So far, so close. War comes into the house, that of borders, of the primacy of history, of mutual threats, of the atavistic and tribal challenge between West and East. It is the war of weapons, the traditional and deadly ones, those capable of canceling civilizations and peoples in an instant, of bringing the calendar of man back centuries. It is the war of energy, gas, oil. It is the challenge of the powerful, who with words, those said and unspoken, have brought the heart of Europe back to the abyss of the most nefarious conflict in history. Two thousand seven hundred kilometers of sea and roads to connect Cagliari with Kiev, as far away as they are close by. A switch is enough, a bill is enough to understand how much Ukraine and Russia are inside our home. We fight in the East, in the East of the West, according to those who see the borders.

The Sardinians pay

Yet those tanks, those Alligator helicopters that fly in like a partridge, grazing as never before, on the lands of Ukraine throw Sardinia, more than others, into the collapse of leading sectors of the economy, from the domestic to the agro-pastoral one. For months the markets, those of supply and demand, had understood this. On the grip that was tightening to the east there were the margins not only for the most impressive energy speculation of the century, but even for overturning the balance of power on the world chessboard. In all of this, Sardinia will be the land of Europe that will pay the most, in economic terms, for the great gas crisis, the war on methane and its supply. In fact, one of the biggest jokes in the energy history of Europe is taking place on the Nuraghi Island.

Taps closed

The half-closed taps, the pipelines to the minimum terms, the war exploded with the impetus and voracity of an empire that seeks to regain space and power, have put the West back to the wall. When the most advanced economies do not have energy, when they do not have gas and oil to light a stove or start a factory, they end up blowing up, under the check of those who have methane pipelines and hydrocarbons. Go and explain to the Nuoro shopping center that that skyrocketing bill, which has just been delivered to him, is the daughter of this war a thousand miles from the land praised by Grazia Deledda. Last year, the same two months of 2022, in the commercial heart of the Nuorese capital, they had paid out 27,795 euros for electricity, this year, on the eve of the new war, the pre-Ukraine bloodletting was 66,951 euros. And what about the away student in a closet in the historic center of Cagliari who has seen his bill in the last two months quintupled, from 56 euros to 254. One wonders: what does Sardinia have to do with Russia and the Russian gas?

Isolated island

Looking at the primary supply networks, those that connect the large gas producers-extractors with Europe and Italy, we realize how isolated the island of Sardinia is in the world. Isolated everywhere, not even a semblance of a dotted line, a symbol of future hope. No methane pipeline capable of putting it on a par with the more distant western region. Here, in this land of wind and sun, methane never arrived. And, perhaps, it will never come. For the folly of history, for political blindness, but more likely for the great interests that revolve precisely on the great issue of gas supply. The fact is, however, that the Sardinians, today more than ever, are victims of the great mockery. In the months before the Russian raid, and it will be much worse in the next few, they paid an exorbitant cost of electricity. The headlines of all the newspapers in the world translate: there is no gas, the cost of electricity skyrockets. The question arises: why do Sardinians, who have never had methane, have to pay the global increase in gas in their bills? It is a paradox with no acceptable justification.

In check

Sardinia is under energy attack, forced to pay the dizzying rise in the price of methane without ever having had it. It sounds like a joke, but it's not. The Sardinians will see the cost of their bills multiplied beyond belief, but their energy is still produced today at 80% from a fossil, coal, which is no longer worth anything. What would be an advantageous condition, regardless of the environmental factor, which can be overcome by highly advanced technologies for the capture and storage of CO2, has turned into a condemnation without appeal. Sardinia has to pay all the way to the increases in methane, despite not even knowing what it is.

We pay three times

A cost that multiplies the island's energy disadvantages by three. The first major penalty is linked to the fact that Sardinia has never had gas, a limit that the Sardinians have paid heavily in the last 50 years both in terms of costs and environmental benefits. The second is directly connected with the gas war, the one between the West and Russia, with bills subject to increases so far declared by 55%, but which certainly have additional costs for the island condition. The third major discrimination is linked to a scandalous scenario where the State and the energy lobbies have prevented and are systematically preventing Sardinia from enjoying its own energy autonomy, which is possible and necessary for an insular and outermost region. Now history will be rewritten again. The regasification terminals that were intended to be built for Sardinia, with that energy decree, already old before coming into force, will be diverted to the national hubs, where the distribution networks already exist.

We risk the dark

Thinking of closing the Sardinian coal-fired power plants in 2025, even assuming an immediate end to the conflict, is nowadays pure madness. It would mean leaving Sardinia in the dark. It will therefore be necessary to quickly return to those technological choices opposed by the energy lobbies to install modern technologies for the capture and storage of CO2 in the Sardinian power plants, both in Portovesme and Porto Torres, capable of giving the island a certain energy perspective and stable for no less than 20/30 years, the time needed to build a real alternative based on the serious and non-speculative use of renewable energy, to be used for the production of green hydrogen, capable of making Sardinia totally independent from external conditioning, starting from the world wars.

3.51 am, history changes

It should be noted that the world energy scenario, from 3.51 last night, has changed forever. We will have to free ourselves from conditioning which, in exchange for gas and oil, end up undermining the very values of democracy and freedom at the root. The conflict that broke out last night is not between Russia and Ukraine. It is so much more. And Sardinia cannot continue to pay for choices and conflicts that do not belong to it. The Arera, the Energy Authority, argues that "for electricity, in the period April 2021-March 2022, the typical family will find themselves spending 823 euros, 68 per cent more than in the previous period (April 2020-March 2021) ". In the same note, the Authority declares: "the increase in the cost of energy is linked to the international increase in the cost of gas".

It's false

For Sardinia it is simply not true. In this land there is no gas, neither Russian nor Ukrainian, it does not come from Italy and even less from Europe. One figure is enough to understand that it is impossible for Sardinians to take charge of what is happening in the spot gas market, the wholesale, daily, natural gas market where the price has grown by almost 500 percent, going from 21 to 120. euro per megawatt hour. Italy depends on Russian gas for 28.5 billion cubic meters, or 40.7% of its consumption. The rest comes from Algeria, 21%, from Qatar, 10%, from Norway another 10% and 6.2% from Libya. Other supplies from other countries are more limited. Putin's invasion is the titanic battle for energy, especially for gas. If Italy were to decide to impose sanctions on Russia, it would probably have to prepare for a cold shower, for the economy and for the future.

Rethink the future

Now, perhaps, Europe and the Bel Paese itself will have to redress the Galsi dossier, the Algeria-Sardinia-Europe methane pipeline, the one that the powerful gas and oil lobbies blocked in every way to continue speculating with full hands, until to the war of these hours. Now, however, the land of the Nuraghi pays for gas, the Russian one, at a high price, without ever having seen it even from a distance.

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