European economies in terms of energy dependence

Abstract

The sustainable development and energy security are currently the priority challenges for the European Union countries. The sustainable and stable development of European economies is closely dependent on the stable access to energy resources. The constant increase of the demand for electricity requires long-term planning of the common European policy. The aim of the article is to analyse the fuel and energy resources situation of the member states with regard to their energy balances and with the determination of their import dependence in relation to fossil fuels, such as: coal, oil and natural gas. Based on the collected statistical data the analysis of clusters was presented in order to separate homogenous subsets, that is groups of the European Union Member States. The squared Euclidean distance has been adopted as the measure of similarities of the member states in the clusters, and the k-means algorithm has been used as the method of grouping. As a result of the analysis seven clusters were selected-groups of homogenous countries in terms of the import dependence due to the major energy resources (oil, natural gas and coal). The results of the paper can constitute bases for shaping the appropriate long-term common energy policy for the listed potential groups of countries. Statistical data were collected based on the Eurostat publication.

Elasticity Analysis of Fossil Energy Sources for Sustainable Economies: A Case of Gasoline Consumption in Turkey

“…As a result, the economies of the country became affected by the exchange rate [39,40]. Some countries import their energy needs from abroad because they do not have enough energy sources [41][42][43][44]. Therefore, the increase in exchange rates makes the gasoline purchased by these countries more expensive.…”

Method for Assessing the Development of Underground Hard Coal Mines on a Regional Basis: The Concept of Measurement and Research Results

“…gas hazards 7coal dust explosion hazards (8) rock burst hazards (9) fire risks (10) water hazards (11) productivity of underground workers (12) wall efficiency (13) seam efficiency 14intensity of preparatory works (15) the number of walls reinforced annually (16) unit efficiency (17) relative efficiency in a group of mining plants (18) unit production costs (19) share of fixed costs in total costs (20) In this stage of examination, an assessment was carried out with a questionnaire to determine the importance of ranks assigned to the given groups (from I to IV) covering the selected criteria: geological and mining, natural hazard, production, and economic. Twenty-four experts in hard coal mining representing the academic and business environment evaluated the importance of the selected groups on a scale from 0% to 100%, with an accuracy of 10%.…”

“…To this end, the exploitation volume per employee (12), showing the overall efficiency of human resources, was used [81,82]. In addition, the technical infrastructure existing in the hard coal mine was also taken into account, which is characterized by the volume of extraction from one wall (13) and the volume of extraction per seam in use (14). These parameters determine the operational production capabilities.…”

“…In this area, the volume of extraction was applied as follows: per employee (12), from one wall (13), and per seam in use (14). In order to evaluate the categories, the maximum value assigned was 30 points for the first two criteria, and 20 points for the third one.…”

“…However, prioritizing economic criteria led to the situation in which the group of mines with significant development potential included plants with a low unit cost of extraction per tonne, but the low quality of the extracted raw material caused selling problems in the future. In the last 10 years, the situation was additionally complicated by the tightening of climate requirements by the European Union, which increased the quality of hard coal quality priorities, including primarily calorific value as well as sulfur and ash content [13][14][15][16][17]. In such circumstances, profitable and efficient extraction in a long-term existence time horizon mine becomes insufficient to make a final assessment of the continuation or liquidation of exploitation.…”