Ashworth discusses fracking and renewable energy

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Since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine, western powers have applied harsh sanctions on Russia. However, European leaders have been reluctant to target Russian gas and oil directly due to the continent’s reliance on the source coupled with soaring energy prices. Europe relies on Russia for a staggering 40 percent of its gas supply, with over 10 percent of this coming directly through Ukraine.

Amid this crisis, Michael Shellenberger, the author of the bestselling book “Apocalypse Never” slammed EU officials for relying on energy imports from Russia.

He accused the bloc of buckling under pressure from climate activists, who have been accused of being funded by Russia to boost its own exports of natural gas.

He said: “People think Europe depends on Russia for energy because it lacks its own, but 15 years ago Europe exported more natural gas than Russia does today.

“Now, Russia exports 3x more gas than Europe produces.

“Why? Because climate activists, partly funded by Russia, blocked fracking.”

This accusation originated in 2014, when Anders Fogh Rasmussen, theN secretary-general of NATO warned that Putin’s government was behind attempts to discredit fracking.

Mr Rasmussen said: “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.”

However, he declined to give further details of those operations, saying: “That is my interpretation.”

Fracking is a process of oil extraction that involves drilling down into the ground and using high pressure to release the natural gas trapped in the earth.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, politicians have urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to lift the ban on fracking after it emerged that Britain will use £2billion of Russian liquefied natural gas this year.

Yet these figures pale in comparison to the amount of gas that the EU imports from Russia, which experts believe gives Putin a strong leverage to invade Ukraine.

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Mr Shellenberger said: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have been deterred had Putin feared that Europe would stop buying his oil, gas & coal

“But Putin knew that Europe and the US couldn’t stop buying Russia’s fuel without suffering severe shortages & triggering recession.”

There are concerns that Putin could cut the gas travelling into Europe amid the “full-scale invasion” of Ukraine as tensions between the Kremlin and the West ramp up.

These fears may now be coming to light as the Yamal – Europe pipeline, which usually accounts for about 15 percent of Russia’s westbound supply of gas to Europe and Turkey, send extremely amounts.

According to the Gascade data, gas supplies fell to mere 598,712 kilowatt-hours per hour (kWh/h) on Thursday morning, which is sharp decline from the 17.5 million kWh/h that was previously recorded.

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