«KAZAKHSTAN-2050» STRATEGY IN ACTION: Expo 2017 - important step for image of our Independent country
- Ms. Syrlybayeva, in his address in 2012, the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev clearly defined set of global threats that cannot be ignored by our country as a member of the global political and economic process. Which of them relate to security of energy supply?
- A year ago the President Nazarbayev announced the new National Development Strategy "Kazakhstan-2050. The new political course of the established state". This document is a kind of software, system, long-term program that is certainly rather bold and courageous act in our rapidly changing world. The President has announced the following challenges that are common to all countries without exception. Primarily, it is acceleration of historical time and the global demographic imbalance when we see that the population of developing countries is growing rapidly on a background of very low or even negative growth in developed countries. That is why there is a threat to global food security, an acute shortage of water resources and global energy security.
- Indeed, today no one industry can exist with no energy. What are our concerns and perspectives in this direction?
- The rate of depletion of natural resources is difficult to predict because the technologies are rapidly evolving and those deposits which 50 years ago were considered hard-to explore, uneconomic to develop, at the moment are included in the category as quite acceptable for development. At the same time, the number of affordable, high-quality deposits in the world is rapidly decreasing. The Message of the President includes the thesis that Kazakhstan should strengthen the development and export of its hydrocarbon resources. World energy trends are changing. Many countries are actively developing "green economy" that is a kind of energy independence. And as long as the markets are stable enough we need to enter them and gain a foothold and maximum advantage. At present time we are launching a giant oil field "Kashagan". Thanks to the efforts of many global companies we finally begin commercial production which is at the moment, unfortunately, interrupted for technical reasons. Oil and gas industry is one of the innovative areas of the economy, so we need to distribute revenues in a clever way id est for maintaining the sustainable development of oil and gas sector and at the same time creating industries of "green economy".
- So we touched upon another topical theme: "green economy" and the exhibition EXPO-2017. What does our country have for the development of renewable energy?
- The general trend of world energy is planting. That means a large-scale development or introduction of renewable natural resources such as wind, solar, geothermal hydropower. Kazakhstan has great potential for the enhancement. We have a huge territory with constant winds on which basis there was created a wind atlas allowing to identify the 10 most preferred areas for wind enery generation. In addition Kazakhstan is a quite sunny country so we have a lot of groundwork for the development of solar energy. In the mountains of southern Kazakhstan there is a sufficient number of small mountain rivers that are suitable for generating electricity by exploiting mini-hydros. This is also a new trend in the global energy sector. On the basis of the above mentioned we can say that one of the most important achievements of the year include winning the right to host the World International Exhibition EXPO 2017 themed "energy of the future". Astana will show the world our achievements in that area. While these achievements have been gained from scratch.
- You mean that Kazakhstan is not very experienced in the development of such technologies?
- The territory of Kazakhstan is very diverse in its natural and geographical conditions. And because of that different technologies that are already extensively used in Europe, America, China, such as wind turbines, solar power plants are not always effective and sometimes even totally unsuitable for our state. Kazakhstan has already chosen athe project for EXPO 2017, has charted the territory, has a master plan of objects location and we must start the actual construction as there is not very much time left and we want to attract a large number of participants for the event.Nevertheless, coal will remain the basis energy source of Kazakhstan for decades. We have large deposits allowing us to get cheap electricity. But thinking ahead, hydrocarbon energy should gradually give up its positions in favor of "green" energy. The President also mentioned in his Message about the importance of EXPO 2017. And the fact that we have a concrete plan for the development of the exhibition is one of the major outcomes of the year since the announcement of "Kazakhstan-2050" Strategy.
- Thank you for the interview!