The cruel romance between Russian gas suppliers and European consumers reached its peak this year. In early September, just ahead of the winter, Russia’s state-owned Gazprom shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which carries around a third of all Russian gas exports to the EU (almost 15% of the EU’s total gas imports).
Renewables
“We have decided, as a European Union: We will end our reliance on Russian fossil fuels,” announced EU President Ursula von der Leyen at Princeton University in September 2022. But it seems the EU leader is moving too fast with this statement.
With the warmer months when gas storage facilities are usually filled for the next winter approaching, Europe is struggling to find ways to replace Russian gas with potential alternatives. Attention is naturally turning to Norway, the second largest gas supplier to the continent.
This winter, soaring energy prices have aggravated the economic burden for European businesses and residential customers alike. While solar and wind plants are falling short of satisfying energy needs, another factor has proved to be a shortage of reserves of natural gas and other fuels. Hydrogen could become an alternative major source of green power. […]
2021 has seen issues relating to the environment becoming a key topic throughout the world, perhaps even displacing coronavirus, which has been the dominant theme of the last two years. In the context of an unusually cold winter and a hot, dry summer, which brought disaster and destruction in their wake virtually everywhere in the […]
The environment was a crucial theme in Germany’s 2021 election campaign and predictably, the Greens want to make it central to the coalition agreement. What exactly the country’s new energy policy will look like, taking into account the country’s accelerated switch from coal power is however as yet unclear even to ministers themselves. It is […]
The construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), one of the most large-scale international energy projects, was launched in Provence over thirty
In order to protect the climate, Germany is entirely abandoning nuclear energy by 2022 and then, by 2038, coal-fired energy. Berlin regards hydrogen and all that is connected to it as a central element of the decarbonization process. A strategy reflecting this was approved and adopted by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government last year. Energy Brief […]
Germany intends to consistently and rigorously implement its plan for the development of its national energy sector, with a view to abandoning nuclear energy by 2022 and phasing out coal by 2038. The precise mix on which Angela Merkel’s government is betting for the next few years is made up of alternative energy sources and […]
The history of the diesel was never one to reach soaring heights. However, despite existing in the shadow of the petrol engine, for a long time diesel technology has maintained its importance on European roads as an economic and even, at least in terms of CO2 emissions, a more environmentally friendly alternative. The greater performance […]
The point of no return has been reached: on January 25, a government-appointed commission reached an agreement to shut down all of Germany’s coal-fired power plants by 2038 at the latest. Since 2011, Germany has also been heading towards the denuclearization of its energy sector, which should be completed in 2022. This strong push towards greener energy sets an example for other countries, […]