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Energy in the Soviet Union
Energy in the Soviet Union recycle was something of the order of 1/17.4. These are very carefully worked figures, possibly the most precise available today for the energy requirements of nuclear power systems. That information tells us, ignoring the uranium energy, that for one unit of fossil energy resource, using a particular nuclear reactor, we can develop 17-4 units of electrical energy. (See Net energy of nuclear reactors, W. Rotty et al, Institute of Energy Analysis, Oak Ridge, Te, USA, 1976.) Leach in his NIl ratios (for example his Table 1) is telling us the same thing NIl is simply a ratio that tells us how much output is delivered for the sum of those inputs arising outside the system of interest. Such values, however, throw absolutely no light on the net energy of the systems under study. 3 G. Leach, 'Energy and food production', Food Policy, Vol 1 No 1. (November 1975) pp 62-73 4 M. Slesser, J. Sci Food & Agriculture, Vo124, (1973) p 1193 s Report 6, IFIAS, Nobel House, Sturegatan, Stockholm, Sweden SNet Energy Analysis, Report of the Energy Studies Unit, Strathclyde University, Scotland, 1976
Gerald Leach replies: I hate to cross swords with an old friend, but Malcolm Slesser's confused critique demands a response. I shall keep to his two main points. First, the charge that I ignored the inflationary impact of the energy requirement for energy. I thought this quaint idea was buried alongside energy theories of value, for to hold that slight year-byyear changes in the GER of delivered fuels can have more than an imperceptible effect on prices, when the financial accounts of energy industries are dominated by the costs of labour, capital, loan repayments and royalties (eg, OPEC) is at best eccentric. The GER of all UK energy supply industries has been falling steadily ~as inflation has raced ahead. With gas, where the fall has been most dramatic owing to the switch from manufactured to natural gas, prices have nevertheless soared upwards. Slesser admits there is no evidence on this issue and is doubtless more concerned about future trends as we move towards lower grade fuel sources and a greater conversion of primary to secondary fuel (coal gasification, hydrogen, etc). To be sure, these trends may increase both the energy subsidy and GER for fuels - though there are large opportunities for offsetting these
ENERGY
POLICY
June 1976
tendencies. But how can energy analysis measure their impact on inflation when its sums do not include such huge uncertainties as future labour costs, interest rates, or monopolistic and market pricing? Furthermore, there is an important methodological confusion here on Slesser's part. Since fuels carry only a notional economic value while in the ground, and are priced only when they become outputs from primary extraction industries, energy analysis can hope to relate to financial issues at least with primary fuels - only through measuring energy subsidies. The use of Slesser's favoured GER in this context is seriously misleading. This brings me to my second point, which is Slesser's accusation that my article dealt only with energy subsidy and not with net energy analysis. This is false. At several points I emphatically stressed that the measures relevant to energy subsidy (N, L etc) must be related to the resource base when one is considering energy flows. The ratio I gave for doing this happens to be the recriprocal of the Slesser/IFIAS gross energy requirement! It is ironic that while Slesser links my Table 1 with a disparaging remark about energy subsidy analysis, four of its nine columns are about the resource base and he was able to use it directly to construct his own list of GERs. Slesser says that a GER is the only figure that is really required. I believe this is nonsense (see below). I also believe in another IFIAS dictum: that one should present all pertinent numbers. Here I include resources rendered inaccessible due to extraction of fuels, as these are typically larger
than the energies extracted, and even though uncertain, have an important bearing on the ethics and energetics of resource depletion. Finally, let me say why I did put emphasis on energy subsidy - apart from the economic argument given above. One reason is historical. Net energy analysis became fashionable because of speculations that some supply sources (eg, oil shales, tar sands and rapidly growing nuclear programmes) might be 'net energy sinks' or 'energy losers'. These terms were used purely in the sense of energy subsidy: the sources might deliver less fuel to the main economy than they took from it. Since these terms - and the speculations surrounding them - have achieved wide currency among the public it seemed important to discuss them in similar language. The second reason is that net energy analysis in Slesser's GER terms is not suited to some energy sources, of which by far the most important is nuclear power. By counting as an input the potential fission energy of uranium, and not counting unburned uranium or plutonium byproducts as outputs (because they are not now recycled and one must keep to the 'time and technology specific' rule). Sles'ser's type of analysis achieves the remarkable feat of giving GERs for nuclear reactors which are virtually indistinguishable from the reciprocal of the uranium burn up fraction. I certainly don't think that kind of net energy analysis is any use. 1 p. Chapman, G. Leach and M. Slesser, "The energy cost of fuels,' Energy Policy, Vo12 No3, (September 1974) p p 2 3 1 43.
