Energy Crisis Grips The World: Lights Go Out In Lebanon

Countries around the world are feeling the brunt of the global energy crisis.

Some Chinese provinces are rationing electricity, Europeans are paying exorbitant prices for liquefied gas and Lebanon has run out of centrally-generate electricity.

Furthermore, India is close to running out of coal, and in the United States, the price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.25 on Friday, up from April’s $1.27.

As the global economy works to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, the sudden energy crisis is putting a strain on supply chains and stirring geopolitical tensions.

What’s more, as global leaders are preparing to meet for the landmark Cop26 in the hope of taking steps towards easing climate change, questions are now being raised about the plausibility of a global green energy revolution.

The crisis has been blamed on a perfect storm of factors, primarily the economic recovery from the pandemic coming after countries spent less on the extraction of fossil fuels over the last 18 months.

An unusually cold winter in Europe that drained the continent’s energy reserves, a series of hurricanes that shut down Gulf oil refineries, worsening relations between China and Australia, and less wind over the North Sea have also contributed.

‘It radiates from one energy market to another,’ Daniel Yergin, author of The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations, told the Washington Post.

‘Governments are scrambling to get subsidies in place to avoid a tremendous political backlash,’ he said.

‘There’s a pervasive anxiety about what may or may not happen this winter, because of something we have no control over, which is the weather.’

Ahead of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow at the end of the month, renewable energy advocates are arguing that the crisis shows the need to move away from fossil fuels.

Their critics have argued that it shows the opposite, saying that wind and solar are not meeting demand. Analysts are also concerned that the shortages and high prices will damage the economic recovery.

But as countries struggle, Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of the crisis. Earlier this week, Russia’s strongman president was called upon by the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) to help ease the crisis by releasing more exports to Europe.

Putin has been accused of deliberately withholding gas supplies as leverage with the EU, who he wants to sign off on his new £8.1 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, run by state energy Gazprom, that bypasses Ukraine.

Many are opposed to the pipeline, however. Russia is already the second-largest supplier of gas to the EU behind Norway, and Nord Stream 2 will increase Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and Moscow’s geopolitical clout.

On Wednesday, Putin suggested that Russia’s European customers could solve the crisis on the continent by importing more Russian gas.

Tensions are also rising within the EU, with leaders at odds over how to respond to the crisis.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban, who is friendly with Putin, said on Wednesday that the EU was partly to blame for the price increases, saying that the bloc ‘must change its policy.’

On the same day, EU climate chief Frans Timmermans said those blaming the block’s Green Deal are only doing so for ‘ideological reasons,’ and that a transition away from fossil fuels will help put an end to the price crisis.

‘The wrong response to this would be to slow down the transition to renewable energy,’ Timmermans said. ‘The right response is to keep the momentum and perhaps even look for ways to increase the momentum.’

But energy analysts have suggested that Europe moved too quickly from using fossil fuels for power before ensuring that there were sufficient renewable sources.

Now, with winter approaching, European fuel stocks are relatively low.

In Lebanon, meanwhile, there is no centrally generated electricity after the country’s two biggest power stations shut down due to a fuel shortage, plunging six million people into darkness.

Production stopped at Zahrani power station today hours after the Deir Ammar plant shuttered yesterday when diesel supplies were reportedly exhausted.

A government official confirmed the country’s power network ‘completely stopped working at noon today’ and warned production was unlikely to restart ‘until next Monday, or for several days.’

The official said the state electricity company would try to use the army’s fuel oil reserve to operate the power plants temporarily, but that would not happen anytime soon.

Lebanon has been in chaos for years after the government resigned following the huge accidental gas explosion in Beirut in 2020.

The shortages are likely a result of the mismanagement after months of power wrangling between the country’s different factions.

But it comes against a backdrop of energy shortages worldwide and fears of global fuel shortages after India warned its coal-fired plants could go dark in just three days and electricity blackouts hit China. …snip…

Meanwhile, China is battling through its worst electricity crisis in a decade with the country so short on power, cities have been hit by blackouts and factories forced to close or else open for just a couple of hours per week.

The crisis, which began biting a fortnight ago, was caused by the cost of coal spiking as the economy reopened post-Covid, meaning power stations were operating at a loss and began to shut down.

Power outages have been reported in southern Guangdong province, but are most severe in the northeastern manufacturing hubs of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning.

Shopkeepers in China have reportedly been left to light their premises with candles amidst a recent three-day blackout that also brought down mobile networks.

An additional 16 provinces are thought to be rationing energy due to a shortage in supply, though have avoided full-scale blackouts.

In response, Shanxi – China’s biggest coal-producing region – has ordered its 98 coal mines to raise their annual output capacity by 55.3 million tonnes.

Shanxi will also allow some 51 coal mines that had hit their maximum annual production levels to keep producing.

In China’s No. 2 coal region, Inner Mongolia, 72 mines were told that they may operate at higher capacities immediately, provided they ensure safe production.

Fuel shortages are also affecting Europe amid a spike in demand for energy around the world as the global economy recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Read rest at Daily Mail