Title: The USSR's new energy strategy

Authors: Alexei A. Makarov

Addresses: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Abstract: The USSR uses energy inefficiently. This state of affairs has arisen because of the Soviet Union|s historical tendency to push for growth in producing capital goods from heavy industry, at the expense of the production of consumer goods. The level of technological advancement in energy consumption in the USSR has fallen well behind the top world level. Rapid development of the Soviet Union|s primary energy resources to feed the needs of heavy industry has led to widespread environmental damage. This paper considers two possible scenarios for the future development of the Soviet economy that are both, in different ways, expected to rectify the current problems. Both involve a reduction over the next few years in the annual growth in GDP. Both scenarios would require a restructuring of the Soviet economy. By integrating the scenarios for economic development with optimum values for energy conservation, the dynamics and the structure of primary energy consumption over the next few years are obtained. Over this period per capita energy consumption should stabilise, and the environmental impacts of energy use in the Soviet Union should be ameliorated.

Keywords: economics; economic reform; energy efficiency; energy industry; energy policy; environmental impact; future trends; industrial policy; USSR; energy consumption; Soviet Union; energy conservation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.1991.063727

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 1991 Vol.2 No.4, pp.220-224

Published online: 19 Jul 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article