Energy is a daily fact of life for everyone, for consumers, suppliers or policy public officials responsible for drafting the national energy strategy.

Thailand, along with the rest of the world, is in the grips of the worst global oil crisis in history, with prices rising inexorably towards the US$180 per barrel mark, according to most commentators. As Thai farmers, consumers and companies suffer from rising prices, Thailand’s Government can only blame the crisis on external factors. Rather, they should look at this crisis as an opportunity to overhaul the country’s energy policy and implement measures to derive more energy from Thailand’s abundant natural resources.

While we Thai people take great pride in our nation’s world beating rice exports, this masks the fact that Thailand’s 2007 export revenues for the commodity would barely cover our Kingdom’s energy bills for one month. Even adding in rubber export revenues, another commodity that Thailand leads the world in, would only cover our energy bills for 70 days.

Thailand’s failing energy policy, relying as it does on the monopolized and centralized global energy mechanism, is a major factor in the nation’s fast rising energy costs. Energy costs account for a larger proportion of the country’s GDP every year – 11 percent of GDP in 1993 to 18 percent in 2007. (2) Rising energy costs mean less investment in housing, food and education.

Although the current global energy crisis is largely out of Thailand’s control due to global market mechanisms, if Thailand’s energy policy had enabled investment in, and exploitation of, the country’s clean renewable energy resources such as wind and solar power 15 years ago, our situation would not be as bad as it is now as we would have more energy independence.

In the past some have argued that wind and solar energy were too expensive to be viable, at the same time many predicted a huge rise in the cost of oil. The fact remains that prices for fossil fuel energy sources such as oil, coal and gas have been kept artificially low for years due to huge subsidies of up to US$ 250 billion worldwide annually, and failure to factor in the social and environmental costs of using these polluting energy sources. Over the last 15 years oil prices have risen fourfold, while wind energy in particular has become more cost competitive versus oil, coal, gas and nuclear than it has ever been. Wind is now the fastest growing energy resource in the world.

As the current energy crisis is impacting all Thais, we urgently need cooperation from all sectors of Thai society, including government, civil society and business, to turn current good policy into reality, as well as enhancing the policy to help Thailand deal with any new factors and challenges it may face in the future.

We have to be here in Thailand because we are Thai.

Thailand does not need coal energy, even though what you are saying is true. Not only does coal kill our climate, it has to be imported. We don’t want to put ourselves at the mercy of foreigners for our energy needs.

Thailand can transform to a self-sufficient carbon neutral country if the government is willing to do so. Here’s what we can do to quit coal:

1. Thailand gets plenty of sunshine, which can be harnessed fairly cheaply with new improvements in photo-voltaic(PV) technology.

2. Thailand is a world leader in agriculture, and agricultural residues, such as bagasse and palm fibre can easily be used as energy sources.

3. Thailand has a tremendous geothermal energy potential, for example, the geyser field at Fang District in Chiangmai Province.

4. Thailand’s coastline is suitable for wind power generation. This can augment other sources I mentioned earlier.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/coalconsumption.html

Thailand is not the major source of Global warming!