On Wednesday, I asked whether the EU’s proposed embargo on Russian oil – to be phased in over the next six to eight months – really makes sense.
It now seems the proposal may be dead in the water, as Hungary has said it will exercise its veto. Speaking to the BBC, the country’s Secretary of State for International Communication and Relations described the proposal as “unacceptable”, claiming it would “ruin the Hungarian economy”.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who compared the proposal to dropping an “atomic bomb” on the Hungarian economy, said his country would need five years to transition away from Russian oil, adding that one and half years is “not enough for anything”.
As the FT explains, oil imported from Russia isn’t refined in the same way as oil imported from other sources, so massive investments would need to be made in Hungary’s refineries to process the new oil. Hungary currently gets 65% of its oil from Russia, as well as 85% of its gas.
According to Reuters, Orban also questioned “whether it was wise to make investments on that scale for a result in four to five years time, while the war in Ukraine was happening now”. As I noted in my post on Wednesday, the proposed embargo is unlikely to have much impact on the war itself.
Meanwhile, 11 former Brussels policy chiefs (including former Commission President Romano Prodi) have written to EU leaders, warning that the bloc must not make long-term commitments to alternative fossil fuel providers while it seeks to reduce its dependence on Russian oil.
Doing so, the petitioners say, “will only serve to maintain EU energy dependence on other countries, many of which do not respect EU values”. Again, as I noted on Wednesday, it’s not clear that alternative suppliers of oil – like Saudi Arabia or the U.A.E. – are any more ‘moral’ than Russia.
Rather than making costly investments in fossil fuel infrastructure (of the kind that Hungary would require to process non-Russian oil), the petitioners call for a “drastic reduction in fossil fuel use in line with climate goals”, as well as a “massive expansion of wind and solar farms”.
Their proposal chimes in with the Eurocrat who recently told a group of EU policymakers that Europeans “need to pay more for energy” because we have “created enormous wealth at the expense of planet Earth”.
Of course, replacing Russian fossil fuels with renewables would take even longer, and be even more expensive, than replacing them with Middle Eastern oil and American natural gas. But the petitioners raise a good point: if the EU does intend to phase out fossil fuels, why make costly fossil fuel investments now?
Unfortunately, the EU is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If it wants to achieve its climate goals, it needs to put all its eggs in the renewables basket. But if it wants to reduce its dependence on Russia, it needs to spend a lot of money on fossil fuel infrastructure – money it could have spent on renewables.
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“A rock and a hard place ‘? UVDL is running the EU – what do they expect but chaos and contradiction from this ‘Citizen of the World’ and friend of Big Pharma, famous only for ruining the Bundeswehr and refusing to answer questions about ‘deals’ and a “missing” mobile phone?
Von der Leyen is president of the EU commission which is the formal head of the EU administration. Traditionally, German politicians who f***ed up thoroughly at home but have to much clout to ignore them are deposited (as in put onto the landfill) to EU posts not really associated with any power in order to get rid of them in a socially harmless way.
Von der Leyen needs a bullet, because she cannot be ousted via a ballot. She would be shellacked in a vote right now.
She is a US-centric servile cocksucker who acts in the absolute opposite manner to the interests of the peoples of Europe.
Now if she were to resign of her own volition…..
The EU is stuck between the EU and Reality.
It would seem that way. The EU’s reduction on fossil fuels to “save the planet”, if it were sincere, would be a pointless exercise given that China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria and a bunch of other countries that comprise the majority of the world’s population expand their fossil fuel consumption as they most certainly are.
But I don’t believe for a minute any of this is about climate or saving the planet. Europe has virtually no natural resources. For the last hundred plus years Europe has controlled large amounts of the natural resources in the rest of the world. But that control has slowly been taken away and reverted to the countries where those resources are.
So all Europe has left is its insane moral superiority play of saving the planet and trying to bully the rest of the world into the same policy.
