in the developing world, refuses to finance nuclear plants on the grounds that their economic costs cannot be justified.

For the same reasons, many industrialized and developing countries - including Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, the Philippines, Austria, Spain, and Italy, all of which at some point considered nuclear energy - have decided not to pursue this option. In the U.S., no new nuclear plants have been ordered since 1979. In France, where nuclear sources supply a large share of electricity, the state utility is suffering from a sizable debt due to its heavy investment in nuclear energy. In the meantime, some countries are working to dismantle existing nuclear plants. Most recently, the Ukraine has made the decision to shut down the Chernobyl plant within the next five years.

In its choices of energy sources for future power generation, Turkey seems driven to emulate the past policies of the West. Yet, the West is already beginning to move beyond those policies - having found that heavy dependence on oil, coal, and nuclear technologies exacts economic, environmental and social costs that were never anticipated during the boom years of their industrialization. And now those costs are becoming apparent in Turkey.

The existing global energy system is a trap, not just because it threatens public and environmental health, but because it cripples developing economies by tying up their investments in inefficient technologies. When projections of future energy demand are based on these older technologies, fuel needs are often overestimated, and too much emphasis is put on building capacity. But as factories, cars, refrigerators, and lights become more efficient, much of the new capacity is not needed. Turkey, too, may be caught in this trap if it invests in mega-energy schemes based on inflated projections of future demand, without first evaluating its potential for greater energy efficiency in all sectors of its economy.

But Turkey can avoid the trap by developing an energy strategy that emphasizes efficiency and renewable sources, increases the role of natural gas, and decreases reliance on the other fossil fuels. It should give priority to improving the efficiency of its overall economy, since a large proportion of its energy use is still wasted. Compared with other OECD countries, Turkey consumes twice as much energy per unit of GNP. A study conducted by the Turkish Chamber of Electrical Engineers found that 43 percent of the country's electricity use is wasted, and an annual savings of $3.6 billion could be achieved through better insulation and improved electrical connections.

Other developing countries, including Thailand and Mexico, are getting big returns on their investments in improving energy efficiency. Brazil operates a national electricity conservation program, which by spending only $6 billion in energy efficiency programs over the next twenty years aims to save $50 billion of investment in new power plants. China is developing new efficiency standards for appliances, and new institutions are being set up to promote efficiency in a variety of areas ranging from buildings to transportation. Turkey can benefit by implementing similar efficiency measures.

Turkey also needs to reconsider its energy supply choices. Until the late 1980s, natural gas use was virtually non-existent in Turkey, mainly because the country has very limited natural gas reserves of its own. But since then, the imports of gas, mostly from Russia, have grown rapidly. As in other countries, the efficient use of natural gas could provide Turkey with a relatively benign and smooth "bridge" to the 21st century energy systems. Gas has a higher energy content per unit of carbon than coal does, and is substantially cleaner. For example, an average gas-fired power plant produces 60 percent less carbon dioxide and 90 percent less nitrous oxides and sulfur dioxide than the equivalent coal-fired plant. Natural gas costs more per unit of energy than coal, but can be burned more efficiently via a turbine. Moreover, gas-fired power plants are the cheapest to build and operate. In the United States, for example, building a 1,000 MW natural gas-fired plant costs $700 million, whereas a coal-fired plant with an FGD system would cost about $1.5 billion, and a nuclear plant $3 billion.

To supplement Turkey's two existing gas-fired power plants, three new ones are planned, each with 450 MW capacity. According to the state-owned gas pipeline agency, the new plants will double the domestic demand for natural gas, so the government has been looking for more sources. It began importing liquified natural gas (LNG) from Algeria last year, and may soon buy from Qatar and Egypt. It is expanding natural gas imports from Siberia, and is eyeing the construction of a massive gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, which will eventually run to Vienna, Austria, establishing Turkey as an energy bridge to the West European market.

However, the import of natural gas into Turkey, like that of oil, is not without complications. The abundant natural gas resources of the Central Asian republics, some of the largest fields in the world, still have no outlet to the West, and the construction of pipelines is threatened by political chaos in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Georgia. The most strategically viable pipeline route from Turkmenistan to Turkey runs through Iran's northern territory. Although Turkey and Iran have agreed on the pipeline, Western investors in the project, especially the United States, are not happy about the prospect of Iran controlling gas exports from the Central Asian republics to the West.

On the other hand, Turkey has an abundance of sunlight and wind, as well as of uninhabited land not suitable for agriculture or grazing. Some of this currently unproductive land, especially in the arid high plateaus in Central Anatolia, could be made highly productive via the construction of solar and wind farms. No comprehensive assessment of Turkey's solar and wind energy potential has yet been undertaken, but the results of such an assessment could provide a welcome solution to Turkey's energy dilemma, while establishing the basis for highly attractive private and public investments in the country's future.

Although domestically manufactured solar water heaters have long been in use in villages and tourist resorts along the sunny coasts of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, photovoltaic cells are almost nonexistent in Turkey, and wind power generation is still at an experimental stage. On the international energy market, however, the costs of solar photovoltaic cells and wind turbines have fallen dramatically since the early 1980s, to levels that are now competitive with conventional sources. Experiences in California and Denmark, for example, have proven that wind-power technology can compete effectively with fossil fuels - both in generating capacity and in price. Wind turbines now provide commercial electricity in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Argentina, China and India, and serve thousands of rural communities around the world. When India opened its power market to independent generators and foreign investors, renewable energy technologies boomed; more than 300 MW of wind turbine capacity will be installed this year. And in California, the amount of non-polluting, non-depletable electricity produced from wind would be enough to serve the entire city of Ankara.

Countries around the Mediterranean are harnessing their wind and solar potential instead of opting to build nuclear plants. In Israel, solar energy provides almost three percent of the country's primary energy, replacing around 300,000 tons of oil every year. In Tarifa, Spain, the Mediterranean's largest wind power station provides energy for 25,000 homes. Greece, too, is investing in new solar and wind technologies after scrapping plans to build its first nuclear plant.

With its Mediterranean climate, open highlands, and access to 21st-century energy technologies, Turkey has the opportunity to solve its energy problems without subjecting itself to the huge burdens of outdated technologies. Because wind and solar technologies are easy to install, Turkey could increase its generating capacity much faster by using these than if it embarks on the long planning and construction period nuclear plants require. In the short-term, of course, it will need to focus on overcoming the financial and political difficulties of getting natural gas into the country. As natural gas becomes more accessible, Turkish strategists will see that their country can save money on a very large scale if the funds now allocated to build nuclear plants are invested, instead, in improving efficiency and developing renewable technologies.

Odil Tunali is a staff researcher at the Worldwatch Institute.