 Good afternoon, everybody. It's lovely to have you all here at our premises in central Dublin and those joining online. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the director of research here at the IIA, the IIEA, all the vowels. It's a real pleasure to be working with colleagues in the Czech Embassy. It's been a long time coming, but we're very, very happy to be engaged in this partnership. Thank you to friends in the Czech Ministry, Foreign Affairs as well, who are represented here and for sponsoring this event. I'm going to hand over to Philippe Vorm, who's the charge defer at the Czech Embassy, who might introduce the rest of the event. But thanks all for being here and I hope it is, I know, will be a very stimulating hour. Thank you. Thank you, Barry. Excellencies, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor for me to open this event. Energy security has become a hot topic of international politics in recent years, particularly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Many more people in Europe and around the world now realize that the energy can be weaponized. The continuous and secure supply of energy at affordable prices can no longer be taken for granted. Our energy dependency on countries that do not share our values or even pose a threat to our security should be reconsidered. Another important factor to consider in this context is the ongoing energy transition. If we execute it properly, it might help us secure our energy self-sufficiency, however, could also bring about some economic and social challenges in the short and medium term. This is why I believe a serious and well-informed discussion on energy security is timely. I would say that in Ireland, the political and academic debate on this matter has been much less intense than in the countries of Central Europe. For this reason, I believe it is worthwhile for the Irish audience to hear about the Czech Republic's particular experience with this issue. In the country, it would be extremely difficult to find someone more competent on this subject than the ambassador-at-large for energy security, Václav Bartuška. He is a luminary in the realm of diplomacy and energy policy. As serving as the ambassador-at-large for energy security of the Czech Republic for nearly 17 years, he has been instrumental in navigating complex geopolitical landscapes to secure energy resources and foster international cooperation. On his ambassador role, he is a valued member of administrative board of Acer, the agency for the cooperation of energy regulators, and EU agency committed to enhancing pan-European energy regulation. Moreover, Ambassador Václav Bartuška is not only a policy expert, but also a symbol of resilience and change. He was one of the students' leaders who played a crucial role in the November 1989 Velvet Revolution that reshaped the Czech Republic's destiny. I would like to extend a special thanks to the Institute of International and European Affairs for hosting this event. Thank you for all of you who are in attendance, and I'd also like to acknowledge the support of the Department of United Nations of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their role in advancing international dialogues as this one and last but not least to Ambassador Václav Bartuška himself. Thank you very much. I would like to pass the word to my colleague from the ministry. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It's also my pleasure to address you very briefly on the occasion of this event focused on energy, energy security, energy transition. I'm not an energy expert. I represent that part of our ministry, which is focused on the United Nations on the international organizations, multilateral diplomacy, and some global affairs. I follow among others the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development, and I'm saying that for two reasons. One is that within the program of promotion of our activities and information and knowledge, we also had a pleasure to contribute to this event as such. And second, it is also because energy and energy issues lie in the heart of Agenda 2030 for sustainable development itself, and also in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. In the UN General Assembly in 2015 adopted 2030 Agenda. It included, since the beginning, a dedicated and standalone goal on energy SDG7 calling to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. No, on a half way on the implementation of all 17 sustainable development goals. We found this implementation quite in deep trouble. We had it confirmed only two weeks ago when the top meeting SDG summit took place in New York. I want to use this opportunity also to appreciate very much the work of Irish diplomat and island as such because Irish diplomats were those who were drafting the main outcome of the SDG summit, namely the political declaration. And the current multiple crisis including COVID-19 pandemic and unjustifiable Russian aggression against Ukraine. It all have led of course to slow down of implementation of all SDGs. We in the EU should not be so much alarmed because we, unlike let's say the global picture performed quite well in general in many concrete indicators. The Czechia is currently according to rankings which were published recently this year is currently at the ace position and Ireland on 17th position among 166 United Nations member states assessed in achieving sustainable development goals. The final score of SDG seven implementation is quite satisfactory in our cases, and a majority of the indicators are either fulfilled or on track, we still have of course, a lot of work to do. And for example, on the renewable energy sources recordings to this, to this indexes, of course, Ireland is performing slightly better than the Czech Republic, although the whole score was the contrary. At the beginning at the conclusion, let me thank also from my side to IIA for organizing it to my colleagues from the Czech embassy, and especially to Ambassador Batushka. Thank you here. Thank you. Ambassador, I'll just introduce. Just one, just one second because I have a few. So I just want to welcome everybody here today, and also quite a number of people who are joining us online for energy security in Central Europe, which is an extremely important topic. Thank you, obviously to the colleagues from the Czech Embassy and from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of course a big welcome to Ambassador Matushek. Just some housekeeping rules. We'll speak to us for about 20 minutes, and then we will go to question and