Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Forbes, when renewable energy programmes like Germany’s Energiewende mature, demand for Russian fossil fuel will collapse.
Will Russia Survive The Coming Energy Transition?
Jun 27, 2019, 10:35am
Ariel Cohen ContributorA new global energy reality is emerging. The era of the hydrocarbon – which propelled mankind through the second stage of the industrial revolution, beyond coal and into outer space – is drawing to a close. The stone age ended not because we ran out of stones. The same with oil and gas.
We have now entered the era of the renewable energy resource, whereby zero-emission electricity is generated via near unlimited inputs (solar radiation, wind, tides, hydrogen, and eventually, deuterium). Cutting-edge, smart electric grids, utility-scale storage, and electric self-driving vehicles – powered by everything from lithium-ion batteries to hydrogen fuel cells – are critical elements of this historic energy transition.
Each of these technological trends will displace demand for Russia’s primary source of budget revenues: fossil fuels.The transition will have major consequences for the status-quo leaders of the hydrocarbon age: from Moscow to Caracas, and from Teheran to Riyadh. The Russian Federation, which today is the world’s largest gas exporter and second most prolific oil producer, is one such player which must ‘adapt or die’ over the next 15-20 years. Indeed, Russia derives 40% of its revenue from oil and gas sales, making it a de-facto petro-state. It, and other hydrocarbon revenue dependent nations, must accept their new reality, and react decisively, if they hope to survive in the age of renewables.
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Even Germany, which is on the receiving end of Russia’s controversial Nord Stream II gas mega-project, has already declared that the purchases of Russian gas will start declining after 10 year’s time per its national Energy Transformation agenda. The so-called Energiewende policy aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) some 40% by 2020, by 55% by 2030, and up to 95% in 2050, compared to 1990 levels. This does not jive with increased imports of Russian fossil fuels.
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As we have already seen in Europe, hydrocarbon demand will be driven by declining renewable energy costs, government policies, new technologies, and companies’ shifts in strategies to prepare for the new energy age. Structural changes in fossil fuel supply, demand, energy mix, and prices will follow accordingly.
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Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/06/27/will-russia-survive-the-coming-energy-transition/
Back in the real world post nuclear Germany, home of Energiewende, is so desperate for real energy they are preparing to tear down ancient forests in Hambach to get at the coal beneath the trees, and are using hardline police tactics to clear protesters from domestic brown coal mine sites.
The German government can declare whatever it wants, greens can celebrate their fantasy 15 year transition plans, but in the real world people do not tolerate being cold in Winter. Fossil fuel demand is rising, and demand for coal is strong.
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Oh, wait, you mean that was serous? I thought I was reading one of David Middleton’s guest sarcasms!
Can I make some money out of this misapprehension? Short something? Any ideas?
… assuming that Russia can not sell its oil and gas to somebody less nutty – e.g., China, India, …
The Power of Siberia pipeline is supposed to supply China with Russian natural gas by the end of this year.
Btw just returned from a very prosperous Uzbekistan where we covered a lot of ground by bus and never saw a windmill. Guide said someone is installing some solar panels south of Tashkent. (300 days sun/yr). Otherwise flourished on oil, gas (to China) coal, minerals rare earths, agriculture having rejected Soviet cotton monoculture. The Paris Agreement ? I don’t think so.
Cohen is a lawyer who claims to be an energy expert.
Nuff said!
And Forbes believes The Man in the High Castle is real.
Forbes has lost the bubble!
Russia has a resource problem at its hands for sure. But it’s not the Energiewende or any other Green program that’s causing it or even making it worse. Contrary what some tend to believe the Energiewende increases the need for quick load balancing for those renewable and fickle sources so that makes the day of Natural Gas which Russia is a big exporter of. Clean energy makes Russias day – Putin sure loves that. There is a much bigger threat for Russia on the horizon though. Russia needs new reserves. Luckily it has a lot of untapped oil and gas. However its in pretty hard to reach places and therefore costs a pretty penny to develop. Many shale fields are already a lot cheaper to develop. History has not been kind to those that have the more expensive to develop resources. Don’t expect every last drop of Russian oil to be extracted. Far from it.
+1
“The stone age ended not because we ran out of stones. The same with oil and gas.”
That is one of the STUPIDEST, MOST UNEDUCATED, IDIOTIC statement ever made. It’s equivalent to “we did not starve because we ran out of food, we ran out of cooking utensiles”. And this from Forbes????? Americans have become drooling fools, knuckle dragging cavemen. We didn’t run out of the Stone Age, the troglodytes just wear suits now.
