Europe's energy is chaotic. Why is Europe so dependent on Russia for energy?

Because natural gas in Russia is cheap, the transportation of natural gas depends on pipelines, and the transportation cost is high. Russia is close and rich in resources.

Natural gas, coal and oil are the three most important fossil fuels in the world, but unlike coal and oil, which can be transported freely around the world, pipeline natural gas is a regional product that depends on neighboring regions. In order to transport it, natural gas producers need to spend millions of dollars to build pipelines connecting producers and buyers. Because these natural gas pipelines are too expensive, there must be a permanent commitment. Natural gas trading can connect buyers and sellers for decades, or even forever, until natural gas runs out.

By the 1980s, the Soviet Union had built a pipeline network to Europe. In the 1990s, 40% of Germany's natural gas was supplied by the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Russian state-owned enterprises took over the old Soviet natural gas pipeline, but redrawn the pipeline map, because the main natural gas pipeline of the Soviet era would pass through Ukraine after independence, and Russians thought it might get out of control in the future. In order to diversify the natural gas pipeline to Germany, Russia began to build new pipelines. 1999, they completed this natural gas pipeline crossing Belarus. In 2005, they began to build pipelines along the Baltic Sea to Germany.

Russia has three pipeline routes to Germany. The trade of natural gas is getting stronger and stronger, but it has also changed the relationship between Russia and Europe. At the end of 2008, the price negotiation between Russia and Ukraine on natural gas broke down. A few days later, Russia cut off Ukraine's natural gas supply for 20 days, and Ukraine is the main transit country of Russian natural gas pipeline, so this is equivalent to cutting off the natural gas supply of many European countries at the same time. As a result, the lives of many ordinary people in Europe were affected, and thousands of people in Poland lost their heat, at least 1 1 people froze to death. All these consequences make Europe wary.

Through the supply of natural gas, Russia has indirectly mastered a great voice in Europe. 20 14 When Russia annexed Crimea, in response, the EU introduced a series of sanctions, and some EU countries began to want to remove their dependence on Russian natural gas. But it has built energy facilities for decades, and it is not so easy to break. In fact, Germany may import more natural gas from Russia now than ever before. However, with the intensification of the war, Germany is facing increasing pressure. But it is not easy to replace Russian natural gas, because it has been transported to households and enterprises in the European Union through pipelines for decades. To solve the problem of energy supply quickly, we can only replace it with natural gas from other countries.