Energy in the Soviet Union A p r o m i n e n t c o m m e n t a t o r on Eastern European affairs takes up some points raised by J.H. Chesshire and Miss C. H u g g e t t in their paper, "Primary Energy production in the S o v i e t Union '1 which appeared in the S e p t e m b e r 1 9 7 5 issue of
Energy Policy. The issue of the Soviet Union's likely future role in the world's energy supply is a highly controversial one, with some observers sceptical about the magnitude of the contribution that the Russians will be able to make, and others expecting the USSR to continue to function as a significant exporter of primary
fuels. The review by Mr Chesshire and Miss Huggett ~ was a useful summary of the current situation and future prospects, pending publication of the new five-year plan (1976-80). However, there were a few specific points that ought to be corrected. In discussing the Soviet natural-gas 177
Energy in the Soviet Union industry, Mr Chesshire and Miss Huggett quite rightly stress the nearterm significance of the Central Asian fields, which in 1975 were expected to contribute 31% of total USSR output. However, the article errs in stating that Turkmenia, one of the two Central Asian gas-producing republics, reached 60000 million m 3 in 1972, overtaking Uzbekistan, the other republic. A glance at the official Soviet statistical yearbook would have shown that Turkmenia in 1972 produced only 21 000 million m 3 compared with Uzbekistan's 34000 million m 3. Turkmenia surpassed Uzbekistan in 1974. 2 Over the long term, of course, the vastly larger reserves in West Siberia will become the predominant factor in production. There also appears to be some confusion about Soviet natural gas trade; the article, evidently completed in early 1975, states that the USSR 'is, at present, a net importer' and will 'soon become' a major exporter of gas. I n fact, the Soviet Union became a net exporter in 1974. Exports rose from 5100 million m 3 in 1972 (not 1973, as the article states) to 14000 million m a in 1974, when imports (from Afghanistan and Iran) totalled I1 900 million m 3. Gas exports, dependent so far on fields in the Ukraine and in Central Asia, will now increase significantly as a result of the contractual arrangements with West European countries mentioned by the authors. West Siberian gas is beginning to join the export flow in 1976. Mr Chesshire and Miss Huggett, in discussing crude oil production in West Siberia, quite rightly stress the problems of infrastructure development in an undeveloped, hostile, physical environment. But, surely, 'difficulties in finding adequate water supplies for pressure maintenance' are not likely in the waterlogged, swampy Ob River country where the oilfields are situated. During a vist to the fields in February 1973, I found that the construction of waterinjection stations was an integral feature of oilfield development and they are being shown to visitors with as much pride as the producing wells themselves. A recent articie in the Soviet oil industry journal4 on the Samotlor field, in West Siberia, relates the volume of water injection to crude oil output and reservoir pressure, showing that water injection in 1974 was actually in excess of needs,
178
and reservoir pressure declined only slightly from the start of production in 1969. The rate of development of the West Siberian oilfieids has been more rapid than expected despite the infrastructure problems; as the article correctly points out, 1975 output was expected to be 147 million tons compared with the original goal of 125 million tons envisaged for 1975.
