European Union leaders at a summit meeting last week made a commitment to cut their dependence on Russian gas. The Ukraine crisis has highlighted the issue: About 30 percent of the gas the Union consumes comes fromRussia.
Not that there is any immediate risk of the Kremlin turning off the taps. After all, Russia gets about 14 percent of its entire export earnings from the gas it sells to other European countries.
What’s more, the European Union is better placed to withstand a disruption of gas supplies than it was in 2009 when Moscow last cut off gas supplies to Kiev. Back then 80 percent of Russian gas was routed through Ukraine, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Now it is around 50 percent, largely because of a new pipeline that connects Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea.
The European Union also responded to the 2009 shutdown by building “interconnectors” between different countries. As a result, it is easier to shunt gas and electricity from countries that have excess energy to those that face a shortage — though these connections are still patchy and need to be built up.
This is relevant in what some analysts, like Rem Korteweg of the Center for European Reform, a private research group, consider a possible escalation scenario: that Russia cuts supplies of gas through Ukraine but continues pumping it through its other two pipelines to the West — one through the Baltic and the other through Poland.
In such a scenario, the European Union would probably get enough gas during the spring and summer months. Some countries in Central Europe — such as Austria and the Czech Republic — and the Balkans would run out of gas they import through Ukraine. But gas could then flow south from Germany through the interconnectors.
There is a more dramatic but less plausible scenario: a total gas war, when all pipelines are turned off. In this, Moscow would suffer more pain than the European Union. But that may not be the whole story, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia may be more willing to suffer pain than his counterparts in Western Europe. Or, at least, he may be more prepared to dare them into a game of Russian roulette.
Given this, it makes sense for the European Union to strengthen its negotiating position by diversifying its sources of supply. There will be a cost — either in cash or the impact on the environment. But it is one worth paying.
That said, European Union nations should not prioritize security of supply to the exclusion of their other objectives: increasing competitiveness and fighting climate change. The question is how to best balance these conflicting goals. Part of the answer is to distinguish between short-term and long-term measures.
In the short run, European Union countries can use more coal and less gas in their electricity generation. Coal imports from the United States are particularly cheap, so this would advance the competitiveness agenda. The snag is that coal produces much more carbon than the equivalent amount of gas, so that is not good for global warming. Given the imperative to stand up to Russia, the European Union should delay, but not scrap, rules for phasing out dirty coal-fired power stations.
The European Union can also increase imports of liquefied natural gas, mainly from Qatar. But there are problems. First, most of the Union’s L.N.G. terminals are in Western Europe, whereas it is the eastern part of the Union that is most vulnerable to a cutoff of Russian gas. So more terminals need to be built, which takes time. What’s more, L.N.G. is expensive — partly because Japan is buying lots of it after closing ts nuclear plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.
Longer term, European Union nations should embrace shale gas. It is cheap and local. Britain and Poland have the most potential. It is important that the Union does not get in the way of its exploitation.
Meanwhile, countries such as Germany should abandon their knee-jerk aversion to nuclear energy. While it has its risks, it has the benefit of being carbon-free — and of cutting the Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.
Finally, the European Union is devising new plans to combat global warming. At present it has targets for cutting carbon emissions and increasing renewable energy. The problem is not the carbon goal, said Raoul Ruparel of Open Europe, a research institute. Rather it is the renewable target, which results in uneconomic wind and solar power being built across the Union. There are, after all, other potentially cheaper ways of achieving carbon emission targets, such as nuclear power.
Fortunately, the European Union is considering a target for 2030 that is more focused on cutting carbon emissions than increasing renewable energy. Such an approach could help competitiveness and wean Europe off its Russian gas.
So the European Union does have options that can reduce its energy dependence without contributing to climate change or damaging competitiveness. It just needs to grasp them.
Hugo Dixon is editor at large of Reuters News.
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