Energy: The last frontier of the Ukraine war
02/11/2022. Category: Military. Topic: conflict, energy.
The Ukraine war has intensified the old energy conflict between Russia and the US. The ultimate result of this struggle is uncertain but US main allies, i.e., Europe, are not expected to perform well.
Fossil fuels are the main sources of world energy providing 80% of the world’s consumption. In Europe, and despite long-dated political, social and media initiatives in favor of green energy, in 2021 fossil fuels sourced 70.6% of total energy consumption and renewables only 12.3%, the latter an unremarkable feat as green promotion started in the late 1970s. Historically Europe has relied on Russian fuels and as of May 2022 Russian oil imports represented 23.7% and 16.1% of OECD Europe’s oil demand and total imports, respectively, whereas in 2021 Russian gas equaled 71.7% of Europe’s total gas pipeline imports and 49% of total gas imports, respectively.
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