answer with our audience, and of course everybody in the room is welcome to ask a question, and we have a roving mic and to those online, they will be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on your screen. And please feel free to send questions in during the course of the talk, and when Ambassador Batushka has finished, we will come to them. Please also feel free to join on Twitter using the handle at IIA. Just a very short note on this on the importance of this talk. My definition is of energy security is uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price. Reliability, resilience and efficiency are the forays as we talk about them. Availability, affordability, accessibility and importantly, acceptability. And there's huge national and international implications on energy security, geopolitics, consumers, industry and climate, and the war on Ukraine of course has upended the whole energy security supply in Europe and also even beyond. But there's nobody better to talk to us and to outline the challenges in this. The floor is yours, and we welcome you today. Well, thank you, ma'am. Thank you for the invitation here. Thank you to our ambassador for getting me out of the way from Iraq to Ireland. Thank you very much. A short presentation in the beginning just to explain why this topic might have been important at the moment. It's just a snapshot and feel free to ask questions afterwards I cannot cover all of it at all at all. The basic question why it became this area became important energy security from the secretive point of view is the dependency of Europe on imports. And roughly 400 billion euros a year on oil and gas exports imports to the European Union because Europe basically doesn't have much of its own resources to support a bit of Dutch and Romanian resources. There's plenty of imports from around the world. What do we import from country A or country B, we are all very much dependent on the outside world. And I will show you on the next slide how much we're dependent on things we cannot control and cannot predict. Over the summer of this year direction to events which one completely did nothing to the market Europe, so this year impact, while the other increase the price of natural gas in Europe in a single day by more than 30%. One of these events was attempt of coup by Mr. Gregorgin and his troops. So March on Moscow stopping just short of Moscow shooting down some helicopters. A real danger of possible overthrow regime in nuclear country in one of the major countries countries of the world, but that's event one, a event B, 150 guys on a gas platforms off the coast of Australia threatened to go on strike. They did nothing. Zero impact on the price of gas in Europe, you have to guess the Russian ability to define the price of natural gas in Europe is zero. Since of summer of last year, Russia doesn't export natural gas to any important member states in the EU it imports, it still exports natural gas to four member states, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Bulgaria, but the main markets are gone. Germany, France, Italy, and so forth. It's abated to influence the price in Europe is zero. So a threat of possible coup in a nuclear country is zero. The wood side energy is a company in Australia which drills offshore Australian Northwest waters, 150 guys on the gas platforms on the drills in the sea threatened just threatened to strike they didn't go on strike yet. They wanted $300,000 per year as minimal wage, and they got it. And that simple threat of possible strike in a one week time is what pushed the price in Europe by 30% a single day. So, when somebody says that my country or be in Europe is not really dependent on outside word that's not really true. That's why we got so much support, you know, you can't suppress it last year for member states like Spain or Italy or Ireland and others was that you know the threat of difficulties it supplies from Russia was a difficulty for everybody in the EU 27. We're all dependent on dependent on the outside world. Now next slide will be terrifying. In our meetings with we have a German check German coordination group on energy for last more than 10 years. We discussed what to do and how to communicate energy. A couple years ago we asked a think tank to have a simple graphics to something to show to people to explain energy in simple terms. And this think tank took it really seriously. I'm not sure they understood the word simple. They showed us this. You know, you is not really good in communicating quite often. Please do not mention this to anyone we would scare everybody from the EU policies. It's very thorough I've spent one day really complicated going through all of it. It's excellent. It covers all possible relationships between stakeholders concerns needs, whatever. It is really a very good work of several people for a long time. And if you show this to every EU citizen, you are going to be screaming from the room. I mean that's this is not the way how to talk to people about energy or about anything else to be honest. So, we thank very much to think that for the work and we never showed it again to anyone, except for audiences which we want to terrify like you right now. Okay. Please don't mention it. Once the next slide is about the pipelines from Russia to Europe for natural gas. That's actually very interesting story. Russia was absolutely sure when it started the war last year that Europe simply cannot get rid of Russian natural gas. It will not it will not want because of the price but it simply cannot even if it wanted. The supply of the 40% for zero of European gas consumption in 2021 of their 145 BCM billion cubic meter was very difficult. It would be impossible to get that amount of gas elsewhere in the world in a short term. They were absolutely sure that we will simply forget Ukraine and let it be because we want cheap gas. In fact, there was their expectation and they were wrong. Now this is from the consumer page to the page of the European Council. This is one of the most impressive graphics you can find in energy field and never in the world to have a major buyer get rid of get rid of major supplier in a space of several months is unheard of. It's like you are getting rid of Saudi or Venezuelan supply in a very short time and it's really impressive. What we managed to do last year is there's been zero Russian gas coming to Germany or my country since August of last year. That's really impressive. What's even more impressive is the next slide, which is the price of natural gas or GTF exchange in