Confusion In the authors' discussion of coal, there is confusion regarding the significance of. the Kansk-Achinsk brown coal basin of southern Siberia, in the Krasnoyarsk region. This basin, as the article properly notes, has the largest reserves suitable for opencast mining with low extraction costs. But the authors confuse the issue by speaking of 'the relatively high costs of moving this coal to markets in the Urals and the Far East'. The point is not so much the high transport cost as the physical characteristics of Kansk-Achinsk coal, which is not transportable over long distances because it tends to pulverize and selfqgnite when exposed to the air for any length of time. This accounts for the long-term plan to burn Kansk-Achinsk coal in pithead power stations and transmit the electricity over extra-highvoltage lines to the energy-deficient areas of European Russia, west of the Urals. The Berezovka complex mentioned by the authors is a pilot project designed to test such a use of KanskAchinsk coal) The discussion of the coal industry speaks of major expansion supposedly planned on the Turgai coalfield in Kazakhstan. Development of the first opencast mine in the Kushmurun field, the biggest component of the Turgai basin, began in 1957, but was soon halted because of waterlogged overburden. The unfavourable hydrogeology would require costly drainage of the aquifers overlying the coal beds, and no early use of the basin is expected. 6 On the other hand, the section on coal ignores another brown-coal field in Kazakhstan, the Ekibastuz basin, which is mentioned later in connection with long-distance power transmission. The Ekibastuz field more than doubled its output since 1970, reaching 48 million tons in 1975 and moving into third
place among Soviet coal producers, after the Donets Basin of the Ukraine and the Kuznetsk Basin of southern Siberia, and ahead of Karaganda. Ekibastuz, though high in sulfur, has a slightly higher heating value than Kansk-Achinsk coal and, most important, is far more transportable. Ekibastuz brown coal has a large market area and is widely used as a fuel in power stations as far away as the Urals. However, as in the case of Kansk-Achinsk, the long-range potential of Ekibastuz lies in huge minehead power stations and the transmission of electricity over extra-high-voltage lines to European Russia. Two types of transmission systems are now in the testing stage, the 1500 kV dc system, mentioned by Chesshire and Huggett, to be built between Ekibastuz and Central Russia, and a 1150 kV ac system envisaged between the Kansk-Achinsk basin and load centres west of the Urals. 7 The use of ac and dc systems is apparently designed to compare the relative merits of the two technologies for the bulk power transfers that will ultimately be needed from the eastern energy-rich regions and the load centres in the European USSR. The 2200 kV dc system mentioned by the authors is evidently a much more distant possibility.
Pumped storage The authors also appear to minimise Soviet interest in pumped storage facilities by stating that, 'little progress seems to have been made along this route'. Not only are the advantages recognised, but development has been under way for some time. The Soviet Union's first pumped-storage installation went into operation in December 1970 in conjunction with the Kiev hydroelectric station on the Dnieper River? The Kiev pumped storage facility has a capacity of 225 MW. A larger installation, with a capacity of 1200 MW, is under construction near Zagorsk, northeast of Moscow. 9 Two others are planned, one, with a capacity of 1600 MW, near Kaunas in Lithuania, the other in conjunction with a nuclear power station under construction near Nikolayev, on the southern Bug River. Z° In conclusion, it might be worth noting that the key to future Soviet
ENERGY POLICY June 1976
Energy in the Soviet Union energy policy hinges, as Chesshire and Huggett quite rightly suggest, on a combination of four sources: West Siberian oil, West Siberian gas, nuclear power and the vast potential of the KanskAchinsk brown-coal basin. In view of an admittedly greater scarcity of hydrocarbon resources compared with coal resources, the share of oil and gas in the nation's fuel and energy balance is not likely to rise much higher than the present 65%. The outlook is for West Siberian oil and gas output to be brought up to levels roughly equivalent to total current Soviet production; this would mean about 500 million tons of oil and 300 billion m 3 of gas in West Siberia by about 1990. Nuclear power is likely to be used to meet much of the future demand increments in the western regions of the Soviet Union, except for the variable portions of power loads, which would be covered by thermal peaking capacity (including both large steam-electric units and smaller gas-turbine units) and pumped storage facilities. Kansk-Achinsk brown-coal production may be brought up to 200 million tons or more for the generation of electricity in minehead stations, for long-distance transmission. A portion of the coal may also be upgraded to a semi-coke for transportation, or may be used in coal gasification and synthetic fuel