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establish previous growth rates has to deal with competitors such as the galloping natural gas market, the return of the coal sector and the maturity of renewable energy technologies (Lovins, 2005). Besides, the considerations regarding waste management, decommissioning expenses and the risk of a new Chernobyl still remain strong.

PART B-Introduction

Europe becoming increasingly dependent on imported amounts of energy is indisputable. According to the estimations of the recent business as usual scenarios (EC, 2007), it is expected that the energy imports' dependency of Europe will increase from the present 50% to a total of 65% by 2030. Within this forecast, reliance on imports of natural gas is expected to increase from 57% to 84% while the respective increase for oil imports shall correspond to an additional 11%, i.e. from 82% to 93%.

In this context, European countries and Russia hold a strong interdependency bond based on the significant European energy imports of oil and natural gas supplied by Russia. Note that loss of autonomy is always a side effect of an interdependent relationship as the parties are constrained by their need for one another. Gazprom being the largest Russian company and the greatest natural gas exporter in the world (Cedigaz, 2007) constantly raises its share in the European market, with the respective volume of natural gas supplies reaching 161.5 billion cubic meters during 2006 (Gazprom, 2007), equal to approximately 26% of the total European natural gas needs. Being also Russia's single natural gas exporter (according to the Federal Law on Natural Gas Exports adopted in July 2006), Gazprom alone utilizes the existing natural gas pipelines in order to supply Europe (see also Appendix, Existing Natural Gas Pipelines).

Meanwhile a series of recent and past events mainly suggesting disputes with Ukraine and Belarus (Bruce, 2005; Stern, 2006) have questioned the security of supply towards Europe, this revealing the potential gaming behavior of the Russians, either to satisfy political purposes or simply take advantage of the energy card in terms of increased pricing. Similar to the 1973 energy crisis and the recent oil price major increases, a scenario concerned with the raise of European natural gas supplies' price by Gazprom is to be examined. The scenario supports that unless the desire of Gazprom for a 200% increase of natural gas prices is satisfied, supply towards Europe will be stopped.

Question 6

Given the threat of a 200% price increase of natural gas heading towards European countries, an effort is presently carried out in order to investigate the measured responses of both an energy supplier and an energy user being involved in the potential crisis occurrence. Because of the particular features attributed to the subject under investigation, several cases of different energy suppliers and users may be examined. A macroscopic approach may consider two major sides, i.e. the European countries and Gazprom (Russia). However, a closer look focusing on country level and considering organizations as well is thought to be essential in order to better evaluate the situation. As already seen in the previous question concerned with the nuclear powe本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。