In the first decade of the 21st century, a major topic in American politics was energy independence. How could the U.S. make itself less reliant on imported energy sources - primarily oil?
I suspect a major theme in the 2020s will be the same basic question, but for Europe, and with a major focus on natural gas.
The reason has been clear for some time - Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas, just as the U.S. was on Middle Eastern oil, and if Russia ever wanted to leverage that against Europe, they could. The only difference is that over the past half year, Russia has decided to do just that, and Europe hasn't really been planning for that possibility.
So, what can Europe do to increase its energy independence? I see a lot of possibilities, which could be pursued in parallel, and some of which are seeing limited action.
- Add more dockyard and pipeline facilities for importing natural gas from the U.S. and Canada (as well as other, more distant suppliers).
- Build more natural gas storage facilities. The E.U. has announced energy suppliers will be required to fill their existing storage tanks this summer, but that obviously suggests that more could be built to increase resiliency.
- Reopen shuttered nuclear plants, and build new nuclear plants, to decrease reliance on natural gas as a fuel source. Macron has already proposed building a dozen new plants in France, but in the short-term recommissioning recently closed ones would be faster, and some countries (most notably Germany) have a multitude of plants that were closed before the end of their service life.
- Reopen recently closed coal plants. Not desirable from an environmental standpoint, but better than running out of fuel.
- Accelerate wind/solar deployment. Europe has been doing all right in this category, but it's only replacing a couple percentage points of electricity generation per year - not enough to solve the problem on its own.
- Provide incentives for customers to replace gas furnances/heaters with electric. Italy is already doing this for gas water heaters.
- Fund natural gas exploration efforts, and hydrogen fuel cell development. This may not work as well in Europe as it did in the U.S. (where hydraulic fracking unlocked vast new reserves), but could still help.
- Increase efficiency standards. This is a gradual one, but could add up over time.
I think it will be interesting to see which options are chosen. IMO, the most sensible option would be an "all of the above" approach, but with a long-term focus on nuclear buildout to replace the natural gas baseline power production and replacing in-home natural gas with electric; and a short-term focus on recommisioning coal and nuclear plants that have been idled, and expanding the ability to import more natural gas from overseas.
But I also expect that to be controversial, especially in Germany with its pro-green-except-nuclear environment.
Thoughts? Knowledge about progress in these areas? I expect we'll gradually hear more about this as the years progress.
I suspect a major theme in the 2020s will be the same basic question, but for Europe, and with a major focus on natural gas.
The reason has been clear for some time - Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas, just as the U.S. was on Middle Eastern oil, and if Russia ever wanted to leverage that against Europe, they could. The only difference is that over the past half year, Russia has decided to do just that, and Europe hasn't really been planning for that possibility.
So, what can Europe do to increase its energy independence? I see a lot of possibilities, which could be pursued in parallel, and some of which are seeing limited action.
- Add more dockyard and pipeline facilities for importing natural gas from the U.S. and Canada (as well as other, more distant suppliers).
- Build more natural gas storage facilities. The E.U. has announced energy suppliers will be required to fill their existing storage tanks this summer, but that obviously suggests that more could be built to increase resiliency.
- Reopen shuttered nuclear plants, and build new nuclear plants, to decrease reliance on natural gas as a fuel source. Macron has already proposed building a dozen new plants in France, but in the short-term recommissioning recently closed ones would be faster, and some countries (most notably Germany) have a multitude of plants that were closed before the end of their service life.
- Reopen recently closed coal plants. Not desirable from an environmental standpoint, but better than running out of fuel.
- Accelerate wind/solar deployment. Europe has been doing all right in this category, but it's only replacing a couple percentage points of electricity generation per year - not enough to solve the problem on its own.
- Provide incentives for customers to replace gas furnances/heaters with electric. Italy is already doing this for gas water heaters.
- Fund natural gas exploration efforts, and hydrogen fuel cell development. This may not work as well in Europe as it did in the U.S. (where hydraulic fracking unlocked vast new reserves), but could still help.
- Increase efficiency standards. This is a gradual one, but could add up over time.
I think it will be interesting to see which options are chosen. IMO, the most sensible option would be an "all of the above" approach, but with a long-term focus on nuclear buildout to replace the natural gas baseline power production and replacing in-home natural gas with electric; and a short-term focus on recommisioning coal and nuclear plants that have been idled, and expanding the ability to import more natural gas from overseas.
But I also expect that to be controversial, especially in Germany with its pro-green-except-nuclear environment.
Thoughts? Knowledge about progress in these areas? I expect we'll gradually hear more about this as the years progress.