projects. As for the future role of the USSR as an energy exporter, this cannot be answered with certainty, as Chesshire and Huggett conclude. However, an important clue to long-term Soviet intentions may be found in the decision to go ahead with the 3299-km Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) project, whidh is merely alluded to in the article, in the context of Soviet oil exports to Japan. This enormous, 10-year, project is probably more significant in evaluating Soviet long-range designs than the passing mention may suggest. The railroad, extending from the Lake Baikal region to the Pacific, is clearly intended to open up new resource areas north of the present Trans-Siberian Railway, for export through Pacific ports. One resource, already contracted for with Japdn for delivery beginning about 1979, is highgrade coking coal from south Yakutia. In addition the BAM will serve, in combination with pipelines at western and eastern railheads, to carry crude oil
ENERGY
POLICY
June 1976
from the West Siberian fields to the Pacific coast. H Soviet planners predict that oil will make up 70 to 75% of freight movements on the BAM. The Soviet decision to go ahead with the ambitious rail project, without foreign participation, suggests that the inaccessibility of Siberian resources has been a serious stumbling block in Moscow's efforts to enlist Western interest in joint ventures. By building the new transport route, the Soviet planners evidently hope ultimately to make foreign participation in resource development projects more attractive. Even in the absence of joint ventures, the availability of access to remote resource sites would improve the Soviet Union's ability to offer Siberian energy sources on the world market. Theodore Shabad
Mr Shabad is editor of Soviet Geography: Review and Translation, a monthly translation journal, and author of the journal's "News Notes' on current economicgeographic developments in the Soviet Union, including fuels and energy and other resources. 145 East 84th Street, Apt. 12-F, New York, N.Y. 10028. 1J.H. Chesshire and Miss C. Huggett, 'Primary energy production in the Soviet Union,' Energy Policy, Vol 3 No 3, (September 1975), pp 223-244 z Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR v 1972 g. (The Economy of the USSR in 1972), statistical yearbook, Moscow, 1973, p207 3Vneshnyaya torgovlya za 1973 god (Foreign Trade in 1973), statistical yearbook, Moscow, 1974, pp 27, 42, Vneshnyaya torgovlya za 1974 god (Foreign Trade in 1974), Moscow, 1975, pp 29, 44 4 Neftyanoe khozyaistvo, May 1975, p 40 s Soviet. Geography: Review and Translation, September 1974, p 439 6V.A. Adamchuk and B. Ya. Dvoskin, Problemy razv[tiya promyshlennykh uzlov SSSR (na primere Kazakhstana) (Problems of Development of Industrial Nodes in the USSR (with particular reference to Kazakhtan)], Moscow, 1968, p 161 Izvestia, 27 February 1975 8Pravda, 28 December 1970; Soviet Geography, November 1971, p 619 9 Soviet Geography, November 1972, p 648; Sovetskaya Moldaviya, 22 August 1974 lo Sovetskaya Litva, 27 September 1974 11 V. Biryukov, 'The BaikaI-Amur Mainline, a major national construction project,' Soviet Geography, April 1975, pp 226227; N.P. Belenkiy and V.S. Maslennikov, 'The BaikaI-Amur Mainline railroad: its area of influence and projected freight flows,' Soviet Geography. October 1975, p512
J. Chesshire and Miss C. Hugget reply: Energy prospects of the Soviety Union, Eastern Europe and China remain major areas of uncertainty in the West, as a result of secrecy of reserve estimates, access to statisticaI sources and problems of language. We therefore welcome the corrections and more recent information provided. According to our sources, there are a number of statistical anomalies" (a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
Natural gas production in Turkmenia reached an annual level of 60 000 million m 3 February 1973, not 1972 as we stated. (See I.F. Elliot, The Soviet Energy Balance, Praeger, New York, 1974, p 47) The major elements of research for the paper were completed in mid 1974. We agree that the USSR had become a net exporter of gas by the end of that year. Elliot reports difficulties of pressure maintenance because of water availabilities in the Pravdinskoe field of Western Siberia (Elliot, op cit, p 99). Many other sources refer to the problems faced by water in Central Asia (either too much, or too little). We agree with Shabad about the difficult physical characteristics of Kansk-Achinsk coal (selfignition) and the longer term Soviet intention of using it for massive on-site generation of electricity. Nevertheless, current utilisation of the huge reserves of this field are also acutely constrained by transportation costs - hence the interest in the Berezovka pilot coal complex. Regarding the 2200 kV DC transmission network, it was reported in the official Soviet News (14 August, 1973) that Academician Mikhail Styrikovich had stated, 'that by the 1980's a 1500-2200 kV DC power transmission line will go into operation'. The apparent Soviet lead in this field needs to be actively monitored, as we consider it of very great significance. (It may be optimistic.)
