The Environmentalists Struggle with Energy Security Or: If Maslow Were in Energy Politics

Abstract

The article claims that access to energy, supply security, energy costs, environmental issues and social acceptance are subject not to trade-off, but to a hierarchy that underlies the importance of satisfying lower order needs before addressing the higher order ones. The following essay demonstrates the hierarchy with an "energy policy needs pyramid" based on historical evidence. The pyramid is used to analyze the viability of current items of the energy policy agenda.