I have noted quite a lot of articles and comments on LinkedIn about Europe’s energy issues and most have a similar theme – it’s political! The fact is, there is no shortage of fossil fuels and I have often argued given pricing and human ingenuity, there isn’t likely to be at any point in my lifetime (Fusaro and Vasey, 2006, for example – chapter on peak oil). The energy transition is feasible and ultimately desirable. However, the consequences of attempting to rush the reshaping of the entire energy infrastructure through politically driven edict, and despite rational industry warnings of likely disastrous consequences in moving too quickly, are clearly proving to be not desirable. So with a cold winter behind us, low storage levels of natural gas, price competition for LNG elsewhere and little wind or sun absent sufficient batteries, we unsurprisingly to anyone in the industry I should think face a possible crisis this winter which may well be also cold. A crisis that is already impacting the UK and Germany with record energy prices, bankruptcies among retailers with more to come, less choice for consumers, possible brown outs and black outs and so on that has already seen coal… continue reading
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