卡内基国际和平基金会:美国德国将采取何种能源战略

文/David Livingston（卡内基国际和平基金会研究员）

当前，能源堪称美、德两国的战略要务。由于社会经济结构正在发生变化，加之过去十余年间的油价动荡、未来数十年向低碳能源系统转化的要求，未来如何选择并使用能源从未像现在这般重要。诸多研究已对上世纪70年代油价动荡期中美、德两国工业部门和其他相关因素成本进行了分析，并发现能源价格动荡能够推动经济增长。此外，没有哪种商品或技术能够取代石油在全球经济中发挥的作用。然而，由于近年来石油价格不断下跌，加之新的、储量丰富的能源陆续被发掘，传统意义上的能源短缺、持续性石油依赖的成本效益概念已然受到挑战。因此，决策者必须在可预见的未来内，努力探究石油长期面临复杂局势和价格动荡的原因。

在过去的五年中，碳氢燃料等非传统性能源的供应大幅上升，北美地区尤为明显。经济危机后，尽管对中国等石油消耗大国的预测为供应紧张，石油公司依旧对非传统性石油项目投入了大量资金，同时开采技术也在不断进步。在很大程度上，非传统性石油能源迅速取代了或延迟了其他替代能源的使用，包括生物燃料、天然气等。

在人们以往的观念中，会将2014年下半年的油价下跌视为石油出口大国的经济福利，包括美、德两国。然而，欧洲能源运输费用的高课税将抵消部分经济拉动作用，且在中短期内会影响欧洲国家政府的财政收入。此外，当将与主要石油出口国的贸易考虑进去之后，德国的能源出口份额进一步被挤压，因此油价下降对其他能源的影响是复杂而多变的。从理论上而言，油价下跌将使生物燃料的竞争力下降，而其对电动汽车的影响又难以统计。

总而言之，美国及其盟友应侧重全面提高多种能源共同发挥作用的能力，并以最具潜力的策略合理应用法规、政策。我们应在现实和未来的潜在机遇中寻求各种能源之间的平衡，单纯侧重某一种能源都无法让我们作出恰当的策略性选择。在21世纪的前15年，美国及德国等跨大西洋(600558,股吧)伙伴关系中的既得利益集团应寻求确保国家能源安全的良方，同时应对来自俄罗斯的传统能源威胁。

附英文原文：

Fuel—broadly defined as the energy sources used to power our mobility and the oil system from which they are largely derived at the moment—must be a strategic priority for the United States and Germany. As both countries seek to anchor the transatlantic alliance against the backdrop of renewed insecurity along Europe’s eastern border, there must be balanced attention paid not only to the crises of the present, but also to the possible demands of the future. Before any “optimal” policy path can be sketched, a stock-taking exercise is invaluable as a means of synthesizing the events and trends that have given birth to the current state of affairs, and of discerning the current set of options available to policymakers moving forward.

Given the changing economic structure of most societies, the fluctuations in oil price seen in the past decade, as well as the uncertainties implicit in the required transition to a low-carbon energy system in the decades ahead, the future of fuel use and fuel choice has never been more critical. It is widely agreed, at least in OECD states, that a global transition away from oil as the predominant transport fuel feedstock is desirable for various economic, geopolitical, and environmental reasons.Studies have looked, for example, at the evolution of the American and German industrial sectors and their related factor costs in the midst of the oil price shocks of the 1970s, and found that such petroleum fuel price swings were able to push economic growth far out of line with neoclassical equilibrium.1 The “weaponization” of oil and fuel is a perennial political challenge, from World War II to the 1970s energy crisis to the volatility and market share skirmish of today. From a climate perspective, approximately 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with transportation fuel,2 and this number is even larger when taking into account the entire petroleum value chain.

However, there remains no silver-bullet commodity or technology to replace oil’s role in the global economy. Challenges to a truly rapid and “disruptive” transition include the wide variety of vehicle types in operation; the operational diversity of oil-dependent business (e.g., long distance freight vs. urban delivery fleets); the capital intensity of fuel production and distribution; the political economy of a sector with powerful incumbent firms; the prospect of fully-functional infrastructure and other assets becoming “stranded” in such a transition; and the current technological and economic limitations of alternative fuels.

Meanwhile, a newfound abundance of unconventional oil resources, combined with the recent decline in global oil prices, is challenging conventional wisdom on resource scarcity and the costs and benefits of continued oil dependence. The “arc of instability” along Europe’s frontier, stretching from North Africa to the Gulf and Levant all the way to the border with Russia, has served to sharpen the focus on how energy—and petroleum in particular—shapes the constraints and capabilities of various state and nonstate actors. The paths to low-carbon fuel are dynamic and difficult to predict in such a world. Fuel and fuel feedstock (oil) markets are often highly liquid and global, yet at the same time lack transparency found in many other markets, making it difficult to compare the respective economic, environmental, and geopolitical implications of future fuel choices.

Policymakers will have to navigate a petroleum land the future of power in a post-carbon society scape of enduring complexity and volatility for the foreseeable future, whether they desire to or not. The inertia embedded in the current fossil fuel system should not be underestimated. As the “father” of complexity economics, W. Brian Arthur, has observed:

Technologies come into being only if there exists a “demand” for them. Most of this demand comes from the needs of technologies themselves. The automobile “demands” or calls forth the further technologies of oil exploration, oil drilling, oil refining, mass manufacture, gasoline distribution, and car maintenance. At any time then there is an open web of opportunities inviting further technologies and arrangements.

This is not to say that disruptive transitions are not possible, but they must be precipitated by a timely imbrication of economic incentives, innovative capacity, and broader societal trends. Likewise, once a tipping point is reached that favors an emerging “web of opportunities” very different from the incumbent system, the collapse of the existing paradigm can move much more quickly from impossibility to improbability to inevitability than many experts would have ever predicted.

Mindful of this non-linearity, the challenge for policymakers today is perhaps best described not as one of discerning the future of fuels and fuel security in the United States and Europe, but instead one of lucidly understanding the forces acting on the incumbent system, as well as the alternative systems, still nascent, that could one day replace them. Only with this comprehensive view is one able to ascertain the strategic energy position of Germany, the U.S., and others in the twenty-first century.（完）

【智库简介】

Carnegie Endowment for international Peace

卡内基国际和平基金会是美国成立最早又颇有影响的研究院之一，是卡内基家族的第二大基金会，其总部设在华盛顿；同时，它也是美国著名的主流思想库，标榜超脱党派、兼容并蓄，以“促进国家间合作以及美国的国际交往”为宗旨，并重视研究的“实际结果”。支持把联合国作为国际论坛和世界秩序的象征，思想倾向属于典型的“中间派”。除了日常研究，研究院还通过实地考察、举办会议、出版刊物、提交研究报告、合作研究等形式，扩大其政治影响和学术地位。研究院也把“培养军备控制、地区安全、国际法等国际事务研究与活动的人才”作为其重要宗旨之一。网址：http://carnegieendowment.org/

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