A Brief Analysis for the Existing Energy Problems in Europe
Since February, economic sanctions from Europe and America on Russian have caused global energy prices to climb sharply, and the price of natural gas in Europe has more than tripled a year ago. During the past two years, global energy prices have seen large gains since the 1973 oil crisis, and the war between Russia and Ukraine has exacerbated this trend. In May 2022, energy prices in Eurozone countries rose by nearly 40% year-on-year, which became one of the main factors contributing to the approximately 8% year-on-year increase in the inflation in Eurozone countries. There is no doubt that the war between Russia and Ukraine and the economic friction between Russia and the European Union and the United States for quite some time before that have greatly worsened the energy supply situation in Europe. In fact, Europe’s energy problems have been generated for a long time and the factors that contribute to the current situation of energy supply in Europe are also diverse. Now I will give my analyses on Europe’s energy problems from two aspects: energy supply and energy policies. When considering the issue of energy supply, there’s no doubt that Europe’s traditional energy sources have always relied on imports. Natural gas imports from Russia account for about 45 percent of total gas imports, compared with 27 percent for oil. Although Europe’s economic development is in a leading position in the world, its energy dependence on foreign countries has remained high. In particular, 90% of Europe’s natural gas depends on areas abroad.
Countries such as Austria, Finland and Latvia once relied 100 percent on natural gas imports from Russia. In addition to considerations in terms of energy imports, various types of extreme weather that have occurred around the world in recent years can be also one of the main culprits of the European energy crisis. For example, the increasingly serious “La Niña” phenomenon in recent years has made Europe’s winter temperatures unusually cold. In fact, European residents mainly rely on natural gas for heating in autumn and winter, and thus in the stimulus of such low temperatures, the demand for natural gas has soared. As a result, the price of natural gas had a shape increase.
When it comes to energy policy, we have to admit that Europe was obviously prescient: Europe is one of the first regions in the world to start promoting clean energy development goals. Such policies were made not only to replace traditional petrochemical energy with clean energy as early as possible, but also to help Europe get rid of the serious external energy dependence. According to relevant data from the European Union, as early as 2020, the contribution rate of renewable energy to electricity supply in Europe reached 38%, which is far more than that in other regions. There is no doubt that clean energy has good prospects for development in the next few decades, but it is also undeniable that there are many problems in the new energy policies promoted in Europe which need to be solved. In Germany, for example, the development of nuclear power, which was not been firmly implemented in the past 20 years, is now facing suspension and creating energy supply gaps. In the UK, domestic wind power generation fell sharply as winds fell in the summer of 2021. This “windless summer” forced the British government to deal with the gap in the natural gas supply for wind power. In France, although nuclear power technology is already mature, it is impossible to effectively contribute to the current domestic electricity supply because the construction period of new nuclear power plants is as long as ten years or more.
Europe’s energy supply problems cannot be well solved in a short period of time. If Europe could open up more channels for energy imports, or optimize domestic energy policies, it would be beneficial to solve existing energy problems.
By Tao Cheng