179
Gerald Leach replies: I hate to cross swords with an old friend, but Malcolm Slesser's confused critique demands a response. I shall keep to his two main points. First, the charge that I ignored the inflationary impact of the energy requirement for energy. I thought this quaint idea was buried alongside energy theories of value, for to hold that slight year-byyear changes in the GER of delivered fuels can have more than an imperceptible effect on prices, when the financial accounts of energy industries are dominated by the costs of labour, capital, loan repayments and royalties (eg, OPEC) is at best eccentric. The GER of all UK energy supply industries has been falling steadily ~as inflation has raced ahead. With gas, where the fall has been most dramatic owing to the switch from manufactured to natural gas, prices have nevertheless soared upwards. Slesser admits there is no evidence on this issue and is doubtless more concerned about future trends as we move towards lower grade fuel sources and a greater conversion of primary to secondary fuel (coal gasification, hydrogen, etc). To be sure, these trends may increase both the energy subsidy and GER for fuels - though there are large opportunities for offsetting these
ENERGY
POLICY
June 1976
tendencies. But how can energy analysis measure their impact on inflation when its sums do not include such huge uncertainties as future labour costs, interest rates, or monopolistic and market pricing? Furthermore, there is an important methodological confusion here on Slesser's part. Since fuels carry only a notional economic value while in the ground, and are priced only when they become outputs from primary extraction industries, energy analysis can hope to relate to financial issues at least with primary fuels - only through measuring energy subsidies. The use of Slesser's favoured GER in this context is seriously misleading. This brings me to my second point, which is Slesser's accusation that my article dealt only with energy subsidy and not with net energy analysis. This is false. At several points I emphatically stressed that the measures relevant to energy subsidy (N, L etc) must be related to the resource base when one is considering energy flows. The ratio I gave for doing this happens to be the recriprocal of the Slesser/IFIAS gross energy requirement! It is ironic that while Slesser links my Table 1 with a disparaging remark about energy subsidy analysis, four of its nine columns are about the resource base and he was able to use it directly to construct his own list of GERs. Slesser says that a GER is the only figure that is really required. I believe this is nonsense (see below). I also believe in another IFIAS dictum: that one should present all pertinent numbers. Here I include resources rendered inaccessible due to extraction of fuels, as these are typically larger
than the energies extracted, and even though uncertain, have an important bearing on the ethics and energetics of resource depletion. Finally, let me say why I did put emphasis on energy subsidy - apart from the economic argument given above. One reason is historical. Net energy analysis became fashionable because of speculations that some supply sources (eg, oil shales, tar sands and rapidly growing nuclear programmes) might be 'net energy sinks' or 'energy losers'. These terms were used purely in the sense of energy subsidy: the sources might deliver less fuel to the main economy than they took from it. Since these terms - and the speculations surrounding them - have achieved wide currency among the public it seemed important to discuss them in similar language. The second reason is that net energy analysis in Slesser's GER terms is not suited to some energy sources, of which by far the most important is nuclear power. By counting as an input the potential fission energy of uranium, and not counting unburned uranium or plutonium byproducts as outputs (because they are not now recycled and one must keep to the 'time and technology specific' rule). Sles'ser's type of analysis achieves the remarkable feat of giving GERs for nuclear reactors which are virtually indistinguishable from the reciprocal of the uranium burn up fraction. I certainly don't think that kind of net energy analysis is any use. 1 p. Chapman, G. Leach and M. Slesser, "The energy cost of fuels,' Energy Policy, Vo12 No3, (September 1974) p p 2 3 1 43.
Energy in the Soviet Union A p r o m i n e n t c o m m e n t a t o r on Eastern European affairs takes up some points raised by J.H. Chesshire and Miss C. H u g g e t t in their paper, "Primary Energy production in the S o v i e t Union '1 which appeared in the S e p t e m b e r 1 9 7 5 issue of
Energy Policy. The issue of the Soviet Union's likely future role in the world's energy supply is a highly controversial one, with some observers sceptical about the magnitude of the contribution that the Russians will be able to make, and others expecting the USSR to continue to function as a significant exporter of primary
fuels. The review by Mr Chesshire and Miss Huggett ~ was a useful summary of the current situation and future prospects, pending publication of the new five-year plan (1976-80). However, there were a few specific points that ought to be corrected. In discussing the Soviet natural-gas 177
Energy in the Soviet Union industry, Mr Chesshire and Miss Huggett quite rightly stress the nearterm significance of the Central Asian fields, which in 1975 were expected to contribute 31% of total USSR output. However, the article errs in stating that Turkmenia, one of the two Central Asian gas-producing republics, reached 60000 million m 3 in 1972, overtaking Uzbekistan, the other republic. A glance at the official Soviet statistical yearbook would have shown that Turkmenia in 1972 produced only 21 000 million m 3 compared with Uzbekistan's 34000 million m 3. Turkmenia surpassed Uzbekistan in 1974. 2 Over the long term, of course, the vastly larger reserves in West Siberia will become the predominant factor in production. There also appears to be some confusion about Soviet natural gas trade; the article, evidently completed in early 1975, states that the USSR 'is, at present, a net importer' and will 'soon become' a major exporter of gas. I n fact, the Soviet Union became a net exporter in 1974. Exports rose from 5100 million m 3 in 1972 (not 1973, as the article states) to 14000 million m a in 1974, when imports (from Afghanistan and Iran) totalled I1 900 million m 3. Gas exports, dependent so far on fields in the Ukraine and in Central Asia, will now increase significantly as a result of the contractual arrangements with West European countries mentioned by the authors. West Siberian gas is beginning to join the export flow in 1976. Mr Chesshire and Miss Huggett, in discussing crude oil production in West Siberia, quite rightly stress the problems of infrastructure development in an undeveloped, hostile, physical environment. But, surely, 'difficulties in finding adequate water supplies for pressure maintenance' are not likely in the waterlogged, swampy Ob River country where the oilfields are situated. During a vist to the fields in February 1973, I found that the construction of waterinjection stations was an integral feature of oilfield development and they are being shown to visitors with as much pride as the producing wells themselves. A recent articie in the Soviet oil industry journal4 on the Samotlor field, in West Siberia, relates the volume of water injection to crude oil output and reservoir pressure, showing that water injection in 1974 was actually in excess of needs,
178
and reservoir pressure declined only slightly from the start of production in 1969. The rate of development of the West Siberian oilfieids has been more rapid than expected despite the infrastructure problems; as the article correctly points out, 1975 output was expected to be 147 million tons compared with the original goal of 125 million tons envisaged for 1975.
