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Almost an Oil Crunch in Europe
by Thomas Oestereich
You may be aware of the important role oil plays today. You may even belong to those who speculate that some (bellicose) aspects of US foreign policies, often criticized by Europeans, are somehow linked to securing constant oil imports into the country. So it may be some mischievous relief for you to learn about the headlock some European countries found themselves in recently, albeit only for a couple of days, from Monday, Jan. 8th, until Thursday, Jan. 11th.
What happened?
Because of the trouble with OPEC oil, European countries, too, have started looking for other suppliers. As they share the continent with one of the largest oil-rich countries on the globe, Russia, what could have been a more obvious solution than getting the oil from there! In the case of Germany, a whooping 35% of the countrie's oil supply is arriving from Russia via pipelines. Normally, that is.
Russia is definitely not identical with the deceased Soviet empire. The latter was serving treaties very reliably and could be trusted as a furnisher of whatever goods. But although Moscow is no longer the capital of a superpower, the mighty there still demand a high degree of submissiveness of its neighbours and when they occasionally feel they don't get it, they don't hesitate to bully them. And even worse, they don't bother any more whether or not their actions affect third parties with whom they have contracts.
And now it was White Russia, hitherto a much-loved friend of Moscow, with one of the last European dictators still in power. White Russia was naughty. They just didn't want to accept the massive price hike Russia wants to impose on the oil the Russian GASPROM trust sells them and delivers through the pipelines which have been built in the Soviet era. And in the arguments resulting from this dialectically antithetic situation, the White Russians retaliated and declared they would start imposing fees on the oil which just transits the country on its way to the west. At the same time, they canceled their own oil orders. Which prompted Russia to allege oil theft and shut down all pipelines going in the direction to White Russia, so cutting off not only White Russia, but as well Western Europe.
Well, you can imagine that the governments in the affected western European countries have been fast to assert that oil reserves are high and the winter warm, and that there are pipelines from Russia which don't cross White Russia ... but they nevertheless didn't shy away from telling both countries that this was not the way they were supposed to act. They even threatened Russia with "consequences", very impressive indeed.
That was the official part.
But this demonstration of dependence on Russia and its caprices regarding the vital supply of energy has stirred up much more public movement. All the atom energy lobbyists felt their time had come to go against the decision some countries (like Germany) have taken to get out of atom fission energy. All solar power energy and renewable energy lobbyists made their point. All the environmentalists re-stated that saving energy is a must. All the coal lobbyists underlined that it would be really bad to say good-bye to the most important home-made energy (which is subsidized with billions of Euro every year).
But ONE voice was missing: Nobody talked about accelerating the development of nuclear FUSION energy, sometimes referred to as "magnetic energy", which by its very nature is much safer than today's nukes are.
But now everything is back to normal, up to the next time when Russia, Persia, Venezuela, ... (your preferred oil supplier goes here) goes crazy.
Don't worry, be happy. And definitely put physics into your daily life!
Thomas Oestereich http://physics.global-momentum.net
After 20 years of being a physicist, Dr. Thomas Oestereich turned from scientific research to a life as an author and editor of his home school curriculum. He now seeks to help his readers gain access to the insights of physics. Bringing the achievements of science to a larger public, he hopes to finally contribute to a better knowledge of the options and constraints of decision making in our democratic society.
http://www.physics.global-momentum.net
Contact the author, Thomas Oestereich
, at speed-up@gmx.net
.