Holistic approach to oil, gas, green energy - opinion
Time for a paradigm shift: Holistic approach to oil, gas, green energy - opinion
A combination of renewables, oil and gas, nuclear energy, carbon storage, hydrogen, and other sustainable energy sources is necessary to meet the world’s energy needs.
By?MATHIOS RIGAS
If you had asked a European citizen, or even a leader by the beginning of 2022, not many could have anticipated the challenges that lay ahead. The continent found itself grappling with a seemingly unimaginable question: How would they navigate the bitter cold of winter as their gas reservoirs began to empty? To compound the situation, the eruption of the?Russia-Ukraine war?further exacerbated the issue, leaving European countries heavily dependent on Russian gas.
This unprecedented?energy crisis?served as a stark wake-up call, emphasizing the critical importance of energy investments in securing a reliable and affordable energy supply. Global energy investments reached a staggering $500 billion in 2022, underscoring the continued significance of hydrocarbons in meeting future demand.
While the transition to renewable energy is an admirable goal, it has now become clear that a long-term vision cannot be achieved overnight. To ensure a stable and secure energy supply, investments in oil and gas exploration and development remain necessary. This approach paves the way for sustainable energy that is both reliable and affordable for all.
Oil and natural gas still necessary amid push toward renewable energy
Leading energy companies have recognized the need for a comprehensive strategy and have adjusted their approaches accordingly.
Previously focused on “greening” their activities, companies such as BP and Shell have come to understand the importance of adopting a holistic approach.
BP, for instance, initially announced significant reductions in hydrocarbon production, but it has since increased its investment in the sector by $1 billion per year. Similarly, Shell has redirected its focus towards natural gas, maintaining its global leadership in?liquefied natural gas?(LNG) while halting production cuts.
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook Report for 2022 emphasizes the dire consequences of inadequate investment in the energy sector. Insufficient funding poses a significant risk of future hydrocarbon supply shortages, thereby jeopardizing stability and security. To meet climate goals and ensure a successful energy transition, investments on a scale comparable to those seen a decade ago – over $600 billion per year – are crucial.
As a Greek businessman who works both in Europe and the Mediterranean, I always look around for models that have worked well and those that have failed. Unlocking the energy potential of a state requires a collective effort and certain measures.
GOVERNMENTS PLAY a pivotal role in creating an environment conducive to energy investments. A striking example is Italy, which initially imposed a moratorium on exploration and exploitation but eventually recognized the importance of energy autonomy, adjusting its approach accordingly.
Some European governments, steadfast in their commitment to the fast transition paradigm, found themselves grappling with not only the challenge of funding electricity during a harsh winter, but also navigating complex geopolitical dynamics due to their heavy reliance on Russian gas.
Drawing inspiration from successful examples, we must acknowledge the remarkable achievements of Israel in embracing a diversified energy portfolio. Overcoming challenges, Israel reduced its reliance on coal and harnessed locally produced natural gas, achieving energy independence, lowering costs, and strengthening its geopolitical influence through natural gas exports.
Israel was also the country that provided a solid base for Energean to make its vision come true and lead the energy transition in the Eastern Mediterranean.
As we navigate the path ahead, it becomes increasingly evident that a holistic approach is essential to unlock a state’s energy potential. This transformation demands collective efforts and specific measures. Consensus-building, long-term rationale, and a shared vision at the governmental level are vital to ensure stability, security, and economic growth. Overcoming local interests and raising awareness of the long-term benefits within society are crucial aspects of this shift.
The world is currently grappling with pressing challenges in the energy landscape, necessitating a paradigm shift. No longer can we rely on the dichotomic approach of renewables OR oil and gas. Instead, a smart holistic approach is imperative, recognizing the interconnectedness of various energy sources.
It is increasingly evident that a combination of renewables, oil and gas, nuclear energy, carbon storage, hydrogen, and other sustainable energy sources is necessary to meet the world’s energy needs.
By embracing this paradigm shift, we can forge a path towards a sustainable and prosperous energy future, catalyzing stability, security, and economic growth.
The writer is the CEO of Energean.
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Tagesspiegel, Berlin.
Die CDU und der Rechtsruck in Europa:?Schwarz-Grün hat ausgetr?umt
In Finnland, Schweden, Italien, Polen und Ungarn geht der Trend zu Rechtsau?en-Regierungen – n?chsten Sonntag wohl auch in Spanien. Das hat Folgen für Deutschland und den Unionskurs.
Ein Kommentar von?Christoph von Marschall
Betreibt Deutschland nationale Nabelschau und ignoriert, was sich rundum in Europa tut?
Die CDU agiert, als lebe sie auf einer Insel. Sie?wechselt ihren Generalsekret?r aus, streitet über die?Brandmauer zur AfD, eine?Tolerierung der Linken?zumindest in Thüringen und darüber, ob die?Grünen als Koalitionspartner?oder?als Hauptgegner?zu betrachten sind.
