This creates a problem, particularly for Europe because the result of reducing the dependency on Russian oil means that we have to look very quickly at alternative providers. Russia is actually one of the biggest export nations in terms of fossil fuels, so Petroleum crude oil, Petroleum refined oil, and gases, as well as coal. These are all areas where we depend very heavily on Russia. If we look at Russia in terms of what it does, you can see very clearly that its trade is focused in this area around the European Union.
If we take a look at electrical energy it’s a fraction of what we have at the minute, but you can see immediately the electrical energy, which comes from nuclear power, and in particular Germany, France, Switzerland, and Canada, but mostly Europe are all able to trade in nuclear power. This is an area that will inevitably come under discussion because of the dependency on Russia.
Russia’s dependency on China is lower as well, so you can see already that there is a compelling reason for Europe itself to be generating more by way of electric power. That means a decision around nuclear and that’s something that obviously all policymakers will be thinking about at the moment. But because the European Union has decided to record nuclear as sustainable under its taxonomy it probably means that we will be looking more at expanding nuclear power in the coming months and years now.
The other areas are alternative energy, this is where it starts to get interesting because you can see how integrated the world still is in terms of alternative power. You can see this chart is looking at solar power generating sets and it also includes the turbines and the blades that are for wind power as well. You can see that the major exporter is China, and the Republic of Korea is second, but you can see within Europe there is also Germany which is very dominant within the sector.