No, it is absolutely necessary. What will go down as one of the worst blunders in history is allowing Europe to become so dependent on a single hostile country for energy.
Correctomundo, thank you so much for this. It was making my skin crawl to see this called an "economic blunder".
Your take is 100% correct.
In fact I would go farther and suggest that decision makers should be investigated at the highest level. Lots of German ones have interest in Russian oil companies. If "compromising European security to further your own interests" isn't a crime yet we need to make it so. One as serious as espionage or treason.
In Germany, Gerhardt Schroeder and Angela Merkel were perfectly fine promoting Russian gas and shutting down nuclear to improve their own positions and economic outcomes.
The same corruption happened in many places throughout Europe.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
-Freezing Yourself To Own Putin
-Demanding roubles for gas is a victory for Putin
-Sanctions won’t hurt Russia
-The West played itself with Russia sanctions
-You can’t blame Russia for all the world’s problems
-Banning Russia from SWIFT will hurt the West
Name peaceful countries that have the capacity for energy export at that scale to Europe.
1) the capacity should exist for the EU to be energy independent
2) capacity that cannot be attained need not be supplied by only a single source
3) peaceful countries exist in great amounts but we would consider them either too far to be serviceable without impact to the planet (importing/shipping fuel from Australia or the USA); or we would consider ourselves to be exploiting people (Africa).
It's not that I care, but you should be downvoting spam, not people who have different takes. I'm also puzzled how is it a strawman if I was quoting it.
> 1) the capacity should exist for the EU to be energy independent
Please show it then and I'll go to Brussels myself and inform them about it.
> 2) capacity that cannot be attained need not be supplied by only a single source
Maybe instead of downvoting, you should read things first, I used plural 'countries'.
> 3) peaceful countries exist in great amounts but we would consider them either too far to be serviceable without impact to the planet
I'm sure there is also plenty of gas in the Solar system, yet somehow it might as well not exist from our point of view.
> the USA
I said peaceful, countries that are constantly at war with other countries don't count as peaceful.
> or we would consider ourselves to be exploiting people (Africa).
The reason Europe does not buy gas from Africa is because of wars and high terrorism, it would be a nightmare to secure it, even in the Baltic terrorists can blow pipelines up. I also find it curious that you would consider buying energy from Africa exploitation.
The first mistake was being reliant on gas for energy.
The second mistake was that it was Russian gas.
It’s the first mistake that should have been avoided, not the second.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Pr...
96% of the renewable energy comes from hydropower https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/energy/renewable-energy...
Cold climates have a variety of renewable energy options; wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, etc.
If solar and wind can be used in Greenland (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01189-x), they can be used virtually anywhere.
Population: 57,000.
Not even comparable to most countries at all
(The original upthread post also said renewables, not just solar, so the objections are doubly silly.)
Alaska: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200219-the-solar-farms-...
> Their pilot project of two rows of 70 kW panels suggested that the farm would work on a larger scale. The first rows went in during the summer of 2018, and after eight months, the costs came in on target, says Chris Colbert, chief finance officer of Renewable. “We monitored production throughout the year, which also came in on target,” he says. That made it easier for them to get the attention of investors to allow them to expand.
Antarctica: https://www.antarctica.gov.au/antarctic-operations/stations/...
That's your point right?
It's a solvable problem if we all agreed to do it.
[1] https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/946/cpsprodpb/10F88/production...
I would love to live in the world of renewables, but reality is that it's not as easy as flipping s switch.
We can't even make batteries without causing immense pollution and harm to the environment.
We need more carrot (cheaper prices) and more stick (taxes/regulations) on fossil fuels to accelerate this change. I would think that energy independence would be valuable to sovereign nations -- relying on others for the energy you need is risky business when things get messy.
It's actually not getting much better, let's assume that we have multiple clean energy sources that can sustain our demands and I'll explain why I don't think we are not a in a good place.
Building electric cars causes so much pollution that you have to drive a lot (see: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-d... ) to reach parity with gasoline powered cars and even then I'm not sure if you are still able to use your battery. At the moment the single problem electric cars actually solve is air quality within bigger cities, however it merely shifts the pollution elsewhere.
In countries where it can get cold, you usually have gas heaters, replacing those would be a Herculean task, it would cost astronomical amounts of money which is just unimaginable in the current economy.
Even if you have your clean energy sources the economics are not there yet.
> We need more carrot (cheaper prices) and more stick (taxes/regulations) on fossil fuels to accelerate this change.
You will likely end up accelerating the decline of your economy and will be forced into burning coal. We do't need more incentives, they are already there, fossil fuels are horribly expensive so if there is a way to get around them, the private sector will find a way, you don't need to give them handouts and you don't need to punish them with taxes. Unfortunately we do need to be realistic and stop nuclear shaming.
> I would think that energy independence would be valuable to sovereign nations -- relying on others for the energy you need is risky business when things get messy.
Absolutely, unfortunately geography is not equally kind to all countries, therefore not all countries can be truly sovereign, large blocs like the US and EU have a chance to do become independent, however not all individual EU countries have that luxury.
I am pro renewable energy and I do believe we need to move closer and closer to a world where we use clean energy more and more, however I also believe we need to be sober, understand reality and not give in to the hype marketing and cults.
This is patently untrue. The only thing holding wind back is ever more byzantine regulations coming largely from fossil fuels and nuclear. In any country south of lithuania (about 90% of people) solar or solar storage is also more viable than nuclear.
> Unfortunately we do need to be realistic and stop nuclear shaming.
Realism involves doing the thing that lowers emissions fastest with the smallest amount of resources.
For almost any country with <50% penetration this is wind and solar. Many countries can have a mix with up to 80% for less than nuclear.
Even for countries without hydro or good sunlight having whatever already exists (or gas if it replaces coal) fill the remainder is far more emissions prevented far sooner. If you have a funded commitment for those 80% renewables, by all means plan nuclear for the rest, but unless you do you're just helping fossil fuels stay on.
And when 4 day storage or electrolysis becomes viable that can be phased out too.
Then there is the absolute certainty that -- the millisecond let the likes of chevron or shell or anyone similar run nuclear plants -- we'll have some idiot manager order the 5 or 6 colossally stupid things you have to do in sequence to get another chernobyl (or significantly worse) in the name of cost saving or pumping up some kpi.