This study delves into the structure of primary energy consumption in European countries, utilizing data from the Eurostat database, and focuses on the years 1990 and 2021. Through cluster analysis, countries were categorized based on their consumption patterns, revealing significant insights into energy security. The findings indicate a discernible shift away from solid fossil fuels, with renewable energy sources witnessing the most substantial growth. Natural gas, serving as a transitional fuel, has seen a rise in consumption, while nuclear energy’s development remained relatively stagnant. Oil, despite its declining share, remains a crucial component in the European energy mix. The study also highlights the challenges and implications of over-reliance on a single energy source, emphasizing the need for a diversified energy strategy. The analysis underscores the importance of diversifying primary energy sources to ensure energy security. While renewable sources are environmentally favorable, their inherent instability necessitates backup from other energy sources. Solid fossil fuels, despite their availability, face challenges due to environmental concerns. Natural gas, while flexible, requires extensive infrastructure and is highly politicized. Nuclear energy, despite its potential as an ideal complement to renewables, faces barriers in terms of investment and public perception. Oil, though convenient, is a fossil source with associated CO₂ emissions and largely needs to be imported. In conclusion, the study advocates for a well-diversified set of energy sources tailored to individual country-specific situations, emphasizing the importance of strategic planning in energy consumption to ensure long-term energy security.

Energy security, as one of the most important components of state security, is a permanent element of academic debates and political discussions. Owing to the multidimensional and multifaceted nature of energy security, defining it is a complex process, requiring the consideration of a wide range of factors straddling economics, geology, ecology and geopolitics which decide whether we are dealing with the state of energy security or the lack of it. Energy security is usually equated with the security of supply. Another group of definitions of energy security focuses on the concept of security of services. A different approach to energy security issues is presented by energy exporting countries, whose objective is to ensure sufficiently high and stable income from sales of energy resource exports (security of demand). The subject of this paper is an analysis of the energy security of hydropower-producing countries—Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Energy security has been analyzed in the context of security of supply, services, and demand on the basis of the approach proposed by Llamosas and Sovacool. So far, no work has been carried out to analyse the hydropower sectors of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the context of the energy security comparison of both countries. It is worth emphasising that their energy security and mutual relations are important from the point of view of the stability of the entire Central Asian region. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have large hydropower potential, which, if properly used, could cover their domestic electricity demand and the surplus can be exported to neighbouring countries. Unfortunately, both countries are not utilising this potential for the time being. The main difficulty in the area of security of supply and services is the seasonality and low reliability of electricity supplies. Among the reasons for this are the poor technical and economic conditions of energy companies as a result of maintaining low tariffs, the irrecoverability of consumers’ energy bills, electricity theft, significant transmission loses and a high level of corruption. Although both countries aspire to the role of an energy exporters, they are themselves forced to import electricity from neighboring countries.

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.

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.

In recent years, Belarus has been developing in conditions of extreme turbulence and uncertainty of socio-economic development due to the intensification of external and internal threats, undermining the possibilities of sustainable and balanced economic growth. Among the key external threats, we should mention: the rapid increase in geopolitical tensions after the rigged presidential elections in Belarus in August 2020 and the unprecedented pressure of sanctions from Western countries on the economy of Belarus, the migrations crisis, and Russia after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The broken dialogue with the West deprived President Lukashenko of the possibility of balancing between the EU and Russia, especially in the economic field. This article analyzes the condition of the Belarusian economy against the background of Western sanctions imposed on the country in 2020 and 2022.

Energetyka Federacji Rosyjskiej jawi się nam przez pryzmat dwóch wielkich korporacji państwowych – Gazpromu oraz Rosneftu – z pomocną których Kreml dotychczas skutecznie kreował swoją politykę wobec Zachodu oraz przestrzeni postradzieckiej. Jednakże, obok sektora naftowo-gazowego, Federacja Rosyjska posiada doskonale rozwinięty sektor energetyki jądrowej, na czele z państwową korporacją Rosatom. Kompleksowa obsługa klienta możliwa dzięki integracji pionowej korporacji oraz wybrany przez Rosjan model biznesowy pozwolił zająć Rosatomowi wiodącą pozycję na światowym rynku energetyki jądrowej. Zaobserwowana w ostatnich latach dynamiczna ekspansja Rosatomu na rynki zagraniczne oraz perspektywa wzrostu liczby rosyjskich reaktorów na rynku światowym wzbudziła zaniepokojenie części zachodnich obserwatorów. W rosyjskiej spółce atomowej upatrują oni kolejne narzędzie Rosji do kreowania polityki zagranicznej. Niniejszy artykuł stanowi analizę potencjału sektora energii jądrowej Rosji oraz wskazania, czy jest on wykorzystywany przez Moskwę do osiągania przewag politycznych.