Renewable energy in Russia

The years following the Chernobyl disaster and the breakup of the Soviet Union brought on a change in the attitude of the Russian public, and the gravity of the environmental and health threats posed by Russia’s lack of environmental awareness and policy finally became clear. This era of recognition gave birth to a new word to sum up Russia’s environmental attitude: ecocide.

Yet, for a long time, environmentally threatening incidents such as the bursting of an oil pipeline recieved very little media attention, and mostly little or no action was taken to “clean up the mess.” By the end of the 20th century, the Russian government classified about 40% of the country’s territory as under high or moderate ecological stress.

The 90’s saw the reorganisation of Russia’s environmental policies. Many of these newly introduced policies, most of which were copied from the West, were modified to such an extent, that they managed to achieve little, and their effectiveness turned out to be even lower than what was originally expected.

Russia’s current energy policies are far more solid, and outline the general focus points expressed by the rest of the world: energy efficiency, sustainable development, and reduction of environmental impact.

Renewable energy in Russia remains largely underdeveloped, despite their being immense potential for renewable energy production. Sadly, lack of legislative mandate, low energy costs, and an overall lack of investment due to economic instability hinder the development of this untapped source of environmental and economic development. It goes without saying that Russia is one of the world’s top energy superpowers, with the largest known natural gas reserves of any state on earth. In light of this, natural gas continues to be Russia’s number one priority.