Netherlands. Because despite replacing natural gas by early this year by February of this year we already had lower prices than before the war started. It's a huge spike of the prices in August last year throughout the summer. You may remember that I have to say price went up to 10 fold the gas price as well. But the gas price at the moment is really below the level of prices, which were before the war. Impressive, really impressive. I have to say something which is politically incorrect but so it's true. We Europeans screwed the world completely we suck the energy from places like Bangladesh and Pakistan, East Asia and so forth. We behaved very, very egoistically, but we managed Europe is actually able to act very, very tough when it needs to. We did the same vaccines against COVID-19 two years earlier. We can act very tough. We don't talk about it usually and probably this is the part of my speech which will not be liked by many. But that's the way it is. I mean we want Europe to be able to act and Europe is able to act very, very tough. The oil similar story. If you see a huge decrease of the Russian supplies into Europe. Of course it's being replaced by other suppliers US Kazakhstan Norway, Saudi Arabia. I have to say one thing here which is really unpleasant sometimes to hear to replace one supplier for gas with another is relatively easy. But the next supplier will not always be a nice one. The vision of some Europeans that there is this huge pool of lovely human rights feeling oil and gas is nonsense. There are very few democracies in the world which export oil and gas you can count them on one hand. And the rest of suppliers are countries which either. Let's say our life like Russia or even more difficult. So you can expect couple years from now that people ask questions about human rights in a quarter of Guinea or Qatar or other places. Let's be honest about it we want all we want guests we will need oil and gas for decades to come is by all the green stuff you will need it will be sometimes coming from very difficult places. The next slide is about something that happened last year which completely changed perception from many people. Now if I had this talk two years ago, the main topic would be inevitably about a pipeline and nor in the Baltic sea from Russia to Germany. It was a topic for 15 years everybody has heard the name everybody talked about it. For some reason, since September of last year people stop asking about a pipeline I don't know why something happened. And it's also the reason why I went to Norway last month and it was made a big part of talk here in Ireland. You may have been neutral country, but there are some things which might happen even to neutral countries. By the way, the blow up last year happened to a national country called Denmark but also a neutral country called Sweden. Everybody who ever did that did a very good job. The attack happened outside of the national waters, the territory waters of Denmark and Sweden but inside their economic zones. The timing of the attack was excellent very well done. It was done professionally by people who knew exactly what they're doing. And if there was ever a wake up call for Europe about what energy security actually means. This is it. I've been in my job for 17 years. The first 15 years were mostly about diversification and costs. How much was something cost. How can we get it cheaper. The last year and a half is about security the heart security to make sure that things don't blow up the things that to make sure that we will have light and oil and what we need. It's a very fundamental change. Something about the speed of governments being able to act. German has been discussing energy terminals for 35 years or similar in Ireland similar and other places. This is what we have done last year. Germany suddenly has built for energy terminals in the space of less than a year. France in large huge with Dunker, Belgium and large Zebrug. Things were suddenly possible very very fast. What's also actually impressive here is we usually see governments are slow and companies as quick. In normal times, probably as in time of crisis governments are the fast one companies are the slow ones. Because in government you need basically agreement of very few people. Germany approved the first energy terminal called Bringsbiddle on this on March 5 of last year so basically the 10th day of the war. It was basically approved by the government meeting in a single session in the space of two hours. The chancellor, the finance minister, the minister of economy agreed that was it. The Bringsbiddle terminal was paid for by 50% by the German government by the bank KW. 40% was Dutch government through gasoline, which is 100% owned by the state. 10% was RWE, which is a private loan company in Germany. The German Dutch governments approved on the single day for the company, you know, the companies of structures you need to talk to board and so forth it took a couple of weeks. Interested so government governments can have my country check it public we secured energy terminal in Ameshaven in Holland in June last year through direct talks with the governments. We have LNG since supplies in summer last year. We have basically now guests from Norway, Netherlands and the LNG, mostly from the US. And the last couple of slides are about the country I know something about which is Russia that's been my specialty before I joined for ministry. One difficulty we really have at the moment is we have no one who really talks to the guy in charge. There's only one guy who's in charge. It's basically impossible for most people around the world to actually meet him. This is how he meets his closest collaborators. He's on the left is head of the presidential administration on the right side is a prime minister. Behind him is a deputy head of administration in charge of in charge of Ukraine. The lady on the right side of far and dismisses not be really not out of central bank. Those are the people who can actually get physically into room with him. Most people he just sees on the screen. I was actually doing for my government to have contact until the war broke out. I was the guy meeting people like C.H.H. and Kirillenko in the past. Those are basically unavailable these days and of course I'm not going to go to Moscow. What is really missing now is the direct contact with Russia at the highest level. Meeting Lavrov means nothing. He doesn't mean anything inside the structures. The people who really matter are different and they aren't usually invisible. The reason why it matters