Russia

Why Israel Defies the United States, Stays on the Good Side of Russia’s Putin in Refusing Aid to Ukraine

By Adnan Abu Amer | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The Ukrainian war continues to have negative effects on Russian-Israeli relations where, recently, there was a warning by former Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, to Israel that if it offered military assistance to Ukraine, it would seriously harm relations with Moscow. This warning came […]

Batteries

IEA: Peak Fossil Fuels will come in 2025, as Renewables are Turbo-Charged by Russia-Ukraine War and Energy Crisis

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Fatih Birol, among the world’s foremost energy economists, has a new report at the International Energy Agency, which he directs. In it, he argues that recent developments such as the Ukraine War energy crisis are good news for low-carbon energy such as wind and solar and bad news for fossil […]

Climate Crisis

Ukraine is Perfect for Wind Power, which would Help it and Europe Escape Russian Fossil Gas Blackmail

Dave Bradley

Buffalo, NY (Special to Informed Comment) – Until recently, the reasons for Europeans to switch the sourcing of electricity from coal, methane (“natural”) gas and nuclear reactors were the usual – climate sanity, sea level rise, ocean acidification (via CO2), and fossil fuel resource depletion. In addition, nuclear energy provokes eternal worries about the safety […]

Featured

Zelensky Lambastes Israel for not Helping Ukraine, Warns of Russian Aid to Iran’s Nuclear Program

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky lambasted Israel on Monday, saying that the latter’s refusal to provide Ukraine with anti-missile defenses and its neutrality on the war had permitted Iran and Russia to deepen their ties, with benefits for Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. The “Zelensky Official” channel at YouTube made available a […]

Electricity Cost

Germany to Give Electricity Rebates, financed with Windfall Profit Tax on Energy Corporations

Benjamin Wehrmann

( Clean Energy Wire ) – The German government plans to introduce a power price brake that will grant electricity consumers a lower price for a fixed share of their estimated use in 2021, a presentation prepared by the chancellery and seen by Clean Energy Wire showed. The measure will be financed with taxes retroactively […]

Arms Sales

Ukraine war: Iranian ‘kamikaze’ drones can inflict serious damage but will not be a gamechanger

The Conversation

By Dominika Kunertova, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich | – Many Ukrainians are facing the prospect of a winter of power outages after about 30% of the country’s power stations were knocked out in just over a week. The deputy head of the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, has warned that the country needs to […]

Afghanistan

The Ukraine Moment: Lessons from the War on Terror

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Ukraine is obviously a powder keg. With each passing day, in fact, the war there poses new threats to the world order. Only recently, Vladimir Putin’s Russia intensified its attacks on civilian targets in that beleaguered land, while threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons and adding Ukraine’s neighbor Belarus to its […]

Natural Gas

Has Putin bought Ankara’s Neutrality in Ukraine War with a Pledge to Make Turkiye a Gas Hub for Europe?

Middle East Monitor

By Elif Selin Calik | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – To produce energy takes ages, but setting up new diplomatic ties, changes day by day. Even 24 hours are too many to follow all these changes in the 21st Century’s energy wars. Literally, we have seen this in 2020 during the energy price […]

Climate Crisis

Turbocharging Green Energy would Allow Ukraine, Europe better to defy Putin’s War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Dan Sabbagh (in Kyiv) and Patrick Wintour report in The Guardian that recent Russian drone, rocket and missile attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure have knocked out nearly a third of Ukraine’s power stations. Facing severe battlefield losses and the potential isolation of Crimea with a bombing of the bridge connecting it […]