Browsing by Author "Bowlus, John V."

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Citation Count: 0
China’s energy-supply security in the multi-energy transition period from fossil fuels to renewable energy
(World Scientific Publishing Co., 2020) Bowlus, John V.; Dursun, Ahmet Faruk; Ediger, Volkan Ş.
The rise of China as an economic superpower after the 2008 global financial crisis has attracted increasing worldwide attention. Securing access to ample and affordable energy supplies - energy-supply security - has underpinned its rise and will continue to contribute to its economic prosperity. This chapter examines China’s energy-security challenge with respect to its policies. The global energy system is currently undergoing a multi-energy transition away from fossil fuels: the powers will take different paths, creating competition between one another and thus between energy sources. The development of China’s energy-security policies and challenges as well as climate change, both at home and abroad, will therefore shape this competition and the global energy transition in the coming decades.
Citation Count: 4
A crude marriage: Iraq Turkey and the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline
(Routledge Journals Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2017) Bowlus, John V.
Since the discovery of oil at Kirkuk in northern Iraq oil has shaped relations between Iraq and Turkey as the former needed markets and export routes to the Mediterranean and the latter reliable sources of supply. This article examines the origins of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline from northern Iraq to the Turkish Mediterranean coast charting the period of Iraqi-Turkish economic rapprochement in the 1960s to the construction of the pipeline in the 1970s. It also seeks to add to our collective understanding of why transnational oil pipelines in the Middle East succeed or fail by examining the pipeline's operational record.
Citation Count: 14
A Farewell to King Coal: Geopolitics, Energy Security, and the Transition to Oil, 1898–1917
(Cambridge Univ Press, 2019) Ediger, Volkan S.; Bowlus, John V.
Interest in energy transitions has accelerated in recent years due to rising concerns about global warming and resource scarcity but the drivers of these phenomena are not well understood. To date scholars have primarily focused on commercial and technological factors highlighting that oil was 'better' than coal - more powerful cheaper cleaner and more practical to use - and that the internal combustion engine made it more advantageous to use in transportation. Yet oil was also a strategic commodity that powerful states sought to acquire for military reasons. This article contends that geopolitics military decision-making and energy security hastened the transition from oil to coal prior to the First World War. It argues that Britain Germany and the United States sought to transition their naval fleets from coal to oil to gain a military advantage at sea which created for the first time the problem of oil-supply security. Through government-led initiatives to address oil-supply security vast new supplies of oil came online and prices fell the ideal environment for oil to eclipse coal as the dominant source in the global energy system.
Citation Count: 2
Geopolitics and gas-transit security through pipelines
(Springer International Publishing, 2020) Aydın, Mustafa; Bowlus, John V.; Aydın, Mustafa
Hydrocarbons are valuable only if they can be transited from where they are produced to where they are consumed. Despite the enduring importance of transit to the global energy system, the topic did not begin to be extensively analyzed until contentious relations between Russia and Ukraine disrupted natural gas flows to Europe in 2006. This chapter examines the geopolitics and security of transiting gas through pipelines by exploring the connection between geography, global energy strategies, and natural gas markets. Gas has grown in recent years as a percentage of global energy consumption and is helping the world transition to a cleaner energy regime. At the same time, it is intensifying the contest for and control of gas-transit routes. Russia, the world’s second-largest producer, has built new pipelines to Europe since 2006 in order to diversify its flow from relying on Ukraine, while the USA, the world’s largest gas producer, is increasingly exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) through sea routes mostly controlled by the US navy. We argue that geostrategic calculations will more profoundly affect gas transit in the future and that countries that rely solely on market or commercial factors for their gas-transit security will become increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical volatility.
Citation Count: 9
Greasing the wheels: the Berlin-Baghdad railway and Ottoman oil, 1888?1907
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2020) Ediger, Volkan S.; Bowlus, John V.
In the 1880s, Germany cultivated an alliance with the Ottoman Empire that led to a concession to build one of history?s most storied, diplomatically contentious, and financially challenging infrastructure projects: the Berlin-Baghdad Railroad. While Germany had many goals in pursuing the project, oil was the only way to make the railroad economic. Drawing on Ottoman archival sources, this article examines the policies and strategies of Sultan Abd?lhamid II in relation to Germany?s attempt to develop Mesopotamian oil from German Emperor Wilhelm II?s visit to Istanbul in 1889 to the conclusion of Germany?s oil concession in 1906/7. It argues that Hamid pursued a pragmatic policy to develop and protect Ottoman oil from being dominated by the powers, especially the British Empire, and, in the process, seeks to reorient our understanding of great power interest in Middle East oil.
Citation Count: 1
Perception, petroleum, and power: Mythmaking in oil-scarce Turkey and Jordan
(Elsevier, 2020) Selen, Eser; Selen, Eser; Bowlus, John V.
Oil has been a cardinal driver of economic growth and national development in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. States that produce oil in globally exportable quantities tend to be more powerful than those that do not. Oil-scarce states in the Middle East that neighbor oil-rich states and rely on them for imports create myths to explain their relatively unfortunate geology. This study illustrates and analyzes the myths that people in Turkey and Jordan have created to explain why they lack oil. In the process, it also explains the attitudes, beliefs, and social norms within these countries regarding oil. In both Turkey and Jordan, public understanding of why the country lacks oil forms a tautology about the relationship between oil and the nation's wealth and development, as well as its political, economic, and military power.