is basically a question of the last slide. It matters because there's only one who makes decisions and it's increasingly visible that because very few people get to meet him. More and more decisions on the Russian side are done with few mistakes and I will ask you if you can find out what's wrong with this building. This is for me a good part of what's situation today. It's a hotel called Moscow. It's right next to a Kremlin in the center of Moscow. It was built in 1932-1935 in the Stalin time. What's wrong with the building? Okay, I hope you're out. Pardon? No, no, I hope you're out. Okay, so it was built in the so-called socialist terrorism and the basic of the terrorism was totally symmetry. It's a beautiful story. In 1932, the Communist Party Committee of Moscow had competition for the new, very important Castings Hotel in the center of Moscow. They had two final proposals, which were both sent to Stalin to approve for him to decide which one should be built. They both came back signed, so in the word Adabriaio, I agree. Now, in Moscow, 1932, it could do two things. One would be you pick up both plans, go back to Kremlin and say, well, Stalin, you made a mistake. You could do that, sure. Or you could bang the heads of the architects and tell them, you idiots. You got us into a struggle. You merge your plans and make a building which will have both plans in it. This is it. Now, you're smiling, but honestly we see more and more decisions on the Russian side. Which are done people who are in total fear of someone who is not really too afraid to punish. We've seen what happened to Georgian last month in August. And it's very difficult to meet. So people are trying to guess. People are just like with Stalin. People are trying to guess what he really wants. Not easy job, to be honest. So I will end up with this. Thank you for your attention. I'm ready for the questions. Thank goodness. I give us a lot to think about. I think those slides probably contained more information than reading many books and many of it, much of it obviously new and extremely important and interesting. I start off the questions and I say I will invite questions and to our people online and anybody who is asking a question perhaps you could identify yourself so that we know who is asking. This is a little bit different. How do you see the future for energy security in Europe? And I'm talking in the immediate future because people are looking to next winter, they're looking to the winter afterwards. What is your assessment of how secure is our energy security in Europe? Well I've said many times since the war broke out last year that we will have three difficult winters in Europe because replacing all the amount of natural gas will take some time. There will be more energy capacities available in the market by 2025-26 Australia, Qatar, African countries and so forth. But for the last winter we had and the two coming winters we were still compete for natural gas with other buyers. We sometimes overpaid but we did fulfill the storages. We also went through the last winter and psychologically we understand we can survive without Russia, we can survive not freeze. But if there is one thing I'm afraid of it's a physical attack. Right. Because that would be the way how to plunge Europe into difficulty. In the case of Ireland just for understanding there's a single pipeline called Langelet which goes from the field called Langelet in Norway to Britain. It supplies 20% of British needs. Should something happen to the pipeline you might feel it as well. There are the pipelines from Norway to France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands. Currently Norway supplies 30%, 30% of the European gas supplies. So I would really take the Nord Stream 1 and 2 blow up last year as a warning. And are you satisfied that the sharing arrangement in Europe will provide sufficient energy security say for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that you have a big sharing arrangement with Germany. How is it working between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe? Well, I think it's different for each country to be honest. And there are, as I said, still four countries which import Russian gas. So I think this is slightly different for them. My government actually said before the war started we want to secure LNG terminal in neighboring country. In the end the neighboring country turned out to be Netherlands. We have no border with them but we said them as friendly. We also actually started to import natural gas from Algeria through Italy this summer. And how sharing, I believe in helping each other when each country is actually willing to do something. So we have spent a new LNG terminal in Holland. We have actually been buying cargo of energy from around the globe. And that's a visible step. So we have, I would say, very good relationship with Germany. At the same time, we didn't have a big crisis yet in Europe. And only in crisis we will find out how friendly we are to each other. Yes. I need a question. Yes, please. And two at the back. Fergal, would you like to have a question first? Thank you very much, Ambassador. I'm Fergal McNamara. I'm from Davy, an investment bank here in Dublin. And I think you laid out very impressively how Europe responded to the energy security issues with replacing the gas source and the oil sources from different locations around the world. A truly impressive sort of move. I agree with you that the big risk on energy security is the distributed nature of our energy infrastructure, the substations and gas compressive stations and so on. But the other side of the coin is the whole energy transition to an electric future and the role that indigenous resources, solar, wind, hydro and so on can play in electrification, the source of electrification generated in Europe itself. And I'm wondering about that same resolve that we saw, the collective solidarity resolve, the construction of the LNG terminals in the North Sea and so on. How all of that could be sort of harnessed or built upon to accelerate the energy transition? Thank you very much. Yes, if you take that. We are in Europe, we are fastest when we are threatened. In crisis, Europe functions very well. In good times, we are very, very slow. So I would say that crisis helps us and this one is not over yet. So I would say that there is understanding among member states that we need to do much more. It will be different in each member state. For my country, for France, nuclear is part of the answer, which certainly is not the case with some of