It’s not going to work. Europe is in decline. The emerging world knows it, the blood is in the water.
The EU’s problem with reality is not understanding its predicament but rather in its solutions. The renewables route is a complete dead end and picking a fight with its biggest supplier of resources is, well, not very clever.
An important driver of imperialism was the idea to seek foreign markets for one’s own industrial manufacture. Eg, the British are, by so-disposed people, routinely accused of destroying the native industry in India so that they could force-sell their own products there. That doesn’t quite fit with virtually no natural resources story (Russian propagandists keep telling). A country named Germany also fought two large-scale industrialized wars in the last century while being cut off from global trade, based on nothing but the ressources it supposedly doesn’t have.
The idea that resource extraction in (western) Europe ought to be shut down because we can get everything we need cheaper from so-called decolonized countries whose goverments basically only exist because we pay their bills didn’t really gain traction until the 1980s.
I’m pretty sure there isn’t enough oil and gas in Europe to supply the EU.
Don’t know about other raw materials.
Shale? Allegedly we sit on the largest shale deposit In the galaxy. Joking aside, I believe Britain still has large deposits of coal, the mines being closed in the last century because of the high cost of extraction. Perhaps new technologies will allow oil and gas exploration in deeper waters as well.
There’s plenty of gas in the Eastern Mediterranean waiting to be exploited. Probably masses more to the west of Ireland and the Scottish Islands. There’s 1000 years of coal under the UK, masses more under Germany and France.
Just because rabid money makers in the City shut things down in the UK and greens did the same in Germany doesn’t mean those resources got magicked away.
I doubt the wisdom of In order to save the planet, we must cover it with concrete much more aggressively than we already do.
When you allow interventionist aggressors to run your foreign policy, and delusional zealots to run your energy policy, it’s insane to expect anything other than disaster.
They could, of course, completely ignore all the renewable energy rubbish and carry on just buying oil from Russia as usual.
Let’s be honest, they will. Despite[*] going hog wild on wind and PV, Germany’s imports of natural gas continue to rise year on year.
They can divert billions into the pockets of their cronies with greenwashing, and they can order the Lügenpresse to report eco-tractor production constantly rising. But the power going out is one of the things that they can’t cover up, and the consequences might actually become personal for them.
[*] i.e. because of.
The problem with “green” energy … is you need fossil fuel energy to manufacture it, to create the machines to produce and install it, to run the society, to educate the youth …. and, at the end of the day, “green” energy is just a folly standing on the hill greenwashing fossil fuels.
Slightly off topic -‘Britain is throwing away its opportunity to rule the global wave and tidal energy sector due to lack of government support, a series of leading developers have told the Guardian’.(2018) This lack of investment in Hydro and Tidal puzzles me given the amount of loot that’s been thrown away over the last few years ..Foreign Aid ..Millions to France re Gimmigrants .Billions on the PaNdemIC…more millions to Zelenskys Black hole….and other stuff, ..makes a man wonder..
Government don’t do common sense, they do like to create a problem and then pretend to fix it though.
Clearly there is no dodgy money to be made in hydro, and it would also go a long way in solving this “energy crisis” they have manufactured, so they aren’t interested.
Hydro is limited in the UK, although it might be increased 3-4x. But 3-4x one percent of our electricity is only three to four percent of our elec, and a lot of NIMBYs would be jumping up and down if English rivers were dammed top to bottom … as they were centuries ago, up until the early 20th.C.
I agree about tidal. Lagoons would last centuries. One can pump between them to give power totally on demand. Not unlimited though … last time I looked, the estimates were that they might manage a few tens of percent of our electricity.
France built a tidal barrage in 1966, before it started the nukes. It still works fine and recently had a major refit. Not many power stations have a refit at age 56 and are then fit for another 50-100 years.
If wave and tidal energy was technologically and economically viable it wouldn’t need government subsidies thrown at it.
It would have more than enough private (ie voluntary and not enforced through taxation or borrowing) financial support.
