What Are Political Barriers

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An energy pathway is the route that transports energy from the source to the consumer; these pathways are often disrupted by economic and political factors. Firstly, there are political tensions between the Middle East and Western powers such as America. With these severed political links because of different ideologies, conflict and perhaps a dictatorship vs. a democracy it creates an unstable, unequal energy pathway. This is because the Middle East has the majority of power in the relationship, they are the source of energy with their expansive oil fields and belong to OPEC who control the prices of oil creating a monopoly situation furthermore the tension is concentrated because many western countries are energy insecure from their lack…show more content…
This then creates social unrest in the country due to its reliance on threatening foreign countries shown by the UK fuel protests of 2000 and economically rising energy prices due to the vast majority of the market that is held by the OPEC group creating recession, fuel poverty and a decline in development rate as there is not the energy supply to keep things moving for example electricity shortages and cut-outs in Italy and India reducing investment and not encouraging growth. The impact of this has been reduced because it has led to more adventurous exploitations of previously unfeasible natural fuel pockets such as the UK’s North Sea oil and gas venture that has increased their energy security and also America’s fracking projects in Texas and oil drilling in Alaska which allowed them both to become less dependant on the disrupted energy pathways from the Middle East, increasing their energy security because they have their larger sources and more diverse fuel sources to use. This has however had an economic impact because it is very expensive to reach these more obscure pockets of energy and this can increase energy prices in the country, this can then potentially lead to panic buying where much of the stored fuel is bought by people worried about more fuel
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