True Energy Price in Maldives (updated)

When I say "true energy price" I do not mean the price of petrol/diesel available at the petrol bunks nor do I mean the price of fossil fuel per liter or per kg. It would mean the price per energy content of the fuel.

Given the different types of fossil fuel imported to Maldives over the past 10 years and how it is measured (LPG in kg while diesel in liters) it and its different energy content(diesel have higher energy content than petrol), it would be completely impossible to give an accurate picture of which fuel is more expensive and which is cheaper. In order to give an accurate comparison of the cost of fossil fuels imported, I had to convert the amount of fuel imports in that period to its respective energy content. And that energy content is measured against the monetary value expended to buy that fuel. The diagram below shows such a comparison of the 4 major fossil fuel imports in Maldives over 10 years (2001 to 2010). This just for information.

The data provided for this analysis is from Maldives Customs Services, and the data has been used without any changes to the original data. Furthermore this analysis is not a reviewed or a published analysis. 

Global Warming and Energy Consumption

The figure above shows the relation between energy consumption and atmospheric temperature. It shows a clear relation between rising temperature with energy use. This means the rising temperature exhibited  in the long term temperature trend (as shown in figure below) from Hulhule' Met station would translate into an increase in energy consumption in Male region.

And this creates a vicious cycle. That is more electricity used means more GHG in Male' meaning more global warming, higher temperatures and again more electricity. More electricity also mean we spend a lot more money of fuel which frankly Maldives cannot really afford to do for mid and long term. The other issue is the relation between development and electricity or energy as a whole. The following figure shows how closely energy consumption is related to GDP growth.

It infers that increase in economy, leads to increase in Energy, which leads to increase in fossil fuel consumption and increase in CO2 emission and global warming. As i said before due to high dependence of fossil fuel we can't afford to increase our energy usage as it is. Even if we have to slow down and look for other options we will run into a wall sooner rather than later. We need to choose an option which would decouple development/ energy consumption from fossil fuel/ CO2 emission. And the Urgency is now.

GHG emissions in Maldives overtime. (Updated)

The figure shows the increase of GHG emission in the maldives overtime. The method used to derive the numbers was using top to bottom approach and using standard emission factors from IPCC EFDB. The  gap from 95 to 2000 is due to lack of data. The unit Gg is equivalent to kilo-ton equivalent of CO2. The 2012 (the red bar) is projected emission for this year based on the 1st quarter of the year.