Der Trend in Europa ist eindeutig. Nahezu überall l?sen Politikans?tze breiten Unmut aus, die als ?grün“ oder progressiv gelten und vor Jahren auf Empathie bis weit in die politische Mitte stie?en: eine ?weiche“?Asyl- und Migrationspolitik,?Vorrang der?Klimaziele vor sozialen und ?konomischen Belangen, forcierte Kulturk?mpfe um Frauenf?rderung, Gendern, sexuelle Minderheiten und Antirassismus.
Im Norden, Süden und Osten der EU gewinnen konservative Kr?fte bis hin zum rechten Rand Wahlen, l?sen Mitte-Links-Regierungen ab oder bauen die bereits eroberte Macht weiter aus. Vielerorts ist das Tabu gefallen, mit rechtsradikalen und nationalchauvinistischen Parteien zu koalieren oder sich von ihnen tolerieren zu lassen. Zum Beispiel in?Finnland?und?Schweden.
Spanien vor dem Machtwechsel
Nach den Wahlen am kommenden Sonntag wird das?wohl auch in Spanien?so kommen.?In Italien regiert Georgia Meloni?an der Spitze der ?Brüder Italiens“ trotz?deren faschistischer Vergangenheit.?In Griechenland hat?Kyriakos Mitsotakis gerade mehr Stimmen geholt?als beim Wahlsieg gegen die Linke 2019.
In Ungarn sitzt Viktor Orbán fest im Sattel. In Polen darf?die PiS trotz ihrer Skandale?hoffen, nach der Wahl Mitte Oktober an der Regierung zu bleiben. Die Slowakei wird wohl 2024 nach rechts kippen.
Nahezu überall sind die Themen, die die W?hler zu den Konservativen und Rechtsextremen treiben: Migration und Asyl, Energiepreise und Klimapolitik sowie die identit?tspolitische G?ngelung. Das Gegenbeispiel D?nemark ist die Ausnahme, die die Regel best?tigt: Die Sozialdemokratin Mette Frederiksen gewann dank ihres restriktiven Umgangs mit Migration.
Widerstand gegen grüne Projekte auf EU-Ebene
Im Europ?ischen Parlament wagten Manfred Weber (CSU) und seine Parteienfamilie EVP nun eine Machtprobe. Bisher hatten sie den grünen Kurs der Kommission unterstützt. Nun stimmten sie mit Rechtspopulisten, ganz rechten EU-Gegnern und Agrarpolitikern gegen das ?Nature Restoration Law“. Es verbietet Landwirten die Nutzung eines Teils der Fl?chen, um ?kosysteme zu schützen. Weber scheiterte nur knapp.
Die gro?e Mehrheit der nationalen Regierungen bek?mpft den??Green Deal“ der Kommission. Sie?senken die Kosten des Heizens und Tankens?durch Steuernachl?sse und Subventionen, statt den Energieverbrauch zu verteuern.
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Kooperation mit der AfD? Geht gar nicht
Was bedeute das alles für die CDU? Deutsche ticken wohl nicht v?llig anders als Finnen, Italiener, Schweden und Spanier. Sie werden?sich dem europ?ischen Trend nicht generell entziehen. Ein Sonderfall ist Deutschland wegen der Nazi-Vergangenheit. Die Union darf nicht mit der AfD kooperieren, mit ihr koalieren oder sich von ihr tolerieren lassen.
Aber sollte das nicht auch mit Blick auf die Linke gelten? Bodo Ramelow in Thüringen ist ein Ausnahmefall und kein Grund, die Erben der SED generell als verfassungstreu und koalitionswürdig zu betrachten.
Wenn die Union ein Erstarken der AfD verhindern will, muss sie sich deutlicher von den Grünen und der SPD abgrenzen. Nur wenn sie eine inhaltliche Alternative bietet, wird sie Unzufriedene davon abhalten, ihren Protest gegen den Regierungskurs durch ein Kreuz bei der AfD auszudrücken, weil sich die CDU zu wenig von den Ampelparteien unterscheide. Mit einem schwarz-grünen Schmusekurs ist das nicht zu erreichen.
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The Supreme Court Control Act - Damaging the Court
New ethics proposals from Senate Democrats are a scheme to destroy the Court’s independence.
The Supreme Court has finished its business for the summer, but Senate Democrats never finish trashing the Justices. The Judiciary Committee that scoured?Brett Kavanaugh’s high-school yearbook is preparing to pass new rules under the guise of ethics reform that are intended to put the Justices on a political leash.
The effort is led by Rhode Island Sen.?Sheldon Whitehouse?and his more senior political front man, Judiciary Chairman?Dick Durbin. They’re playing off recent media reports that claim ethics violations without showing any real violations. But that’s enough of an excuse for claiming to want to protect the Court’s reputation while actually destroying it.
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Their Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act would require the Court to establish a Code of Conduct within 180 days. It would also set disclosure rules for “gifts, income, and reimbursements required to be disclosed under the Standing Rules of the Senate and the Rules of the House of Representatives.”
