Ladies and gentlemen,
Affordable energy is on top of everyone’s mind and that is understandable.
Energy is life. Energy is food. Energy is warmth. Energy is economic growth. Energy is order. Energy is civilization.
Without affordable energy, we have hunger, cold, economic decline, disorder and the end of civilization.
Energy is not only only a matter of national security, it’s a military warfare strategic weapon
So, why is the European Union obsessed with climate change? Doing an energy transision that is impossible according the law of physics. To be honest: I really don’t understand. I’m still puzzled. Carbon, is not a poison gas like the left liberals wants us to believe. CO2 is the very fertilizer that feeds our crops. It is the food of our food.
And the EU is responsible for only 6% of global emissions. So we don’t make any impact and still we spend trillions of euros on it.
In my view, it’s less about environmental necessity and more about advancing a broader UN-led agenda (the Sustainable Development Goals). Unelected bureaucrats seize ever-greater power and a small circle of green-tech investors reap enormous profits—paid for by the hard-earned taxes of ordinary EU citizens. But that, of course, is a conversation for another day.
The European Union relies heavily on imported natural gas— 88 percent of its 2024 supply came from non-EU sources. Of that, roughly 63 percent arrives via pipeline, chiefly from Norway, Algeria, Libya and Azerbaijan. The remaining 37 percent is shipped as LNG, half of which originates in the United States.
Why didn’t the EU Member States scale up?: Former NATO secretary general Rasmussen warned the West in 2014 already about sophisticated information and disinformation operations of Russia. Russia engaged actively with German environmental NGO’s working against shale gas—to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas. Unfortunately no one listened, and Russia was very successful.
In 2020 Russia exported nearly three times more gas than Europe produced. What is amazing is that Europe increased its reliance on Russian gas even after Gazprom repeatedly suspended
pipeline exports to Ukraine. Germany’s response was to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to make itself less dependent on gas flowing through Ukraine.
The Biden Administration: ally or enemy?
The US fracking boom of the late 2010s had created a massive surplus of natural gas, causing the Henry Hub spot-market price to fall below $6 per megawatt-hour by the early 2020s.
The US fracking industry — funded to the tune of billions of US dollars by the financial sector
— and, as a logical consequence, significant parts of the US financial system were on the verge of bankruptcy in view of this price development. This is because these investments were made with minimal equity but large amounts of debt.
The only way to prevent this impending collapse was to expand into the EU market, particularly targeting Germany, the largest natural gas importer in the region with an annual demand of around 100 billion cubic metres.
However, before the onset of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia, US LNG was roughly seven times more expensive than Russian pipeline gas flowing into Germany, leaving Germany and its industrial sector with little incentive to choose American gas. Under normal, rational decision-making, such a switch would have been entirely illogical.
The Nord Stream 2 terrorist attack changed that completely. So, there were strong reasons for the US to sabotage the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Biden himself also said he would do it if Russia would invade Ukraine. And then it happened.
In comparison to the $6 per megawatt-hour in early 2020’s, as of mid-December 2024, the spot market price in Europe for natural gas in the EU reached a peak of more than $350 per megawatt-hour. Almost 60 times more expensive. That had a huge impact on the EU’s economy and it’s competitiveness. That was a peak, the price has come down but it is still way more than than before the attack on Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Meanwhile, the European Commission embraced “energy austerity”. Which increased the crisis. Europe is squeezed. Policies aimed at reducing both production and consumption have driven costs upward, spurred industrial flight out of the EU, and raised the specter of blackouts that were once unthinkable. It happened already in Spain.
My view on this situation, is that we must chart a course that balances affordability, reliability, and sustainability. The situation in Europe is really bad. Heavy industry is leaving Europe.
Steel production, chemical industry etc. We need to explore short-term relief—reopening mothballed fossil and nuclear plants—as well as long-term strategies: a true nuclear renaissance. We need technological neutrality in energy choices with market-driven innovation like small modular reactors.
The fact is that the European Commissions “communists” ideas of energy austerity is a myth. We need much more energy than we can imagine. And the reason is AI.
It’s time to move beyond ideology and climate hysteria, to follow facts and free-market ingenuity rather than rigid mandates. Only then can we secure the energy that is, quite literally, the lifeblood of our societies—and look forward with confidence rather than fear.