Confusion In the authors' discussion of coal, there is confusion regarding the significance of. the Kansk-Achinsk brown coal basin of southern Siberia, in the Krasnoyarsk region. This basin, as the article properly notes, has the largest reserves suitable for opencast mining with low extraction costs. But the authors confuse the issue by speaking of 'the relatively high costs of moving this coal to markets in the Urals and the Far East'. The point is not so much the high transport cost as the physical characteristics of Kansk-Achinsk coal, which is not transportable over long distances because it tends to pulverize and selfqgnite when exposed to the air for any length of time. This accounts for the long-term plan to burn Kansk-Achinsk coal in pithead power stations and transmit the electricity over extra-highvoltage lines to the energy-deficient areas of European Russia, west of the Urals. The Berezovka complex mentioned by the authors is a pilot project designed to test such a use of KanskAchinsk coal) The discussion of the coal industry speaks of major expansion supposedly planned on the Turgai coalfield in Kazakhstan. Development of the first opencast mine in the Kushmurun field, the biggest component of the Turgai basin, began in 1957, but was soon halted because of waterlogged overburden. The unfavourable hydrogeology would require costly drainage of the aquifers overlying the coal beds, and no early use of the basin is expected. 6 On the other hand, the section on coal ignores another brown-coal field in Kazakhstan, the Ekibastuz basin, which is mentioned later in connection with long-distance power transmission. The Ekibastuz field more than doubled its output since 1970, reaching 48 million tons in 1975 and moving into third
place among Soviet coal producers, after the Donets Basin of the Ukraine and the Kuznetsk Basin of southern Siberia, and ahead of Karaganda. Ekibastuz, though high in sulfur, has a slightly higher heating value than Kansk-Achinsk coal and, most important, is far more transportable. Ekibastuz brown coal has a large market area and is widely used as a fuel in power stations as far away as the Urals. However, as in the case of Kansk-Achinsk, the long-range potential of Ekibastuz lies in huge minehead power stations and the transmission of electricity over extra-high-voltage lines to European Russia. Two types of transmission systems are now in the testing stage, the 1500 kV dc system, mentioned by Chesshire and Huggett, to be built between Ekibastuz and Central Russia, and a 1150 kV ac system envisaged between the Kansk-Achinsk basin and load centres west of the Urals. 7 The use of ac and dc systems is apparently designed to compare the relative merits of the two technologies for the bulk power transfers that will ultimately be needed from the eastern energy-rich regions and the load centres in the European USSR. The 2200 kV dc system mentioned by the authors is evidently a much more distant possibility.
Pumped storage The authors also appear to minimise Soviet interest in pumped storage facilities by stating that, 'little progress seems to have been made along this route'. Not only are the advantages recognised, but development has been under way for some time. The Soviet Union's first pumped-storage installation went into operation in December 1970 in conjunction with the Kiev hydroelectric station on the Dnieper River? The Kiev pumped storage facility has a capacity of 225 MW. A larger installation, with a capacity of 1200 MW, is under construction near Zagorsk, northeast of Moscow. 9 Two others are planned, one, with a capacity of 1600 MW, near Kaunas in Lithuania, the other in conjunction with a nuclear power station under construction near Nikolayev, on the southern Bug River. Z° In conclusion, it might be worth noting that the key to future Soviet
ENERGY POLICY June 1976
Energy in the Soviet Union energy policy hinges, as Chesshire and Huggett quite rightly suggest, on a combination of four sources: West Siberian oil, West Siberian gas, nuclear power and the vast potential of the KanskAchinsk brown-coal basin. In view of an admittedly greater scarcity of hydrocarbon resources compared with coal resources, the share of oil and gas in the nation's fuel and energy balance is not likely to rise much higher than the present 65%. The outlook is for West Siberian oil and gas output to be brought up to levels roughly equivalent to total current Soviet production; this would mean about 500 million tons of oil and 300 billion m 3 of gas in West Siberia by about 1990. Nuclear power is likely to be used to meet much of the future demand increments in the western regions of the Soviet Union, except for the variable portions of power loads, which would be covered by thermal peaking capacity (including both large steam-electric units and smaller gas-turbine units) and pumped storage facilities. Kansk-Achinsk brown-coal production may be brought up to 200 million tons or more for the generation of electricity in minehead stations, for long-distance transmission. A portion of the coal may also be upgraded to a semi-coke for transportation, or may be used in coal gasification and synthetic fuel projects. As