Rapidly growing share of renewable energy sources in the production of electricity is turning the energy industry upside down. Some claim that this will lead to a catastrophe, large scale power outages known as “blackouts”. Others say that there is a bright future ahead of us.
Despite lofty rhetoric, the Ukrainian authorities have failed to secure any significant progress in the privatization of the country’s largest state-owned companies during the past five years. The new government promises a fundamental shift in this area.
Ukraine has the 7th largest identified hard coal deposits in the world (almost 4 per cent of the global hard coal reserves), the domestic coal mining industry is in a state of collapse, as a result of which the country is a huge importer of the "black gold".
Although Russia is still among the three global leaders in oil production, it only ranks the 8th in terms of the size of controlled oil reserves. But they are already heavily depleted and there are no new oil deposits that would be cheaper and easier to extract.
After the release of the TV series “Chernobyl”, the attention of viewers was drawn to the ecological disaster that happened many years ago in Ukraine. Still ecological concerns have been losing the battle with political and business interests in Ukraine.
The authorities in Kiev have had high hopes associated with China's economic presence in Ukraine for many years. However, the official declarations are rarely followed by real actions. For China, Ukraine is still primarily a large market for Chinese goods.
Slovenian government is planning to build a second unit of the Krško nuclear power plant. The jointly owned by Slovenia and Croatia Krško NPP was built by the US Westinghouse and began operating in 1981.
Hungary is planning to phase out coal-fired electricity generation by 2030 to help reduce emissions and tackle climate change. The country's main strategy to meet the growing need of power is to reduce the energy dependency by use of renewable and nuclear sources.
In July, the Czech government gave preliminary approval for Elektrárna Dukovany II, a subsidiary of an energy company ČEZ, to build at least one new nuclear power unit in the country.
Blockchain is very well suited for use in settlements in the power generation sector, according to Jacek Szczepański, vice-chairman of the Atende IT company, speaking at the 11th European Economic Congress in Katowice, Poland.
