Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Francesco Sassi

@frankstones.bsky.social

250 followers 35 following 1.4K posts

Postdoctoral Fellow @statsvitenskap.bsky.social🇳🇴 Energy Statecraft, International Relations, Geopolitics, Diplomacy. Non-resident Research Fellow @ RIE - Bologna🇮🇹

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · Jan 17

🚨Publication Alert🚨
I am beyond excited to share with you my latest publication titled "The (Un)Intended consequences of power: The global implications of EU
LNG strategy to reach independence from Russian gas" on Energy Policy.
Link 🫴 authors.elsevier.com/a/1kRs614YGg...
🧵

1 2 3

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 18h

A direct link to the analysis
📜https://rebrand.ly/RE3352

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 18h

🚨🇷🇺Russia's latest strikes against🇺🇦Ukraine's natural gas production facilities are forcing Kyiv to ask for help to🇪🇺European allies in preventing further damages to the energy system and purchase additional gas imports

Read my analysis here
📜https://rebrand.ly/RE3352

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 1d

A direct link to the analysis
📜 rebrand.ly/RE3342

eklipX Intelligence

rebrand.ly

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 1d

🚨Recent security and deterrence initiatives by🇩🇰Denmark &🇫🇷France are showing increasing risks for🇷🇺Russian crude oil exports from the Baltic Sea, with serious implications for the stability of the global oil markets and the Kremlin.

Read my analysis
📜https://rebrand.ly/RE3342

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 2d

To further explore the geopolitics of the energy transition consider following my blog
➡️The Oil & Gas U-Turn of New Zealand
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE3279
➡️The Chinese Solar Industry is Bleeding and Beijing Must Act
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE3010

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 2d

Whereas Chinese solar panel producers have been increasingly fighting and overcompeting each other with lower costs, urging Beijing to intervene directly in the market, China will be a major country profiting from the availability of more hydrocarbons exported from Africa.

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 2d

generation systems and output grows for homes, small businesses, and agricultural appliances.
Paradoxically, this could also free more oil and gas for major producers and exporters in the continent, sometimes using valuable commodities to feed underdiversified national systems.

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 2d

energy sources.
The demand for off-grid, affordable energy booms where Africans cannot afford to pay for expensive electricity, imported gas, or simply have no access to electricity services due to disrupted and malfunctioning grids.
The affordability of decentralised energy

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 2d

From
🇿🇦South Africa
to
🇳🇬Nigeria
and
🇩🇿Algeria
African imports of Chinese solar panels have been on the rise this year and it represents a continental phenomenon, not just a single country trend. It signals an expanding interdependence based on domestic incentives to diversify

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 2d

🤝The energy interdependence between🌍Africa and🇨🇳China is one of the single most important and undervalued variable when considering the future of the energy transition
🧵

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 3d

Explore the energy geopolitics of the🇪🇺EU subscribe in my blog
➡️Hungary and Slovakia are Building a Gas Block in the Hearth of Europe
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE3306
➡️Nuclear, Data Centers, and Renewables: All Political Headaches of the New French PM Lecornu
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE3218

eklipX Intelligence

rebrand.ly

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 3d

coalition partners advocate for increased welfare spending and reducing foreign aid, including donations to Ukraine.
In these years, Prague organised a secretive programme that sources ammunition for Ukraine. In 2024 alone it delivered to Kyiv 1.5 million artillery shells...

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 3d

But what surprises the most is the comprehensive opposition by all these parties to the support for Ukraine, with the Czech Republic having welcomed 400,000 Ukrainians since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
While declaring himself a pro-NATO politician, Babis' ANO and

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 3d

consensus and rightwing Motorists, a party made of drivers(🤯) which received 6.8% of votes and which is explicitly against:
-Green politics, it supports coal
-Liberalism, it supports the Czech crown against EU integration
-Progressivism, it wants to abolish all bicycle lanes

1 1

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 3d

At great distance, pro-western coalition of the current Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, won 23.0%
Babis is a self-proclaimed Trumpist and the likeliest buddies in a future government will be the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), an anti-immigration party with 8% of the

1 1

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 3d

Prague will likely join a bloc of countries in the Centre-East of Europe opposed to many major policy decisions implemented by Brussels, starting with the decarbonisation of energy systems and the support to Kyiv against Moscow.
Babis’s ANO (YES) party won 35% of the vote.

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 3d

🚨🇨🇿Czech Republic joins the anti-🇪🇺EU, anti🇺🇦Ukraine, and Green Deal skeptic countries in the East-Central Europe

In Saturday's elections, the populist billionaire Andrej Babis's party won 35% of the consensus and he opened to an unprecedented coalition with far-right forces
🧵

1 1 5

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 4d

To further explore the geopolitics of the energy transition
➡️Milei's Political Crisis and Argentina's Energy Missteps
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE3321
➡️Nuclear, Data Centers, and Renewables: All Political Headaches of the New French PM Lecornu
🫴https://rebrand.ly/RE3218

eklipX Intelligence

rebrand.ly

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 4d

transition, says the ENTSO-E report is "completely in line" with the results of Madrid's investigation, concluding that both the national grid provider Red Eléctrica and private electricity companies were at fault. At the same time, both are rejecting the government's accusations

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 4d

energy security framework to ensure our systems are fit for the future," other investigations are ongoing by the Spanish government and the national energy watchdog.
Deflecting away from the government the responsibility of the incident, Sara Aagesen, the minister for ecological

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 4d

security under a shifting scenario where more power sources are called to contribute to the state's demand.
While the EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen says "The European Commission is already working on a review of the EU’s

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 4d

Data from several organisations were impossible to be collected by ENTSO-E as eight Spanish generation companies, the most relevant ones, refused to share info.
The same unwillingness to cooperate calls policymakers to define new ways of understanding energy and electricity

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 4d

reboot the system automatically, which also emphasises the needs for "every power generation to have voltage control" and urges policymakers to adopt innovation in the regulation which will likely require a significant change of how the power generation landscape works in Spain.

1 1

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 4d

in the🇫🇷French Basque Country.
According to the 264-page long report, a "cascading overvoltage" occurred, meaning a power spike which triggers additional spikes like a chain reaction and spreading to other parts of the system. A major failure was the grid system inability to

Francesco Sassi @frankstones.bsky.social · 4d

“It has never happened before in Europe, this is new territory, the first of its kind,” said Damian Cortinas, the chairman of ENTSO-E while presenting the report about the last April blackout affecting the lives of 60 millions of Spanish and Portoguese people, plus some living