The more cultured of you will realise that 'Nabuco' is an Opera by Verdi that deals with the Israelites in Egypt.However it is also the project name for an ambitious gas pipeline project that will transfer energy from Asia to Europe.It will pass through the Balkans, and here the plot thickens.
Energy, particularly for heating, is an extremely politically sensitive issue in Eastern Europe.Most of the gas currently comes in one pipeline from Russia.This gives Putin,Medvedev etc enormous leverage over the Balkans.Two winters ago the Russians got into a dispute with the Ukraine and cut the gas supply to them in the middle of winter, leaving thousands of people literally freezing.A corollary of this is that the gas supply was also reduced for Bulgaria and other states.It was very close here to a major shortage of heating.
The previous Socialist government was pretty pally with Moscow (the Premier was born in the former Soviet Union and his father was a politburo member of the Bulgarian Communist Party)They dragged their feet over Nabuco, despite the fact that the pipelines shortest length is in Bulgaria.Now it appears that the new government is forging ahead.This is incredibly important for stable and relatively inexpensive gas, at a time when prices are rising due to all of Europe's dependency on Russian gas (about 30% of the total).
Europe cannot be overly dependent on one supplier of gas.The coming wars of the future will, I am sure, be over energy as it becomes more scarce and demand continues to increase.
It is also interesting to note that the Russians want to take a stake in the new Belene nuclear plant, that is about to go to tender.
No comments:
Post a Comment