the countries of the EU. And that's fine. You should be diverse. We are diverse. We will be diverse. And we will definitely have to question much more closely where do new energy sources come from, where they'll be manufactured. There's actually, at the moment, very lively debate in Germany, whether auto money is spent on subsidies for photovoltaic, we will help basically just the makers of the photovoltaic panels in China. They didn't create too many jobs in Germany. And I think the big part of the answer will be in Europe, you know, how many jobs you can create in Europe, how much of the money we spend on an energy transition ends up in Europe. How much of that we make here in Europe? I can hardly imagine that we would spend trillions of EU funds or euros on something that will end up elsewhere. We cannot afford that. So that would be the big debate I had. It does sound very grubby. It's very nice to speak about the green future. It sounds very grubby when you speak about money. I think there's a real moment when the real discussion starts. How much money will actually end up in Europe, in the pockets of you and me, of European citizens? We have to be able to have that argument and to explain to the public that this is something that in the end helps all of us. Thank you. Thank you. The terms run off the back. Thank you, Ambassador, for your presentation. It was very interesting. My name is Keith Schirreld. I'm the security and defence researcher here at the IIEA. My question relates to the increased use or the growing role of nuclear in the energy mix of Central and Eastern European states to secure their own energy security. And one of the potential identified challenges here has been that many of these contracts have gone to, and I'm not necessarily certain what the state in the Czech Republic is or in Czechia, but that many of these contracts have gone to Russian firms, such as Ross-Atom, which my question is, is there potentially a risk that you see for creating, moving away from a dependency on Russian gas and oil, but potentially creating a new dependency for Russian-supplied fuel or Russian-supplied parts or engineering expertise to try and transition away from that gas to nuclear. Thank you. It differs from country to country. In my country, we actually have a law just passed before the war that bans Russian and Chinese companies to participate in nuclear tenders. We have it by law. There's one nuclear power plant being prepared to be built. It's a box project in Hungary. It was a similar project in Finland called Hanekebe, which was cancelled last year after the war broke out. I'm not aware of any other Russian project than in Europe. The nearest one would be in Egypt and Turkey. As for fuel, we do the easy part now. We're replacing Russian fuel with fuel made in West. That's the easy part. The difficult part, and that's something we don't really like to talk much about in the West, is that we had for 30 years this fetish of the lowest possible price. Also, we're trying to get everything dirty away from our shores. The result of that is that 40% global enrichment capacity is in Russia. Russia, by the way, supplies, for example, 20% of US nuclear fuel enrichment. It's easy to switch micro nuclear fuel, but then you ask, where does the uranium come from, the enrichment? Sometimes it's a very interesting answer, even from Western companies. It will take some time. We will have to rebuild plenty of capacities we shut down over the last 30 years. But I would not worry that much when it comes to nuclear. I would say the generous switch away from Russia is visible in all areas. I'm more worried about China, to be honest. That would be more difficult in years to come. But you have just a question before you have plans to build a form with new nuclear. We have at the moment six. Who will build those? We have six units at the moment. We have 40% of electricity that comes from nuclear, and we actually have competition right now. We expect the bits coming by the end of this month. We have the French EDF, the Western House of the US, and KHNP of South Korea. So we'll see. But it can also end up that we will not choose anyone because honestly, the industry is not in the best shape anywhere in the world. I did oversee the nuclear tender we had 10 years ago, and in the end we did not choose anyone because the delays and the problems of the industry are well known. But we are very poor nuclear countries. So the public support is very high. We would like to have additional nuclear capacity. So you will open it to tender? We have the tender opened two years ago. We expect the bits actually on October 31st of this month. Okay. Thank you. So I have a question at the back, and then I have some questions online, but the ambassador of Hungary then also. Liam, who is the name, a member Joe Public. I have a long-winded question. Not too long-winded, please, because I have a number. It's a breakdown for the European energy market in oil, in gas. Nuclear, you say, I think you said was 40%? My country, in my country. And then, oh, for your country only, okay. So this is European only, so, and for the green energy, solar, hydro, wind. What's the breakdown now, present today in 2023? What is your previous outcome for 2030, when we have 350 million people on the European soil, and the half-life of all those generating facilities? What are they? And by 2050, we may have 600 million people in Europe. What's the capacity like at that stage for where we are? And what is the mix in the energy at that stage you hope to be? Oh, I don't know if you're that good a profit. That's a good answer. Okay. Look, first of all, I think we will have the first five viewers with us for much longer than people want to assume I want to want to expect. Or accept. So oil, gas, we'll remain with Europe much longer than people think, a nuclear fuel as well. Nobody knows. Well, it very much depends from country to country, first of all. And we're somewhere around 20% across Europe. But the real question is not about capacity installed. The real question is about the overall production of electricity, for example. One thing is that you have, let's say, install capacity of 1,000 megawatts in wind. But how much electricity generates over the year? That's the big question. Because we have intermittent sources like solar and photovoltaic, which generate electricity for just part of the year. So, to intensify, does that green energy, that 5% of your remark, does it 10% of your remark? Depends on what day. You have days when you have sunny and windy days. And