“The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones” is an old saying. It has survived because there is truth in it.
Tell ,em they’re dreaming!
“The stone age ended not for lack of stones. The same with oil and gas.”
A corollary to this old chestnut:
The CAGW Hoax didn’t end for lack of hoaxers, but rather lack of evidence….
+1
Russia under Putin understands very well the use and power of ‘Gesture Politics’, and will always deploy such tactics to delay and defray any requirement for immediate actions. To this end (IMO) they will be similar to India, China and many other ‘developing’ nations, adopting the appearance of just enough change to be sufficient enough to deflect most criticism.
that must be why both Germany and Russia are investing billions in building NorthStream2, knowing demand will collapse. LOL.
Cohen is no scientist. But he is a good example of the pseudointelligentsiya, people who think they are well informed about technical or scientific issues but are in fact clueless. He’s not alone – the ranks of the pseudointelligentsiya number in the billions. They’ve bought into the climate catastrophe story because they find it morally and politically satisfying. Their self-important minds are however sterile of any real deep understanding of either the climate or industrial technology. So the predictions that they make about both will turn out to be absurdly false to the point of Ehrlich-esque.
O yes – and they’re racist; they can’t look at a Russian without having a gas chamber fantasy. But that’s very fashionable in left wing circles.
Russia is involved in producing energy for themselves and others by building and operating nuclear power reactors around the world – all of them Gen 3+ reactors and just last week launched their first floating small modular reactor ships that will sail to coastal cities and towns supply power. The ships will be operated by Russians and sell power to the towns and cities. The Russians often are paid ro operate and almost always to refuel the reactors they build. Their costs are very competitive (often around $5 – 6 billion per gigawatt+ reactor) and right now are involved in building several dozen reactors around the world. There are more than 600 reactors planned or proposed and Russia will likely build half of them and operate and refuel them as well. Reactors often last 60 years plus, so the business to refuel and maintain and operate those reactors can be a long term income stream.
Thanks for that very interesting information, ColMosby. 🙂
The fossil fuel prohibition is popular now but won’t last, people will tire of it like they did of the alcoholic drink prohibition a century ago.
https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/when-science-had-no-shame-the-poem-passage-to-india-by-walt-whitman/
Nord Stream II could end like the Sutro Tunnel but it’s hard to see it at this point. Sutro provided a benefit that last a short time before leaving it to the sad investors.
HAHAHA. If Germany’s Energiewende ever matured, it will be the ruin oif Germany. Fortunately the Germans aren’t that stupid and are using coal.
Well, this is all fine and good and to be wished for – but only the most naïvely cretinous person would describe the Russian (Note: Not Soviet – that came to an end many, many years ago – keep up!) system as Socialist or Marxist. Totalitarian, fascist, kleptocratic bureaucracy, yes, much like the dear ol’ US of A in fact – I don’t hear anyone claiming that the US is a socialist state (well, so long as we don’t count people who think that looking after the poor and disadvantaged in society is the same as Communism. You’d have to be so titanically stupid to think that, that you’d probably vote for Trump). Russia’s problem is that the current market-driven economy, not the old Soviet-style centrally planned economy, is reliant on commodities and raw materials – gas, oil, steel, aluminium, lumber etc. which are dependant on global prices. Still, anything that puts the bear back in it’s box can’t be a bad thing. Apart from for the ordinary Russian people of course… they always have it bad, no matter who’s wearing the Big Hats.
‘so long as we don’t count people who think that looking after the poor and disadvantaged in society’
Shunting it off to government is NOT ‘looking after the poor and disadvantaged in society.’ It is YOUR duty, not government’s.
Largest ‘renewable’ source in Germany is biomass.
Which will, according to a new study, emit more CO2, even if it replaces coal.
“In sum, although bioenergy from wood can lower long-run CO2 concentrations compared to fossil fuels, its first impact is an increase in CO2, worsening global warming over the critical period through 2100 even if the wood offsets coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel.”
“With the US forest parameters used here, growth in the wood pellet industry to displace coal aggravates global warming at least through the end of this century, even if the industry stops growing by 2050.”
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa512/pdf
At least it helps in the statistics, because biomass burning is counted with 0 contribution to CO2 emissions.
(similar story for biogas, due to methane leaks …)