4.15 Russia and The Environmentalists
Russia makes most of its money by selling oil and gas to countries that need it such as countries in Europe, and India. European countries have become dependent on Russia for their gas supplies which gives Russia a lot of control over them. European countries wanted to cut off money flowing to Russia while Russia was invading Ukraine but they need the gas and the oil so they keep buying it and the money keeps going to Russia which uses the money to fund its expensive war against Ukraine. European countries could be a lot more energy independent but because of their fear of global warming and other harm to the environment, they have shut down some of their sources of energy. Germany plans to close its last remaining nuclear power plants in 2022.
A lot of American gas is trapped in shale rock. Shale rock is formed by clay containing mud that is compressed by whatever is above it. Mud often has dead plants in it and bacteria that eat those plants and produce gas and that under the heat and pressure underground, can become oil.
American engineers found a way to get that gas and oil out of the rock by a method called hydraulic fracturing or fracking for short. The fracking method is shown in the video below.
While Trump was president America produced so much gas from shale that it had enough to export to other countries. President Biden has interfered with American energy production so America has to import gas. Europe has large shale reserves but because of fear of global warming and oil leaks won't frack them.
Part of the craziness of all of this is that when countries like Europe and America stop producing energy, they don't stop using it. They produce the same amount of carbon dioxide from the fuel as if they had drilled for the fuel themselves. The only difference is that they enrich countries like Russia who use the oil money for building a powerful army that threatens Europe and America.
Vladimir Putin the president of Russia doesn't want America and Europe to be able to produce their gas needs. He wants Europe and the United States to depend on him for gas. He wants the money from gas to go to Russia so that Russia and he as the leader of Russia becomes more powerful and wealthy. For this reason Russia has funded environmental groups in the U.S. and elsewhere that protest against fracking and any kind of oil production. Here is a news report on a rally against fracking in the U.S..
There are some things to notice about this video. The announcer says that the protestors brought evidence that fracking was bad and showed a bottle with what looks like mud inside it from a well and which probably contained oil in it. If oil leaks into water that doesn't prove that fracking was responsible but often people who find oil in their water say that it does. There are a lot of ways oil can get into the water supply like from leaking pipes and leaking oil tanks. The second thing to notice is that the announcer in the video says that opposition to fracking stopped fracking in New York state. Just what Vladimir Putin wants.
Vladimir Putin controls the Gazprom corporation which is Russia's oil company. That company continually expands the amount of oil and gas it gets from the ground and as well as ways to deliver it to other countries as shown in the video below.
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What about China? Is China cutting back on energy?