LATEST Russia will resume gas exports to Europe as soon as EU monitors arrive at gas compressor stations along the route, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.

With news breaking that Russia has just suspended all exports of gas to and through Ukraine, what will the impact be on Europe and why has Russia chosen once again to take such drastic action?

Exports of gas from Russia fell 6% between 2006 and 2007 according to the BP statistical review of world energy. Production fell from 612.1 to 607.4 billion cubic meters (bcm) per annum and domestic consumption rose from 432.1 to 438.8 bcm per annum leading to a fall in exported gas.

Is Russia withholding gas supplies leading to higher prices and manipulation of its market position? Or is the Russian gas supply system unable to meet demand?

As we enter yet another episode of worried or sanctimonious articles about the gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it's worth remembering a few simple facts:

1) The conflict started in 1992, not in 2006;

2) Russia cannot win a gas war against Ukraine and knows it;

3) the real underlying stakes are not about Russia or Ukraine.

In his second blog entry, Andris Piebalgs moves the focus to European energy security. A few choice excerpts for those who want to have a more spontaneous debate:

Europe is currently importing half of their energy needs, and according to most of the studies, our dependency may grow to 70%. We are running out of fossil fuels and our energy needs grow. This makes Europe terribly vulnerable. As Commissioner responsible for security of supply I often wondered, where are we going to get all that energy from? (my emphasis)

The EU is already a leader in renewable energy sources and we have taken a commitment to go further with a mandatory target of 20% of our final consumption by 2020......

Times are changing in the coal trade, and while April marked the end of one era (the last pit pony in the UK died), on the other had we have the renewed interest, and debate over, the use of coal as a source of liquid fuels for a variety of vehicles, including aircraft. So I thought it worth trotting out some more facts that might help put the current (and future) situations in context. (Plus we haven't had a Techie talk in a bit).

The late Bob Stefanko has written that the Great Dismal Swamp is probably the best current place that represents the type of conditions under which, back in Carboniferous times (about 355 to 290 million years ago) the various vegetative fragments fall into the water, and are slowly compressing to form a layer of peat. The peat layer in the swamp is about 7 ft thick, which would convert to about 20 inches of coal. The swamp is slowly sinking, allowing the vegetative mat to continue to deepen and slowly built to a greater thickness. Back in the Carboniferous he noted that the speed at which the layers formed was likely about twice that at which the current Swamp is growing, and that, due to the different levels of pressure required to form them, it would have taken about 160 years to lay down what is now a 1 ft thick layer of lignite; 260 years for a foot of bituminous, and about 490 years for a foot of anthracite. Since it is more worthwhile to mine thicker coal, and eight-feet is a nice working height, this would have required about 2,100 years of steady growth to lay down the layer of vegetation that formed the Pittsburgh seam in Pennsylvania. The original areas over which these forests and swamps grew were vast, and the cycles of deposition grew as the land distorted, with multiple seams being deposited in some cases, and a single thick seam in others. But how has it survived? How much is really there, and how much can we actually produce?