Did the Ukraine War Kill ‘Natural Gas?’

The independent energy research firm Rystad Energy, headquartered in Oslo, has found that it would be ten times less expensive over the long run to install solar farms than to continue to operate gas-fired electricity plants in Europe. Although the Ukraine War has been good for petroleum and fossil gas prices and sales in the short term, future historians may see it as the nail in the coffin of hydrocarbons. Countries such as Germany that grew dependent on Russian fossil gas are now deeply regretting it. They are trying to turn quickly to Liquefied Natural Gas, for which they are putting in terminals, since that can be shipped by sea.

There is not, however, at the moment very much elasticity in the global supply of fossil gas, so that prices may remain high. Those high prices are one cause for the increasing relative affordability of new wind and solar plants.