Treating judges like Members of Congress is exactly the wrong model to follow. The nine Justices are appointees with lifetime tenure under the Constitution in order to insulate them from political pressure. Legislators are political actors accountable to voters for their relationships with campaign contributors and interest groups.
The Senate ethics scheme would drop the Justices into a new political maelstrom. The bill invites ethics complaints alleging that a Justice violates the new rules or “has otherwise engaged in conduct that undermines the integrity of the Supreme Court.” That open-ended standard is an invitation to groups on the left and right to file endless complaints against the Justices to create the appearance of wrongdoing or conflicts of interest.
The complaints would be handled by a five-member panel of chief judges from the circuit courts. That would further politicize the judiciary by asking lower-court judges to rule on the ethics of Justices who decide whether to hear appeals of their rulings. The judges would be under enormous pressure to act against Justices with a different judicial philosophy.
The bill also lays out “circumstances requiring disqualification” to hear a case—more commonly known as recusal. The Justices currently make their own decisions on recusal based on relatively narrow criteria such as whether they have a financial interest in a case. Political demands for recusal are becoming more common, but most can be ignored.
The Senate bill sets up a process for a three-judge panel of judges to review a “motion” by a party for recusal. Such motions would proliferate, as the parties and interests angle to eliminate a Justice they think might rule against them.
The Democratic goal here is thinning the Court on a case by case basis to influence decisions.
It’s a different means than packing the Court by adding Justices, but the purpose is similar.
The Founders anticipated this political temptation, which is why they created the judiciary as a separate and co-equal branch of government under Article III. While Congress established the lower federal courts, the Constitution created the Supreme Court, which sets its own rules. Congress has no constitutional power to tell the Justices how to run the Court.
The supposed justification for this radical remaking of the Court is a series of media articles that reveal little more than that Justices have rich friends. They have on occasion even flown on private jets, oh my. In the latest supposed scandal, the staff of Justice?Sonia Sotomayor?is reported to have encouraged the sale of her books coinciding with her appearances at universities. In none of these cases has anyone found a real conflict of interest involving the Justices and a case or ruling.
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The partisan nature of this exercise is clear from the one-sided efforts at fact-finding. Last week Messrs. Whitehouse and Durbin sent a letter to?Leonard Leo, who advised President Trump on judicial nominations and is friends with some of the conservative Justices.
The letter requests “an itemized list of all gifts, payments, and items of value . . . to any Justice of the Supreme Court or a member of the Justice’s family which you had a role in facilitating or arranging.” We could find no evidence of similar curiosity about the liberal Justices and their friends.
Damaging the Court has been Mr. Whitehouse’s explicit goal since progressives lost their majority and the Court as a second legislature.
In 2019 he and four other Senate Democrats wrote a notorious amicus brief in a gun-rights case that said “the Supreme Court is not well.” The brief threatened, mob-style, that if the Court didn’t “heal itself,” it might have to be “restructured.”
Democrats don’t currently have the votes to break the Senate filibuster and pack the Court, but watch out when they do. Meantime, their ethics ruse is an attempt to intimidate and control the Justices by other means. It deserves to be called out as a betrayal of the Constitution that would destroy judicial independence.
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America’s Trade Abdication
Britain joins the Indo-Pacific pact, as the U.S. sits on the sidelines
The United Kingdom signed onto the Indo-Pacific trade pact on Sunday, becoming the first European country to join the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). In addition to its economic benefits for Britain, the event is notable for exposing America’s growing trade failures.
The CPTPP is the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership that?Donald Trump?walked away from in 2017. It includes Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia, among others. The pact excludes China, which made it an ideal opportunity to shape global trade rules and expand U.S. economic influence in the fastest-growing part of the world. The parties moved on without the U.S., and now others want to get in on the action.
That doesn’t include the U.S. After criticizing Mr. Trump’s trade policy as a candidate, President Biden has been nearly as protectionist in office. He’s retained most Trump tariffs, and he’s resisted new bilateral or other trade deals. He’s even left Britain in the cold, despite its compatibility with the U.S. economy and post-Brexit interest in a bilateral deal.
The Administration launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) last year, but it has since been exposed as vacuous. The U.S. won’t negotiate tariff reductions or market access measures. U.S. companies say the White House even seems to be backtracking on its promise to promote new standards for digital trade.
Thirty-six business and agriculture groups expressed their dismay about the failures of IPEF in a May letter to Commerce Secretary?Gina Raimondo?and U.S. Trade Representative?Katherine Tai. “A ‘work-centric’ trade agenda must reflect how American companies and the workers they employ suffer together when we are barred from selling the goods and services we produce in foreign markets,” they wrote.
The White House is by all accounts afraid of debating Mr. Trump on the benefits of trade. That leaves the U.S. on the sidelines as the rest of the world negotiates new trade deals, including the European Union with Indonesia and India. This also leaves the U.S. the odd economic man out in the Indo-Pacific even as U.S. companies urgently need supply-chain alternatives to China. The costs of Mr. Biden’s trade abdication are growing by the month.
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