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Europe made a strategic mistake in having an expansionary dictatorship as their primary energy supplier. The current sanctions and supply threats were always in
by matthewdgreen 4y ago
Europe made a strategic mistake in having an expansionary dictatorship as their primary energy supplier. The current sanctions and supply threats were always inevitable, the only question was timing (and perhaps whether it would be a NATO country under attack by the time Europe was forced to respond.)
- selfhoster11 4y agoExactly. Years before the Ukraine war, a blind man could’ve seen what a catastrophic error it was to build an energy supply policy based on fuels coming from Russia.
- AstralStorm 4y agoWhat would you propose instead? There were only these options: 1) Use Russian gas. 2) Build pipelines via Turkey and risk different dictators. 3) Build an enormous overcapacity for LNG via sea and eat the extreme differential in prices. 4) Build nuclear power plants and generate remaining necessary gas from hydrogen reforming.
- matthewdgreen 4y agoIt’s a really good question. Probably the answer was a mixture of (2), (3) and (4). As things stand now, Europe is going to have to answer this question right now in a hurry since reliable access to Russian gas no longer seems like a viable option. In other words: it wasn’t a choice whether Europe would need another option, but simply whether they would have to do it in a crisis mode.
- AstralStorm 4y agoYes, it was always felt that Russian gas was risky, but diversification was done with regard to energy before everyone tried to cut emissions by using gas...