Recently there has been an ongoing discussion about energy security. This has been caused by tensions affecting international relations, and the emergence of new geopolitical threats. As one of the main sources of primary energy, natural gas is an obvious subject of interest in this discussion. In Europe, the natural gas market is rapidly evolving, which has resulted in a lack of clarity regarding who is responsible for the security of the gas supply. It is not clear now how to measure the security of the gas supply in economic estimates and by whom that security should be financed. In this paper, the authors present an approach which can be used for valuation of energy security concerning the security of natural gas storage using stochastic modelling based on the mathematical model of the “Newsvendor problem”. The valuation is made from the point of view of countries and considers their individual attitudes to the risk of disruption of deliveries, which is a novel approach to the problem. The authors believe that the current level of storage capacities, as compared to the demand for natural gas, can show the attitude of each country to the risk and potential cost of stockout. In line with this belief, the target value in the model is not the optimal level of inventory, but the cost of stockout. The results show significant variations in the assessment of the risk. The future of natural gas as an important fuel and source of primary energy in Europe is not clear and unfavorable changes have been sped up by the COVID-19 pandemic. Gas (energy) companies in Europe are turning to decarbonization and green energy, and the pandemic has accelerated these changes. European energy companies used to see the use of natural gas as a transition fuel and a key component of their long-term decarbonization strategies, but now they are switching to multi-energy models through massive investments in renewables and hydrogen. Experts expect that gas will remain an important part of Europe’s energy supply, but it may be gradually replaced by hydrogen and renewables.
Due to the policy of the European Union, it is necessary to search for new sources of scarce raw materials. One of these materials is germanium, listed as a critical element. This semi-metal is widely used in the electronics industry, for example in the production of semiconductors, fibre optics and solar cells. Coal and fly ash from its combustion and gasification for a long time have been considered as a potential source of many critical elements, particularly germanium. The paper presents the results of germanium content determination in the Polish hard coal. 23 coal samples of various coal ranks were analysed. The samples were collected from 15 mines of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin and from one mine of the Lublin Coal Basin. The determination of germanium content was performed with the use of Atomic Absorption Spectrometry with Electrothermal Atomization (GFAAS). The investigation showed that germanium content in the analysed samples was at least twice lower than the average content of this element in the hard coals analysed so far and was in the range of 0.08 ÷ 1.28 mg/kg. Moreover, the content of Ge in the ashes from the studied coals does not exceed 15 mg/kg, which is lower than the average value of Ge content in the coal ashes. The highest content of this element characterizes coals of the Lublin Coal Basin and young coals type 31 from the Vistula region. The results indicate a low utility of the analysed coal ashes as a source of the recovery of germanium. On the basis of the analyses, the lack of the relationship between the content of the element and the ash content in the tested coals was noted. For coals of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin, the relationship between the content of germanium in the ashes and the depth of the seam was observed.
Białoruś w zwierciadle rosyjskiego społeczeństwabelarus in the Mirror of the russian society abstraKt Celem artykułu jest poszerzenie wiedzy o białorusi jako przedmiocie zainteresowania rosyjskiego społeczeństwa. Jako pomiot zbiorowy społeczeństwo rosyjskie jest, podobnie jak społeczeństwo białoruskie, potencjalnym czynnikiem sprawczym zmian społeczno-politycznych na byłym obszarze postradzieckim. Celem analizy są trzy współzależne aspekty: kulturowo-społeczny zawierający konkluzje na temat mentalności homo sovieticus, popierającego reżym w sposób bierny bądź czynny; aspekt gospodarczy pokazujący, że poziom dobrobytu rosjan bezpośrednio zależy od inwestycji Putina w reżym łukaszenki oraz problem militaryzacji państwa i kosztów ponoszonych wojen w perspektywie gotowości społeczeństwa do protestów przeciwko kolejnym interwencjom zbrojnym. Materiał badawczy stanowią dane statystyczne socjologiczne i ekonomiczne. zastosowane metody badawcze to metoda jakościowa oceny wskaźników ekonomicznych oraz metoda jakościowa analizy treści ankiet przez kluczowe słowa i ich kontekst. wnioski wskazują, że osłabienie Putina jest kluczowym czynnikiem mogącym przechylić szalę na stronę białoruskiego społeczeństwa i jego wysiłków, by zmienić nie tyle prezydenta, ile charakter państwa. I rosyjskie społeczeństwo ma tutaj do odegrania kluczową rolę.
Zamysł publikacji monografii stanowi rezultat pogłębionej współpracy naukowej pomiędzy Katedrą Badań nad Obszarem Eurazjatyckim w Instytucie Rosji i Europy Wschodniej Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego oraz Wydziałem Nauk Politycznych i Dziennikarstwa Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu.
Energy security is a multidimensional and multifaceted concept, therefore defining it is a complex problem. It requires the consideration of a wide set of factors from the fields of economics, geology, ecology and geopolitics, all of which have an influence on energy security or the lack thereof. The article focuses on natural gas, which is a very specific fuel in the European context. It is the most “politicized” source of energy, as a consequence of its growing importance as a transition fuel in the energy transformation process. In order to identify dependencies between variables on the gas market and analyze their impact on it (in particular on underground storage), the authors chose a set of variables and built a Bayesian network. The network is an effective and flexible tool that allows analysis of the relationships between the variables that build them and model their values based on evidence. The article presents two stages of work with the Bayesian network. In the first one, a network was built based on historical data. It shows the relationships between the variables as well as the probability of the value ranges of individual variables. A huge advantage of the presented Bayesian network is that it can be used to model various scenarios on the gas market. Moreover, the ability to make statistical inferences for all its nodes represents a valuable additional feature. Several examples of such inferences are presented in the second stage of the analysis, examining the impact of consumption variability on the level of inventory in underground gas storage facilities, the impact of having an LNG terminal and the share of natural gas in electricity production on the storage capacity of a given country. The use of tools such as Bayesian networks allows us to better discover the interrelationships between variables influencing the energy market, analyze them, and estimate the impact on energy security of distinct scenarios described with specific metrics. A simple example of such a metric, i.e., the minimum level of gas storage at the end of the winter season, as well as its analysis and modeling using a relatively simple Bayesian network, is presented in this article.
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