you can have up to 60%. But then you need backups for that. And then you have days when you have the green energy around 5%. A cold, dark day in Germany. We had those days in winters, usually. January, February would be the days. My country is the second biggest export of electricity in the EU of the France. Our biggest two buyers are German and Austrian. So we know fairly well the situation there. And you have days when Germany exports huge amounts of electricity, when it's windy and sunny. Then you have days when the whole country is running on imports of electricity from France and my country. This is a completely new situation, which many Europeans don't really appreciate. That the intermittent sources bring a huge amount of unpredictability into the electricity mix, which wasn't there before. So I'm sorry if I cannot give you an answer about every single year. You know, I think... Excuse me. Yes, yes. Ireland is probably the only country you can get a high. High calculation of wind energy more so than countries in central and eastern Europe. If you'll just excuse me, Ambassador. I'll take a question from our online audience from Terry Neal, who's an IIEA board member. And Terry asks, for how many years will gas and gas storage be a vital part of any country's energy security? I would say that for most of your member states, natural gas will be the backup for renewables for quite some time. Because it's easiest to fire up to come up as a backup. Now, the other option will be coal. And I think coal is really something we don't really feel like using in Europe because of the emissions. So if we are honest about fast buildup of green resources with all the intermitences in it, then we have to be also honest about the need for a backup when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. And that would be most natural gas. So I would say decades. Yeah, for quite some time. And until we find the backup solution, the batteries, just to give you an idea, for those who are happy enough not to be an adjust people, which is a difficult job to be honest. When Elon Musk unveiled a mega battery in Australia, 100 megawatt hours capacity. Journalists call me like, is this the moment? Is this the breakthrough? I was like, okay, this is megawatt hour. What we need is 1000 as much or a battery at a million times as much. We need storage of gigawatt hours or 10 megawatt hours. I mean, what I would need are 10 megawatt hours a year. 100 megawatt hours in Australia and it are four family houses in Australia per year. That's a mega battery. That's great. That's great for houses. Excellent. We sometimes don't appreciate the amount of electricity that we consume, how much of it we consume. So until we have the storage able to store basically the energy from day to night and especially from summer to winter, which will be in 10 megawatt hours. The million times as much as we can store today. Until then, I think we will need natural gas or other backup sources. Wow, right. I'm sorry to disappoint. I'm just... No, no, that's reality. And we thank you for that. Ambassador, Hungary Ambassador, you had a question. Thank you very much. This is Gergé, my name is Gergé, Hungarian Ambassador to Ireland. I think you partly already answered my question because I wanted to ask you about your views on the role of nuclear energy in the renewable sector, how it serves as a backup for other renewables and how it is helping to level up these waves. So this was my question. I think you partly already answered it. Look, we can do the usual European game, which is discuss whether nuclear is a low emission or a zero emission. We can spend a whole day with this. I think the French will agree with us. The Germans will be against it. We've been playing this game for a long time. But if we are serious about cutting down nuclear emissions, then the answer should be in the long term, renewables and nuclear. In the countries which allow nuclear, in the countries which don't, there will be renewables with some sort of backup. And that's it. And certainly, so far, we all agree that member states can have the energy mix of their own choosing. So half of member states use nuclear. The other half does not. We have some very vocal opponents of nuclear. That's fine. And that's how it is. I mean, Europe should be diverse. I like Europe and it's diverse. It's a nice continent. Yes, thank you. Yeah, Barry, you had a question. Thank you, Ambassador. I'm Barry Holt for the director of research here. My question builds nicely off what you just said about Europe being nice and diverse. During your remarks, you said that Europe can be tough sometimes. And you made reference to the rollout of the COVID vaccines and also the purchasing of gas. Can you describe a little bit more what you said about how that's to the detriment of I think you specifically said Bangladesh and Pakistan? Yeah. Can you say a little bit more about what that means? And my question is, is there a way of having the diversification that we want? I commend your presentation, by the way. Your presentation was wonderful and the picture can speak a thousand words, as Philip said. It was really brilliant. But talking about the diversification that you promote, is there a way of doing it that isn't to the detriment of other places like Bangladesh, Pakistan? Thanks. First of all, thank you for the question, because I've been using this example of Bangladesh, Pakistan for the last year. And I always can see when people know what I'm talking about, they don't ask questions, because we all know what we did. Bangladesh and Pakistan have a common population of 400 million people, so roughly the EU population. Bangladesh has two LNG terminals to import LNG. Pakistan has one. We sucked out the LNG, which was supposed to go to the air, which overpaid the suppliers, which forced both countries to use more diesel for electricity generation, which raised the price of electricity by 80 percent. We're talking about two rather poor countries. So we tend to ask ourselves in Europe, what can we do more to have the global south to understand? Well, things like this help global south to understand who we are. Don't go to Bangladesh or Pakistan now and talk about energy transition in Europe. It really was not easy for them. And so it would be to be able to buy LNG without detrimental countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. I think we will need new LNG sources to come online. There should be by 2025-26. So hopefully we'll be able to get our LNG without hurting others. But if this winter or next winter we