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Navigating Europe’s Energy Transition with Peter Zeihan
Peter Zeihan highlights Europe’s historical dependence on Russian energy and the challenges of diversifying to more distant sources.
He asserts that if Russian supplies vanish, Europe will need to engage with former colonies for energy, a task most European nations are unprepared for militarily. Zeihan predicts a potential power shift within Europe, with the UK and France being exceptions. Additionally, he draws attention to Europe’s demographic challenges, comparable to those faced by China.
Transcript
Peter Zeihan: Keep in mind that the primary energy supplier for Europe until very recently was the Russian space. And while the Europeans have moved heaven and earth fairly successfully in order to diversify a away, the problem is, is those new supplies are further away and are subject to say Middle Eastern issues, and if the Russian stuff was to disappear tomorrow and eventually it will go away, there will not be enough in the world for everyone.
And so the Europeans are gonna have to do something if they wanna keep the lights on that they really don’t wanna do. And that needs to go out and re-interface with their former colonies to make sure the stuff flows the correct direction, Europeans are not ready for that. I would argue that with the exception of the Brits and the French, none of them have the military position to even theoretically try, and that will change the power dynamic within Europe overnight. At the same time, Europe is the second fastest aging part of the planet, so all the demographic issues that exist for China exist in a slightly less extreme form in places like Spain and Italy and Poland, and Germany, first and foremost.
