Security is in fashion in these uncertain times. Here we talk about the National security, whereby we strengthen border controls. We also discussed the food safetyin terms of the capacity of our agricultural production to meet the needs of the population. There are also no shortage of discussions about personal and family safety, in the face of the onslaught of crime in its various manifestations. And we hear references to security in other contexts, including stockpiles of vaccines against Covid, or the number of months of imports that foreign exchange reserves can cover.
What we don’t usually mention much is the energy security, for the simple reason that it is a goal that we are not in a position to achieve. If security of any kind involves achieving a goal with our own means, then clearly we do not have it with respect to electricity and fuelswhich leaves two essential sectors, Energy and transportation, highly exposed to events beyond our control.
Our reliance on outside sources for the operation of these two sectors places a question mark over other classes of securities. Some analysts international economic linkages and vulnerabilities cast doubt on whether countries lacking energy security can truly enjoy security in key sectors of their production structure. They point out in this sense that the presence as an input of the Energy it is so general and essential, that without its availability numerous activities that generate goods could not be carried out, or would be seriously limited in their scale and diversity. That includes the agricultural productionhighly conditioned by the availability of fertilizers, pesticides, transport and other inputs, which implies, from the point of view of these analyststhat food safety it can in such conditions be more illusion than reality.