need more LNG, I'm fairly positive that's what we're going to do again. I remember when the vaccines came in the spring of 2021, and we would have our 60-70 percent vaccinations already done in Europe, and most of the world would be around one or two percent. I don't remember Europeans being too offended by that. I remember Europeans being happy about being secure and safe. That's who we are. Let's be honest about it. I mean, we enjoy the lifetimes we have. We enjoy the life we have. I'm paid for bluntness. I'm not paid for being the blunt. Ambassador, I have a question from James Murphy, who's from our Department of Finance. And he said, firstly, thank you for your presentation. And his question is for the ambassador, is regarding how dependent are the Czech Republic and other Central European countries on the external non-EU suppliers of energy technologies, such as solar wind turbines, electrolyzers? Do you see a need for greater state support for domestic manufacturers? Now you've dealt with part of that. But the question, do you see a need for greater state support for domestic manufacturers? There is no difference between Central, Western Europe, or any other part of Europe on this one. At the moment, we import basically most of those technologies from outside of the EU. And as I said before, this will be exactly the point of contention for many. I would say in the public, we should have those capacities at home. We should basically do what the Americans did last summer, or summer last year, with the Inflation Reduction Act, which has nothing to do with inflation, but a lot to do with America first. And we should do something like this. We will probably not dare to call it Europe first, because we are so nice. But that's something we should do. I mean, that's what we actually owe our public. When we speak about all those trillions of euro which we spend on energy transition, I really believe that this money should be spent in our countries. Oh, it was too much. Yes, but do you feel that the European energy policy is a big help towards self-sufficiently in this area? Do we need to do more? Does the EU need just a comment on the EU policy in this regard? Once again, I think crisis helps. This was a no-topic two years ago. Now it became a topic, especially because many of the raw materials we need have to be imported, the earth metals, nickel, copper, and many others. So the question is how much we be dependent on outside bankers, how much we arrange ourselves? I think we will need European raw materials policy, a real one, not just talk, but a real one. Just a small example, I was in Saskatchewan last month, the province of Canada, we just planned to be uranium and other raw materials. So I've met two ministers in Regina. I went to Saskatoon, the biggest city. I went to North with uranium mines. Everywhere I went, the Americans went before me. And they have now, I think they're burning now, when raw materials policy, they don't talk about it yet. It would be a big shock to Europe, just like the IRA was shocked, some of last year, but they will have one. And it will be very, very tough. And they've moved into Canada as well. They move everywhere. I mean, I've met them and I've, you can see them in Latin America and Africa and Asia everywhere. I mean, they do what we talk about what we should do one day. They've been doing it right now. Yeah, that's interesting. And I think it's not easy to follow that without your explanation. Dylan, I have a question. I also have some more online. Dylan Marshall researcher here at the IIA and then limelighting as a Mike Holder. So I have kind of two questions, firstly on the energy charter treaty, which has been quite controversial around Europe. And many European states have withdrawn or a signal they wish to withdraw in the near future. And I'm just wondering the position on a number of central European states on that, specifically the Czech Republic, is there an intention to withdraw remain within this somewhat controversial treaty, given the impacts it has on the public purse? And then secondly, to pick up on a few threads you talked about in your presentation, which I thought was very good. You discussed about the potential for European citizens in maybe five years to get a bit antsy on the human rights situation. And you gave the example of equatorial Guinea. But I'm just wondering, given the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the EU has put a lot of hopes on Azerbaijani oil and gas and there has not been a lot of discussion on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh where there's been a lot of accusations of ethnic cleansing and war crimes. And so I'm just wondering on your opinion on this situation. Two questions. Two easy questions. Look, on Azerbaijan and Armenia, I think the silence of the European Union and the US and others is self-explanatory. There's no need for me to say anything more. And, sorry, I'll be the first one. You're a member of that. Look, as you talked about the treaty, it's from the 1990s, with the time when Europe really believed in a rule-based order in this world. And the European Union and European member states really worked on that. And we were hoping for a word in which those rules can work. We were wrong. The word is not a nice place. The word is not a place which will play by European rules. So at the moment, my government coordinates with other governments in the area, especially with Germany, our next approach. But I assume that we should accept the fact that we want to be successful in this area. The word is much, much less pleasant place than we hoped it would be in the 1990s. And probably also applies to your second question. Yeah, sobering assessment. