Almost an oil crisis in Europe
You may be aware of the important role oil plays today. It may even belong to those who speculate that some (war) aspects of US foreign policies, often criticized by Europeans, are somehow related to getting constant oil imports into the country. So it may come as a naughty relief for you to learn about the headlock some European countries recently found themselves in, albeit only for a couple of days, from Monday 1st January. 8, until Thursday, January 01. eleven
What happened?
Due to the problem with OPEC oil, European countries have also started looking for other suppliers. As they share the continent with one of the world’s largest oil-rich countries, Russia, what could have been a more obvious solution than getting the oil from there! In the case of Germany, a whopping 35% of the country’s oil supply comes from Russia via pipelines. Normally, that is.
Russia is definitely not identical to the late Soviet empire. The latter complied with the treaties very reliably and could be trusted as a supplier of any good. But although Moscow is no longer the capital of a superpower, the powerful still demand a high degree of submission from their neighbors and when they feel that they do not understand, they do not hesitate to intimidate them. And what is worse, they no longer care if their actions affect third parties with whom they have contracts or not.
And now it was White Russia, until now a very dear friend of Moscow, with one of the last European dictators still in power. White Russia was naughty. They simply did not want to accept the massive price increase that Russia wants to impose on the oil that the Russian GASPROM trust sells to them and delivers through pipelines that were built in the Soviet era. And in the arguments resulting from this dialectically antithetical situation, the White Russians retaliated and declared that they would begin imposing tariffs on oil transiting through the country on its way west. At the same time, they canceled their own oil orders. Which led to Russia easing off oil theft and shutting down all pipelines going in the direction of White Russia, thus cutting off not only White Russia, but also Western Europe.
Well, you can imagine that the governments of the affected Western European countries have been quick to state that oil reserves are high and winter is warm, and that there are pipelines from Russia that don’t cross White Russia… but still they didn’t. Feel free to tell both countries that this was not the way they were supposed to act. They even threatened Russia with “consequences”, really impressive.
That was the official part.
But this show of dependence on Russia and its whims regarding the vital energy supply has sparked much more public movement. All of the atomic energy lobbyists felt that the time had come to go against the decision that some countries (such as Germany) have taken to abandon atomic fission energy. All the solar and renewable energy lobbyists made their point. All environmentalists reiterated that saving energy is essential. All the coal lobbyists stressed that it would be very bad to say goodbye to the most important household energy (which is subsidized with billions of euros every year).
But ONE voice was missing: no one was talking about accelerating the development of nuclear FUSION energy, sometimes called “magnetic energy”, which by its very nature is much safer than today’s nuclear weapons.
But now everything is back to normal, until the next time Russia, Persia, Venezuela,… (here’s your favorite oil supplier) go crazy.
Do not worry Be Happy. And definitely put physics in your daily life!
Thomas Oestereich
http://physics.global-momentum.net