Posted on 01/16/2020 5:26:41 AM PST by Kaslin
Despite its cool Green parties and ambitious wind and solar agendas, Europe remains by far the world's largest importer of oil and natural gas.
Oil output in the North Sea and off the coast of Norway is declining, and the European Union is quietly looking for fossil fuel energy anywhere it can find it.
Europe itself is naturally rich in fossil fuels. It likely has more reserves of shale gas than the United States, currently the world's largest producer of both oil and natural gas. Yet in most European countries, horizontal drilling and fracking to extract gas and oil are either illegal or face so many court challenges and popular protests that they are neither culturally nor economically feasible.
The result is that Europe is almost entirely dependent on Russian, Middle Eastern and African sources of energy.
The American-Iranian standoff in the Middle East, coupled with radical drop-offs in Iranian and Venezuelan oil production, has terrified Europe -- and for understandable reasons.
The European Union has almost no ability to guarantee the delivery of critical oil and gas supplies from the Middle East should Iran close the Strait of Hormuz or harass ships in the Persian Gulf.
Europe's only maritime security is the NATO fleet -- a synonym for the U.S. Navy.
Vladimir Putin's Russia supplies an estimated 30 percent of Europe's oil needs. In times of crisis, Putin could exercise de facto control over the European economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Europe has mis-managed its situation horribly. Hard to believe they’ve made so many bad decisions.
It is long past time for America to pull back from Europe and the Middle East militarily. Simultaneously, we should be moving full steam ahead with drilling, fracking, building more pipelines and more refineries.
The Middle East is China’s/the Yurps’ problem - not ours.
Having lived in Europe several times.....no it isn’t. Once you get to know these people and get exposed to their smugness, posturing and sheer idiocy, you can easily see how they’ve screwed things up so badly.
The Germans are the very worst of the bunch.
Dennis Prager says it is axiomatic that whatever Germany does, it is best to do the opposite.
It is hard to realize how far from reality these countries assumptions about reality have become.
The last 70 years have been a golden age for Europe, protected by the United States and subsidized.
I pray they will wake up in time to prevent horrible catastrophes, but it seems unlikely.
Hard to believe they’ve made so many bad decisions.
Not all of them, stopped clocks?
NB: France is just a bit smaller than Texas, has 58 nuclear reactors.
“France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over €3 billion per year from this.”
“France has 58 nuclear reactors operated by EDF, with a total capacity of 63.1 GWe.France’s present electricity generation mix is a result of the French government deciding in 1974, just after the first oil shock, to expand rapidly the country’s nuclear power capacity, using Westinghouse technology. This decision was taken in the context of France having substantial heavy engineering expertise but few known indigenous energy resources*. Nuclear energy, with the fuel cost being a relatively small part of the overall cost, made good sense in minimising imports and achieving greater energy security.”
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx
There are 60 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 98 nuclear reactors in 30 U.S. states (the Indian Point Energy Center in New York has two nuclear reactors that the U.S. Energy Information Administration counts as two separate nuclear plants).
https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/what-status-us-nuclear-industry
Hate to make judgement until all the facts are in, but, looks like Europe is run by a bunch of idiots.
I disagree.
You seem to be ignoring the lesson of 9/11 that problems which are allowed to grow unimpeded in far away places can come back to bite us big time.
It is far better to spend our gold now to actively patrol the world than to spend our blood later when the world comes calling.
LOL - the NATO fleet — a synonym for the U.S. Navy.
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