The energy crisis reveals the complexity towards the transition to “renewable”...

The world is now going through the first major energy crisis since the transition to clean energy began, which will not be the last. The shortage of supplies is hitting the natural gas and electricity markets worldwide, from Britain to China.
According to Bloomberg News Agency, this comes in conjunction with the recovery of global energy demand as a result of the end of the emerging Corona Virus pandemic, and the lifting of precautionary measures in many countries of the world.
What is different this time is that the energy crisis comes at a time when rich economies are going through one of the most ambitious transitions in energy systems since the age of electricity, where there are no easy ways to store energy that is generated from renewable sources.
According to the report prepared by David Baker, Stephen Staptsinsky, Dan Murtaugh, and Rachel Morrison and published by “Bloomberg”, the transition to clean energy aims to make the country’s energy systems more, not less, resilient.
But the actual transition towards clean energy will take several decades, and during these decades the world will remain dependent on fossil fuels, even as major oil producers radically change their production strategies.
Daniel Yergin, one of the world’s most famous energy analysts and author of “The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations” says that the current energy crisis represents “a warning message of the complexity of the transition to new energy.” In the midst of fundamental changes, the global energy system has become more fragile and more powerful. susceptible to shocks.
Europe is now in a state of chaos in the energy market. Last winter, which was colder than usual, natural gas stocks were depleted, while Russia, the largest gas exporter to Europe, did not try to make up for this shortfall during the summer. Therefore, electricity and gas prices have now risen to record levels, with increased demand for energy as a result of the recovery of economic activities from the repercussions of the emerging Corona virus pandemic. This scenario would have happened if the world was exposed to the Corona pandemic 20 years ago, but now Europe depends on a different mix of energy sources.
Reliance on coal has declined significantly in favor of less polluting natural gas, but the increase in global demand this year has led to a scarcity of gas supplies. At the same time, the unusually low production of the other two sources of clean energy, namely wind and water, was the result of slow wind movement and low rainfall in many regions, including Norway.
The hard blow to Europe is an ominous omen of the type of shocks that could hit other regions of the world, and although wind and solar energy have increased and become more and more cheaper, many regions of the world will continue to depend on natural gas and other fossil fuels as sources of energy. alternative for many decades to come.
In a recent analysis, Nikos Tsavos, an economic analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the current situation is a good recipe for market volatility. The world is “certainly moving toward a more fragile order,” added Tsavos, James Schlesinger Professor of Energy and Geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The truth is that the transformation itself, which is inevitable to preserve the planet, is not a cause of the crisis, but any large and complex system becomes more fragile when it undergoes a major change process such as the energy system in the world.
All of this is happening, as Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects global energy consumption to grow 60 per cent by 2050.
The continued growth of the world’s population and economy will lead to a rise in energy consumption, and with the world moving to more digitization of various aspects of life, this means that the energy crisis comes at a time when people will need more reliable sources of energy than ever before.
The increased demand for electricity and the fluctuations in fuel prices mean that the world will continue to suffer from difficulties in the field of energy for decades to come, and the repercussions of this are likely to range between periods of high inflation prices due to energy problems and the increasing gap in income between the countries of the world, to the risk of widespread power outages and stopping Economic growth and production.
With the planet’s energy systems becoming interconnected and interconnected, the effects and spread of the current crisis have been felt throughout the world.
In the US, natural gas futures prices have already doubled this year, ahead of the peak demand that comes with winter.
Because the United States depends on natural gas for 40 percent of its electricity, these high prices will inevitably lead to higher electricity and heating bills for consumers.
In China, despite the government’s attempt to increase the share of renewable energy, the Chinese industrial economy is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, whether coal, oil or natural gas.
And when the factories resumed their activities at full capacity after the end of the Corona pandemic, China did not find enough fuel to produce the electricity that the factories needed. Therefore, China’s industrial production contracted during the last month for the first time in 19 months, which means that the rise in energy prices has become the biggest shock to the second largest economy in the world since the beginning of the pandemic.
The same thing happened in Britain, where the bankruptcy of small electricity companies that failed to absorb the current rise in natural gas prices continued.
Italy also allocated billions of euros to mitigate the effects of high energy prices on consumers.
And the finance ministers of the euro countries held a meeting last Monday to discuss how to deal with the crisis of high energy prices, as France, Spain, Italy and Greece called for coordinated action at the level of the European Union to deal with this file.
Finally, it can be said that the current energy crisis imposes on the world a great deal of caution in dealing with the file of the transition from conventional energy to clean energy so as not to face consequences that are difficult to absorb.