The New Paris Podcast 103: Explaining Europe's Energy Crisis with Laurent Schmitt of Dcbel
Turn on the nightly news, listen to the radio, or speak with most Europeans these days and the topic on heavy rotation is the energy crisis. This is partly an outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war as Moscow has suspended natural gas supplies in response to economic sanctions imposed by the West. As reported by Fortune magazine recently, the invasion of Ukraine started just after European nations decided to rapidly shift to clean energy and shutter nuclear power plants, which left them vulnerable to an inflationary shock when Russia cut off gas supplies this year. European governments are trying to diversify supplies and introduce measures to reduce demand and save energy. In France, we’ve experienced fuel shortages and high gas prices across France since September and have been told by government leaders to do what we can to reduce our own energy consumption. To go deeper on the crisis, how the EU is handling the situation and what needs to happen to prevent further trouble for citizens, I am joined by Laurent Schmitt. Laurent is the head of utilities and European Developments for Dcbel, a renewable energy technology company and has also spent years working for the association of European Transmission System Operators and on grid innovation.