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry. Sobering assessment. We have some nice questions. Sobering assessment. I have an Irish question from Dar-a-Lawry, who is a senior economics researcher here. He said, from the point of view of Ireland's energy security, do you think that Ireland should consider becoming more interconnected with the rest of the European Union, such as through a second electricity interconnector connecting Ireland's grid to the continent? We have one. Your advice on that? Well, look, we had a saying back in 1990s when we built a pipeline for oil to Germany and another one to gas. And we started to buy Norwegian gas in 1997. We had actually lying in our public presentation and saying happiness is a multiple pipeline. And I think in your case, it's a similar story. You're now building the connection to France, to the Gaelic connection, to Normandy, and the more the merrier. I mean, it's costly, of course. All those things are costly until the moment when you need them and then suddenly they are the only ones you have. But my government actually pushed through the contract with Norway back in 1997. We had a huge pushback from some parts of the media probably funded by a big energy supplier. I have no idea which one. The deadline was expensive Norwegian gas. It was like the deadline in the press. This is expensive Norwegian gas. Then came the gas crisis in 2009. Now Russian gas coming to Europe was suddenly the only gas coming. It wasn't expensive anymore. It was the only one. So for a larger city connection, yeah, sure, it's expensive. I know there are plans to build ones to different parts of the continent. I think in the end you will find that the costs of having electricity for a single day is a big portion of GDP. And the cost of building such a connection is actually not that big in that comparison. Yes, we have to take into account in terms of cost, of course, that we're an island behind an island. And where we put our pipeline, it might have to come around a bit. Kian, you have? Thank you very much, Mary, for indulging in my second question. This question relates to the role of green hydrogen as creating resilience and security of supply. Early in your presentation, you talked about many, about half of the European states will have nuclear as their backup. And the other half will have another alternative. And it seems ostensibly in Ireland that alternative could be green hydrogen. And there's a lot of excitement in Ireland about the role that green hydrogen could play in Ireland's economy and on its green transition. I guess I was wondering about your thoughts about, given that this is kind of a growing sector, but it's still very much in its infancy, how, whether or not you believe that Ireland should pin all of its hopes of its green transition or many of its hopes of its green transition on green hydrogen, or should we potentially explore other options? And I'm not going to say what those other options could be, but possibly that. Thank you. I don't dare to give advice to any government, but mine. That's the only one I can advise. So I can just say what I'm saying in my country about this. There are many different proposals what could be the possible backup. Hydrogen is at the moment very popular, but when you ask for physical practical things which you can physically see, it's actually slightly underdeveloped. Most of the technologies are not there yet. So we will see. The big question with hydrogen is a long-distance transport. At the moment, I'm only aware of the transportation of ammonia from Saudi Arabia to Japan. The transport of hydrogen in liquid form is something not tested yet. You would need basically to cool it down to 10 grades above absolute zero. The energy costs of that would be probably about half of the energy in the hydrogen itself. With LNG, it's around 10% of the energy you lose by the confection. So there are many questions around it and this is a moment of big change and there are many different proposals and many different technologies and many people wish for the technologies speak greatly about the advantages. And they don't always mention the risks or the fact that the technology is not there yet developed. You may remember if you've been in the field for a while that about 15 years ago everybody spoke about CCS, carbon capture and storage. But it's always COVID CCS will be in all government documents and then just stop being there, the CCS, because the first unit of CCS was built in Schwarze Pumpe in Germany in Brandenburg and it turned out to make electricity much more expensive than people assumed. All the calculations were simply not correct. So I believe that practice is the best measurement of success and hydrogen has a still a long way to go to prove itself. It will be probably used in some areas. I'm not really sure I would let hydrogen into the households or to urban areas. It has huge secretary risks. The mixture of hydrogen with air is hidden work. So there are questions around it, sure, but there are also advantages too. So how would they look like? I don't know. There are several different areas where people push their own proposals. We have big push on batteries. Some of those batteries have the small difficulty that they get caught fire quite easily. Something people probably will not like in their homes. That's the secret to the moment. We have actually reached our time, but just one question that I really would like to ask you a broader question before we conclude this very interesting discussion about the role of China in the whole energy security area. Is the Chinese economy, as it picks up, likely to impact, say, on energy security in Europe? Will they have a demand? Will they be taking energy from Europe? What kind of geopolitical impact will China have on the energy security in Europe? It's interesting. A year ago everybody would worry that when COVID is over and China picks up, it will suck all the energy we need. Now everybody worries that the pickup in China is not fast enough and China is not as well as it was supposed to do. So I guess economy of the size will have impact on Europe no matter what. Whether they do well or badly, they will always impact us. How will this happen? I go, finally, to East Asia and Southeast Asia and Japan and South Korea and Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia or Singapore. The first question, the first question is always about China, not so much about Europe. That's one of your hands. And I asked them in the same question, basically, how do you see it? Nobody really knows. It's very difficult to get any relevant data from inside the country. Right. So we just wait and see as it picks up and the effect on the whole. But as you said at the outset of your talk, the geopolitical world is now very disrupted and so many different conflicts throughout and so many different challenges and, of course, energy security, as we say, which has such a huge impact, right down to the individual level, industrial level, climate change level. And all we can do is just work to try and mitigate the difficulties as they arise. But thank you most sincerely for your talk, which was incredibly interesting and thought-provoking. And I think we'll take away a lot from it. So thank you for coming. Thank you to the colleagues in the Czech Embassy for organizing it and our colleagues in the IIA. Again, many thanks. And thank you for coming.