Masters of Energy
Without energy there is no motion and the masters of energy rule the world. Wars are fought for oil (yes, sure, all the American soldiers in the Arab region just want to build up democracy there..) and as prices rise voices are asking for alternatives. Surely the best alternative would be some kind of clean energy as the renewables from the sun, wind or water. Oil and natural gas are not only dirty in the way they cause polution of the environment, but they are also limited and therefore cause conflicts, too.
For Europe, natural gas from Russia is still the most important alternative to oil. And it was Gerhard Schröder´s last big deal as chancellor to make a contract with his friend Wladimir Putin about a pipeline through the Baltic Sea that should bring the Russian Gas to Germany in 2010. East European countries like Poland are not very amused about this plan, because they fear for their own energy industry. Schröder himself is lucky: the unemployed ex-politician now got a leading position as a manager for the Russian gas-tycoon Gazprom. Gazprom belongs to more than 50% to the Russian state and controls more than 60% of the Russian gas-resources. A big concurrence was destroyed with the oil-company Yukos whose former chief Chodorkovsky is now in prison.
Putin, the king of natural gas, is now able to use Russia´s energy ressources as a political instrument. White Russia for example, Europe´s last dictatorship and still a loyal servant to Moscow, gets the gas dirt-cheap (less than one fourth of the world market price). On the other side there is the Ukraine that since the "Orange Revolution" wants to be more independent from Russia and a member of the EU. Gazprom now raised the price for the Ukraine to the level of the world market.
This dispute between Russia and Ukraine made the Western Europeans aware of their own dependence. And the old supporters of the nuclear industry, as the bavarian conservatives in Germany for example including the new minister for economy, now see a chance to demand a new chapter of nuclear energy in Germany again. Certainly, they have not learned from Hiroshima and Tschernobyl!
The only solution (beside not wasting so much energy) is the support of the renewable natural energies from the sun, wind and water. That would be a good thing for the human beings and the environment - but maybe not for the bank accounts of the masters of energy and ex-chancellors.
posted by Klingsor @ 17:37
2 Comments:
Yeah, I was watching the oil crisis on tv. Apparently Belarus pays only $47 for their oil ,and Ukraine was asked to pay $230 or something. Amazing.
I saw on BBC once how Germans were always looking for clean energy alternatives, and that they are strictly opposed to nuclear power. Will tolerate coal pollution, but nuclear is definitely not cool. Is that a generalisation or a fact ?
I think a majority in Germany is against the use of nuclear energy since there was a big movement in the 1970s and 1980s that together with the Peace movement went into the institution of the Green Party. But it is not all of the Germans.
The use of coal energy is accepted, because it is a natural resource here. So employers hang on this tradition, because they do not want to lose their jobs. But German coal is too expansive, so people start importing cheaper coal from China.
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