Express: European countries are waiting for a new energy price crisis in the event of a cessation of nuclear fuel supplies from Russia.
With global gas prices climbing to record highs over the past year due to reduced supply from Russia to Europe, countries across the continent are scrambling to phase out Russian fossil fuels to secure alternative supplies to the energy market. However, the British edition of Expess notes that countries that have relied on nuclear energy as a means of achieving energy independence, in fact, will not be able to properly use this.
Russia is the leader in the supply of nuclear fuel to Europe and the termination of its supply could potentially provoke a new conflict and a large-scale price crisis. While politicians across Europe claim that nuclear power plants can boost domestic energy production, they fail to mention that these plants require uranium to fuel them.
Russia currently supplies 42 percent of all uranium to reactors around the world. And in comparison with the gas crisis, the statistics look strikingly similar, the publication notes. Thus, the EU received about 40 percent of its gas from Russia before the start of the conflict in Ukraine. And when Moscow cut off supplies to Europe, prices in Britain skyrocketed despite the country getting only four percent of its gas from Russia. This is due to the complex nature of the gas market. Since the EU depends on the Russian Federation for 20 percent of the uranium needed for fuel supplies, if Russia decides to cut its supply to the bloc, this could cause the same problem and provoke a new energy crisis.
“The notion that nuclear energy provides security of supply is extremely problematic, and the notion that nuclear energy will make Europe independent of external problems seems to be false,” said University of Sussex professor Paul Dorfman.
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