Truth or Dare is a silly game that falls under the category of “society”. This is what our leaders played with us in the energy industry.

truth

I agree that the location of energy facilities is located according to the resources of the geographical area. You can’t put hydroelectric plants where there is no hydrographic potential, you can’t put wind turbines where there is no wind potential, and you can’t put photovoltaics where the sun shines only a few hours a day. Note that I was referring to intermittent renewables, as the “fuel” required to operate these capacities is site specific and not transported. (That would be the pinnacle!) On the contrary, fuel can be easily transported to provide energy production capabilities.

Let’s not forget that the security of coal and gas energy is symbiotic with thermal energy distributed through centralized systems, and gas systems are part of the taxonomy of the EU, which wants to (re)introduce them because they are more productive and less polluting.

We skip coal because we know it pollutes and the EU will soon phase it out, even if Europe has reserves.

The reserves are there, my question is why are the decision makers in the EU not thinking about turning them into energy with clean carbon capture technologies?

I refuse to discuss obtaining energy from petroleum products (rarely used), but we must discuss the safety possibilities of gas.

The total gas consumption in Europe in 2021 amounted to 571.1 million cubic meters. But Europe produced only 210.4 million cubic meters in 2021.

In 2021, Romania imported about 3 million cubic meters from Russia, at that time the only interconnectors passed through Hungary and Ukraine, through which Russian gas passed. I have stated many times that ANRM has been sabotaging gas (and oil) production in Romania, because for years this agency that manages Romanian mineral resources has not given new perimeters into the concession. The situation in ANRM has not changed yet, but we have two new interconnects with Bulgaria – Greece and Bulgaria – Turkey.

This meant that producers of gas electricity switched to imports. But only after the beginning of the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, we felt the connection between the price of domestic production and the price of imports.

Since there were many moments when the wind did not blow and the sun did not shine, Romania found itself in a situation of importing gas to generate electricity, and I felt again that the price of electricity is linked to the price of gas. Also, at that time, Romania, not having enough capacity to produce electricity, was forced to import it.

The situation for 2022 is dramatic: imports will end up at 6% of total consumption. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro