2010 Issue №1(3)

This article considers national energy security as a component of foreign policy and diplomacy and analyses the current state of Russian energy policy, the role of Russia in global energy geopolitics and the factors affecting it. The author examines energy diplomacy as an instrument of foreign policy at both global and regional levels taking into account the changes in the corporate policy of energy companies.

The article considers the IEA data on energy reserves in terms of global and national energy security. The authors describe methods for regulating the energy market in the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Community. The authors support the idea of applying the experience of the EU.

This article considers the problems of the environmental impact of energy. Further reduction of this impact on the global environment can be achieved two ways. The short-term one implies the increase in energy efficiency. In the next 15—20 years, the increase in efficiency should become a priority of the energy policy of all states. The long-term one is based on the gradual expansion of renewable energy. This method is aimed to avoid further economic and energy crises. At the same time, it has an important environmental aspect. Experts claim that the new area of global energy should be less costly than the traditional ones.