Thread by @MLiebreich

To all those who say the Russian invasion of #Ukraine is the wake-up call that will get the EU to reduce its gas use, I offer you this news story from 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

If we really want to help #Ukraine right now - in addition to weapons, targeted sanctions and cutting Russia out of the banking system - we need to stop buying Russian gas. Turn down the thermostats and boiler flow temperatures, stop heating empty offices, use the log burners.

When the current conflict is over, whichever way it ends up, this time we need to learn the lessons. Go heat pump, stop installing gas boilers. Electrify industrial heat. Take energy efficiency seriously. Build gas or H2 storage. Harden our infrastructure against cyber-attacks.

Now the controversial ones. I've called the early shut-down of safe, well-run #nuclear power stations a crime against the climate. It is also a crime against security. Germany needs to halt the closure of its last 3 plants. Belgium, Sweden, etc need to stop pandering to hysteria.

And fracking. It's the height of hypocrisy to ban it in Europe at the same time as importing gas from poorly-regulated counties and begging for fracked LNG from the US. As long as we need gas, there is nothing uniquely bad about fracking. This was 2014:

https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/440409058009686016?t=4wy1104ZWjFr5lHJeoZvbw

Finally, can we have a biomass/biogas/biofuels strategy that a) doesn't reward environmental destruction: b) maximises fuel production; and c) directs it to use cases which cannot be served by electrification: maritime, aviation, storage, hard-to-heat-pump properties, freight.

Coda: while we're imposing sanctions on buddies of Putin, can we please add #SDP ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to the list. No one has worked harder or longer to turn Germany into vassal state of Russia, getting rich in the process. This is from 2011:

https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/50892368534188032?t=GGs7oBq_oFlv9fL9gp5-gQ

Coda 2. To the extent that the energy markets have not done so already through high gas prices, we should even be switching back from gas to coal for as long as it takes to starve Putin of funds and leave a smoking crater where the Russian stock market used to be.