Europe Didn’t End Its Energy Dependence. It Relocated It.

If you want to understand the geopolitics of the last two centuries, chart the history of coal, oil and gas. Whoever has controlled fossil fuels has controlled routes, set prices, created alliances, won wars, battled inflation and dominated foreign policy. Europe believed for years that it had found a reasonable solution: buy cheap gas from Russia through pipelines that guaranteed stable supplies for its industry. The theory was that economic interdependence would make conflict impossible. Until Russia invaded Ukraine and turned that dependence into a weapon.

The European reaction was swift but not necessarily smart: it replaced Russian pipelines with American LNG tankers. According to the Council of the European Union, the United States is already Europe’s main supplier of LNG. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says it could account for 80% of European imports of liquified natural gas by 2030. In short, we have simply traded dependence, moving from dependence on Putin’s thuggery to dependence on Trump’s idiocy (or the other way around, who cares!) A diplomatic achievement of the first order. Before, the problem came by pipeline from Siberia, now it crosses the Atlantic in ships and is much more expensive. And the fact that Nord Stream was blown up for the obvious benefit of certain actors is still a detail that should be remembered, even if the available evidence does not allow anyone to point the finger.

That doesn’t automatically mean that the US wants the war in Ukraine to never end in order to continue selling gas. The geopolitical reality is much more complex. It is clear that US energy companies are reaping huge benefits from Europe’s new energy map, just as it is clear that Nord Stream’s destruction eliminated the main infrastructure supporting energy interdependence between Europe and Russia. But it is one thing to recognize economic and strategic incentives, and quite another to turn them into conclusive evidence of a conspiracy.

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

The important question is not who sells us the gas. The important question is why we still need so much of it. Because as long as Europe is structurally dependent on importing fossil fuels, there will always be someone on the other side with the capacity for political, economic or strategic pressure. Russia, the United States, Qatar or Algeria: the supplier changes, but not the vulnerability.

That is why energy transition is not only a climate issue. It is a question of sovereignty. Chatham House sums it up very well: renewables and electrification are the true basis of European energy security. A solar panel on a Spanish roof cannot be used as a geopolitical weapon in the same way as a gas pipeline. A heat pump reduces imports. A smart grid decreases exposure to international markets. An electricity system based on renewables, storage and flexibility shifts power from fuel producers to technology and engineering.

And here it is worth debunking another myth: nuclear energy does not solve this problem either. In fact, it prolongs it. Current nuclear power is extraordinarily expensive compared to solar and wind. Lazard’s latest report once again shows that renewables are by far the cheapest form of new electricity generation. While solar and wind continue to reduce costs thanks to learning curves and economies of scale, Western nuclear plans accumulate delays, cost overruns and projects that are practically impossible to finance without huge public subsidies. Flamanville and Hinkley Point C show that each new nuclear power plant is a monument to bureaucratic and financial problems rather than a solution for tomorrow’s energy needs. The West has been failing to build reactors on time or within budget for decades.

In addition, nuclear does not fit well into a system dominated by renewables. Modern power grids need flexibility, storage and adaptability: distributed and variable generation. Nuclear power plants, designed to operate continuously as rigid-based source, discourage precisely this flexibility. Nor do they offer true strategic independence: Europe imports virtually all the uranium it consumes. According to Euratom, much of Europe’s nuclear fuel depends on imports and supply chains dominated by Russia. Changing dependence on gas for dependence on uranium does not exactly seem like a geopolitical revolution or an intelligent decision.

The good news for Europe is that, for many years, there is a real alternative. The energy transition is not simply about replacing fossil plants with other technologies; It consists of completely changing the architecture of the energy system. Moving from a model based on importing and burning fuel to one based on renewable electricity, storage, digitalization, smart grids, and efficiency requires a technological transformation much more similar to the internet than to a thermal power plant.

And there Europe has a historic opportunity. Because while it lacks reserves of oil or gas, it does have industrial capacity, engineering, technology, regulation and talent. It can stop acting as a captive customer of fossil empires and become a leader of a distributed and electrified energy system. It can substitute imports for local investment, volatility for stability, and geopolitical dependence for technological autonomy.

The real question is no longer whether Europe should buy Russian or American gas. That is the old, fossil, twentieth-century question. The important question is how much longer we want to keep depending on fuel that someone has to send us on ships or pipelines. Because as long as we continue to burn things, we will continue to depend on those who sell them.

The last century can be understood by following the trail of oil. The 21st will be understood by following the trail of electrons. Europe has to decide which one it wants to live in.

(En español, aquí)

—

This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

—