We are presently seeing the vulnerability of the European markets to supply dependence and especially risks of reliance upon Gas from Russia. So how much is Europe dependent on Russian gas?
The EU is so dependent on it, and because it has committed to limiting its greenhouse gas emissions. The EU imported 155 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia in 2021, almost half (45%) of its gas imports and nearly 40% of the total amount used, according to the IEA.
There is currently a real scramble to change the dependencies due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the implications to Europe, and this growing recognition that Europe is faced with a real energy crisis for the next decade.
The current “talking up” of replacing oil, coal and gas with renewables of wind, solar, green hydrogen solutions (PEM Electrolyzers), new grid infrastructure and battery storage means potentially some very volatile and disruptive energy management problems in the short to medium term.
Over now for the next 10 years replacing existing energy generating solutions, dependent on oil, coal and gas with ones based on renewable solutions needs to be even more central to energy management.
But we also need to be recognizing the next crisis following this present one, that is rapidly coming towards us is the dependences on essential minerals and who controls these and that is China.