for the future role of the USSR as an energy exporter, this cannot be answered with certainty, as Chesshire and Huggett conclude. However, an important clue to long-term Soviet intentions may be found in the decision to go ahead with the 3299-km Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) project, whidh is merely alluded to in the article, in the context of Soviet oil exports to Japan. This enormous, 10-year, project is probably more significant in evaluating Soviet long-range designs than the passing mention may suggest. The railroad, extending from the Lake Baikal region to the Pacific, is clearly intended to open up new resource areas north of the present Trans-Siberian Railway, for export through Pacific ports. One resource, already contracted for with Japdn for delivery beginning about 1979, is highgrade coking coal from south Yakutia. In addition the BAM will serve, in combination with pipelines at western and eastern railheads, to carry crude oil
ENERGY
POLICY
June 1976
from the West Siberian fields to the Pacific coast. H Soviet planners predict that oil will make up 70 to 75% of freight movements on the BAM. The Soviet decision to go ahead with the ambitious rail project, without foreign participation, suggests that the inaccessibility of Siberian resources has been a serious stumbling block in Moscow's efforts to enlist Western interest in joint ventures. By building the new transport route, the Soviet planners evidently hope ultimately to make foreign participation in resource development projects more attractive. Even in the absence of joint ventures, the availability of access to remote resource sites would improve the Soviet Union's ability to offer Siberian energy sources on the world market. Theodore Shabad
Mr Shabad is editor of Soviet Geography: Review and Translation, a monthly translation journal, and author of the journal's "News Notes' on current economicgeographic developments in the Soviet Union, including fuels and energy and other resources. 145 East 84th Street, Apt. 12-F, New York, N.Y. 10028. 1J.H. Chesshire and Miss C. Huggett, 'Primary energy production in the Soviet Union,' Energy Policy, Vol 3 No 3, (September 1975), pp 223-244 z Narodnoe khozyaistvo SSSR v 1972 g. (The Economy of the USSR in 1972), statistical yearbook, Moscow, 1973, p207 3Vneshnyaya torgovlya za 1973 god (Foreign Trade in 1973), statistical yearbook, Moscow, 1974, pp 27, 42, Vneshnyaya torgovlya za 1974 god (Foreign Trade in 1974), Moscow, 1975, pp 29, 44 4 Neftyanoe khozyaistvo, May 1975, p 40 s Soviet. Geography: Review and Translation, September 1974, p 439 6V.A. Adamchuk and B. Ya. Dvoskin, Problemy razv[tiya promyshlennykh uzlov SSSR (na primere Kazakhstana) (Problems of Development of Industrial Nodes in the USSR (with particular reference to Kazakhtan)], Moscow, 1968, p 161 Izvestia, 27 February 1975 8Pravda, 28 December 1970; Soviet Geography, November 1971, p 619 9 Soviet Geography, November 1972, p 648; Sovetskaya Moldaviya, 22 August 1974 lo Sovetskaya Litva, 27 September 1974 11 V. Biryukov, 'The BaikaI-Amur Mainline, a major national construction project,' Soviet Geography, April 1975, pp 226227; N.P. Belenkiy and V.S. Maslennikov, 'The BaikaI-Amur Mainline railroad: its area of influence and projected freight flows,' Soviet Geography. October 1975, p512
J. Chesshire and Miss C. Hugget reply: Energy prospects of the Soviety Union, Eastern Europe and China remain major areas of uncertainty in the West, as a result of secrecy of reserve estimates, access to statisticaI sources and problems of language. We therefore welcome the corrections and more recent information provided. According to our sources, there are a number of statistical anomalies" (a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
Natural gas production in Turkmenia reached an annual level of 60 000 million m 3 February 1973, not 1972 as we stated. (See I.F. Elliot, The Soviet Energy Balance, Praeger, New York, 1974, p 47) The major elements of research for the paper were completed in mid 1974. We agree that the USSR had become a net exporter of gas by the end of that year. Elliot reports difficulties of pressure maintenance because of water availabilities in the Pravdinskoe field of Western Siberia (Elliot, op cit, p 99). Many other sources refer to the problems faced by water in Central Asia (either too much, or too little). We agree with Shabad about the difficult physical characteristics of Kansk-Achinsk coal (selfignition) and the longer term Soviet intention of using it for massive on-site generation of electricity. Nevertheless, current utilisation of the huge reserves of this field are also acutely constrained by transportation costs - hence the interest in the Berezovka pilot coal complex. Regarding the 2200 kV DC transmission network, it was reported in the official Soviet News (14 August, 1973) that Academician Mikhail Styrikovich had stated, 'that by the 1980's a 1500-2200 kV DC power transmission line will go into operation'. The apparent Soviet lead in this field needs to be actively monitored, as we consider it of very great significance. (It may be optimistic.)
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