On 4 July 2009 I posted about The Forgotten Caucasus: Where Oil and Water (and Gas!) Mix. The post was prompted by Nadya Ivanova's excellent article about that part of the world and the energy-water nexus found therein.
In that article, she quotes me and my belief that my work in the Kura-Araks Basin of the South Caucasus is as much about energy as it is about water. Here are previous posts on the topic: 25 May 2008 and 22 July 2008.
Now, my issue (18 - 24 July 2009) of The Economist arrives with a story about the Euros, Russians, and the struggle for secure natural gas supplies. The following map of extant and proposed gas lines is from the article; it's the best such map I've seen.
The two routes through Georgia and Azerbaijan - the BTC pipeline (oil) and the BTE (gas) are shown as cutting through the northwest corner of Armenia. That's incorrect; both pipelines, which follow the same route, go directly into Turkey from Georgia, avoiding Armenia altogether. Neither Azerbaijan nor Turkey would have had it any other way.
The article also has an accompanying video about the proposed Nabucco pipeline. I learned that the name is taken from a Verdi opera about slaves who throw off their chains and gain freedom.
To be continued...
"You cannot escape from destiny." -- Armenian proverb
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