The starting point for energy security today as it has always been is diversification of supplies and sources.

We experienced similiar fears in the 1880s, at the end of World War I and II. And we ran out in the 1970s.

In a couple of years, the Chinese will be seen as regular participants in international industry. Their companies have to report to shareholders as well as to the Chinese authorities. They need to make money, they have to be efficient.

The North Sea was supposed to run out in the 1980s. Then in the 1990s. And now production is still on-line.

So the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology.

According to one study by the United States Geological survey, 86 percent of oil reserves in the United States are the result not of what is estimated at the time of discovery but of the revisions and additions that come with further development.

First, we have to find a common vocabulary for energy security. This notion has a radically different meaning for different people. For Americans it is a geopolitical question. For the Europeans right now it is very much focused on the dependence on imported natural gas.