The simple truth is that all forms of ‘alternative’ energy are inherently massively less efficient and reliable than fossil fuel versions, and are only ever considered because of the greatest pseudo-scientific / political-ideological scam in history –
‘Catastrophic Man Made Climate Change’.
A self-destructive myth which the neo-fascist and expansionist Putin regime has taken full advantage of over the last few years in its near-monopolistic control of European gas (and to a lesser extent oil) supplies.
Multiple picks on Orban:
-few days ago leaked that actually we pay more for Russian oil than market price: probably Orban et al is having a cut to some cayman island account
-Orban seems to me always as the scapegoat for EU bureaucrats: they don’t really want to do something but want to virtual signal: use Hungary as the veto
On the other hand, they could, Lol, just read some actual history books re the Russia/Ukraine saga since just before WW 1 onwards in order to realise who really are the bad guys.
Just remember, the West, particularly the USA and its Poodle (many thanks for that Blair you beyond evil bastard), are actually going to war – with a serious nuclear power – but worry not, we’re only going to fight them to the last drop of Ukranian blood.
Maybe…
The EU. Kicked in the teeth again.
Diddums.
> If the EU wants to achieve its climate goals,
> it needs to put all its eggs in the renewables basket.
If the EU disappeared off the map tomorrow it would make zero difference to the climate – neither now nor in 100 years. However replacing cheap dependable fossil fuels with expensive, intermittent, weather-dependent energy sources will certainly impoverish the population and reverse all the gains in health and wealth made since the industrial revolution.
What continually astonishes is how much we fawn over and support the USA while happily committing economic suicide by enforcing their demanded sanctions on Russia.
Does nobody in the governments in Europe realise that what they are doing is not in Ukraine’s interest, but in the interests of a morally and fiscally bankrupt USA who are prepared to kill as many Ukrainians and Russians as necessary (not to mention the millions who are going to die of starvation and disease as a direct result of the engineered food and energy shortages) in order to maintain their hegemony and dollar supremacy?
What would it have cost to give the Russians a bit of breathing space by helping Ukraine become another Switzerland and instead of wasting blood and treasure on a useless war that will only benefit the Planet’s greatest warmongers, spend it on making Ukraine an economic powerhouse – just like Boris is doing with ‘the Northern Powerhouse’ LOL.
Lots of natural resources in Ukraine along with its fertile agricultural land, we’re going along with it to clear out the people and buildings so we can strip the assets while no one’s looking. Putin (and Zelensky) has probably got a stake in the asset stripping exercise too.
Boo hoo hoo for the clowns of the EU.
As M Bonaparte said, never interrupt the enemy when he is so busy shooting himself in the foot that he’ll have to hop all the way home.
Choose freedom by breaking off all diplomatic relations with the USA. Then ignore oil embargoes and, if sacrifices are to be made, they will be in not buying US products and services.
The USA declared war on Europe. Europe should respond diplomatically…..
On an entirely different subject, I wonder why Putin spent so money on funding Green groups in the UK who just wanted to stop us producing our own fossil fuels?
Orban is that rarity in EU nation leaders. He understands that his responsibility is to the Hungarian people, not the EU apparatchiks. No wonder they hate him.
A Headline from the US on 4th April.……”up 4.75% on the day, oil soared to $110, as the EU announced plans to ban Russian oil.
Russia will see its income from oil reach more than $180B this year, thanks to the rising prices. Russia’s tax revenues will be 45% higher than last year.”
oops!
“But if it wants to reduce its dependence on Russia, it needs to spend a lot of money on fossil fuel infrastructure – money it could spend on renewables instead.”
No matter how much it spends on “Unreliables” they will remain unreliable and every last milliwatt will require to be matched by a milliwatt of synchronous generation, which means fossil fuel until nuclear comes on stream in sufficient quantity.
It’s really bloody simple. Tell the green loons to fuck off and start producing our own energy cheaply and efficiently.