In Europe, due to the heat, there are big problems with nuclear reactors

How the drought affected the energy market

A record drought and shallowing of the rivers threaten to deprive Europe of the previous volume of Russian gas supplies, which will lead not only to the threat of a fuel crisis, but also cause a food shortage in the countries of the Old World. Who will have to take responsibility for the most terrible economic blow to the most developed countries of the planet, said Sergei Pravosudov, director of the National Energy Institute.

– The energy crisis is knocking on European doors more and more insistently. Heat and drought require a lot of energy, and fuel supplies from Russia are getting smaller. How are these processes related?

– Problems with the energy supply of the countries of the Old World exist even without violations of contacts between importers and Gazprom. An example of this is the discovered cracks in the primary water circulation pipes at the French Civaux nuclear power plant, which deprived local consumers of five gigawatts of installed capacity at once.

Restoration of works depends on stable cooling of the energy complex. For these purposes, water resources are required, but the summer shallowing of rivers, which neither Gazprom nor the Kremlin can be blamed for, occurs due to natural rather than political circumstances.

However, if there is not enough water, then the cooling of nuclear reactors will be slowed down, since such processes are strictly regulated and do not involve haste. In other conditions, the services of associated coal- and oil-fired power plants could be used to cool the reactors. However, the reduced navigable transport of the Rhine, due to the shallowing of most European rivers, has complicated the supply of alternative hydrocarbons.

Water transport arteries in such a climatic situation are unable to make up for the consumption of not only the electricity sector, but also call into question the full-fledged work of farmers. For example, Italian farmers are forced to abandon the irrigation of their fields: in the absence of their own technological capacities, they prefer to pour buffalo milk into the streets, thus symbolizing the death of a centuries-old industry.

And in Switzerland, high temperatures have thawed an Alpine pass that had been covered in ice for two thousand years, risking bankrupting many of the country’s ski resorts.

– In other words, does Europe categorically lack its own energy resources to withstand natural disasters?

– The countries of the Old World are experiencing a significant lack of alternative capacities that can replace hydrocarbon stations to generate the required volumes of electricity. Norway, on which the EU states had certain hopes in replacing raw materials supplies from Russia, warned that it could limit the export of electricity if the water level in reservoirs for hydroelectric power plants on its territory remains below the norm.

– Is it already clear that the Europeans are sounding the alarm, or is the situation on the continent’s fuel market still looking relatively stable?

– European underground gas storages (UGS) are 70% full on average. Theoretically, Europeans can use the gas already reserved for the heating season for current needs: the fuel can be used to condition agricultural facilities and food warehouses, to provide water to agricultural areas and prepare for harvesting. However, we must not forget that Russian gas supplies to Europe are at minimal levels, and the “merit” in reducing exports lies primarily with Gazprom’s continental clients, who have complicated the access of domestic consumers to cheap Russian energy resources. Consequently, when the heating season comes, it may turn out that there will be nothing to warm Europe with.

– Even now, European natural gas quotes are transfused for $2,000. What prices can be expected before the end of the year?

– The European commodity market is currently largely determined by quotations dictated by independent traders: if participants in the cake markets see a trend towards a reduction in supplies from Russia, which is the main filler of the European energy balance, then the price of a thousand cubic meters may soar two to three times.

– But no one will buy gas at $3,000-5,000 per thousand cubic meters in Europe…

– There will be buyers. In Asia, where a powerful economic breakthrough continues, despite new outbreaks of the coronavirus, prices could soar much higher. Buying up energy resources from European consumers on a long-term basis, Asian countries will secure an advantage for themselves in the economic market of the planet. Then they will be able to sell raw materials back to Europeans who are categorically opposed to trade relations with Moscow. True, Russia in this case is unlikely to receive excess profits.