What should Turkey’s energy preference be?

Energy has been one of the most important leverages in the struggle of human beings to survive. We took refuge in fire in order not to freeze and die from the cold. We used it to enhance comfort, including defense and lighting, as well as cooking. We took advantage of the energy and power of wind and water in mills and sailing ships to acquire and transport food.

The use of solid fuel, starting with wood, entered the coal stage after the simultaneous usage of tar, pitch and various oils. The transition to coal brought about the use of energy in production processes even more than heating because when steam power was discovered, the use of coal also emerged as a key component in transportation and the industrial revolution. With the introduction of oil, the use of liquid fuels in the production of goods and services together with heating and cooking became widespread. Nowadays, however, human beings are rapidly switching to gas as the primary energy source.

What comes next? This stage will continue until more economic and more useful primary sources emerge. And we must remember that the most widely used form of energy today is electricity, which is obtained from many different sources. Currently, 30-35 percent of electricity in Turkey is produced with natural gas, 30 percent with coal, 25 percent with hydroelectric and 10 percent with wind, geothermal, solar and biomass.

By all accounts, Turkey has to continue to use coal, oil and natural gas like other countries. That means it has to import more than 90 percent of the oil used in transportation and 100 percent of the natural gas used in electricity generation, industry and domestic consumption and the majority of coal.

So what should Ankara do when the whole world is pushing toward renewable resources such as solar, wind and biomass? Of course. Turkey should focus on renewable resources. Moreover, the general character of these resources is that they are local.

As we all know, there is a surplus of installed electricity. Therefore, the use of renewable energy re- sources in electricity investments from scratch is a necessity for both global trends and the struggle to escape external dependence. Of course, water is a domestic source, but we are talking about domestic sources other than hydroelectric power plants.

Turkey has managed to include wind and solar recently in new installments. But it is not enough. In particular, micro-investments in solar energy should be encouraged and citizens should be directly involved in this. Biomass power plants (BES) is another local solution. With BES, it is both possible to achieve waste disposal and generate electricity without imports. We didn’t mention nuclear because it is another dimension and the subject of separate article.