“Without electricity in the strip, there is no industry, no economy,” said Antal István Lorand, president of the Senate Committee on Energy, Energy Infrastructure and Mineral Resources, during a conference organized by Oxygen Events on climate change. He believes that after the war in Ukraine, the European Union woke up to reality and began to understand that classic energy production capacities are still needed. “Relying only on renewable energy sources means suicide,” the senator also said.

Antal István LorandPhoto: AGERPRES

He claims that “if Russia had not attacked Ukraine, I think today we would be in a very difficult situation at the EU level, because the voice of the greens and extremists was getting stronger, and we had to close everything that means gas and nuclear energy. capacity, and we only had to supply photovoltaic and wind power.”

According to Antal István Lorand, before the war, classical power plants were considered scrap metal, and under these conditions there would be no need for investments in cables and pipelines (distribution and transportation of energy and gas). “This war helped us understand how much we need this scrap metal, pipes, cables. Suddenly, Europe woke up to reality,” the senator said.

According to the chairman of the Energy Committee in the Senate, the “market design” needs to be reconsidered. “We’re at a point where we’ve realized that talking about them as old beasts is utopia. The future is very clear that we need distribution and transportation, and we have to take these steps very carefully, use European products, not import from China, and the car industry does not move to the US. Then we will have to rethink and start market design. The current market design was designed to support renewable energy (…) But today we are in a situation where we have to take this greening process very calmly. If we remain with those reflexes and ideologies that were before, then Europe will have big problems,” said Antal István Lorand.

He recalled that during the energy crisis, the price of one MWh exceeded 500 euros. Antal István Lorand claims that he is not against renewable energy sources, he is even a supporter of them, but he believes that there is no strong economy without industry, and industry cannot develop without energy in the strip, which so far can only be produced in the classical way. containers