Business
Three Years After Ukraine Invasion, Europe Still Deals With Energy Crisis
At a newly built dock along Germany’s Elbe River, tankers from the United States unload liquefied natural gas to fuel factories and homes. In central Spain, a forest of wind turbines planted atop mountains helps power the energy grid. In French government buildings, thermostats have been lowered in winter to save electricity.
In the three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ignited an energy crisis across Europe, the continent has transformed how it generates and stores power. Russian natural gas, long Europe’s energy lifeline, has been replaced with other sources, notably liquefied natural gas from the United States. Wind and solar power generation has leaped around 50 percent since 2021. New nuclear power plants are being planned across the continent.
But Europe’s energy security remains fragile. The region produces far less natural gas than it consumes and is still largely dependent on other countries, especially the United States, to help keep the lights on. Natural gas, which drives the price of electricity, is roughly four times as expensive as in the United States. High energy costs have strained households and forced factories to close, weakening Europe’s economy.
A dependence on Russia
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine revealed Europe’s dependence on energy from Russia, especially natural gas, which accounts for around 20 percent of Europe’s energy consumption.
“The energy appeared cheap, but it exposed us to blackmail,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, told the World Economic Forum last month.
Prices soared in 2022 on worries that Russia would completely cut off gas flows into Europe as well as other factors. Countries banded together to share fuel and other energy sources, and build or modify infrastructure to transport it. These efforts are forecast to have reduced Europe’s reliance on Russian gas to 8 percent of supplies in 2025, from 35 percent in 2021, according to Anna Galtsova, an analyst at S&P Global Commodity Insights, a research firm.
Norway is now the largest supplier of gas, mainly through a web of pipelines. But Russia has become a large supplier of liquefied natural gas, second only to the United States in 2024.
And Europe has become better at directing the energy to where it is needed, creating “a tremendous amount of flexibility that Europe didn’t have on the eve of the war,” said Anatol Feygin, chief commercial officer at Cheniere Energy, a large American L.N.G. exporter.
Helping that pivot were programs that encouraged households and government buildings to lower thermostats to 19 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit). Factories across Europe also curbed production to avoid blistering energy bills. Other initiatives, like having stores shut off lights early in the evening, have been rolled out.
Renewable energy solutions
Europe built more renewable energy projects to help bridge the gap. Before Russia’s invasion, around a third of Europe’s power generation came from renewable energy, propelled by a buildup of wind and solar power. In 2024, wind and solar farms generated more electrical power than fossil fuels for the first time, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.
“That is a big change, and that speaks to the additional policy push to get alternative sources of energy into the system,” said Tim Gould, chief energy economist at the International Energy Agency in Paris.
But shifting to renewable energy is costly. Although overall energy prices have declined from their 2022 peaks, both gas and electricity tariffs remain elevated. Renewable sources like wind and solar have made great progress, but much investment is still needed to fill in the gaps in periods of low wind and sun.
Large polluters like steel makers have said Europe is not doing enough to foster a shift to greener operations. “European policy, energy and market environments have not moved in a favorable direction,” ArcelorMittal, Europe’s largest steel company, said in November.
Global competition for gas
The largest alternative to gas piped in from Russia by far has been liquefied natural gas, but it is a relatively expensive option. With gas vital for industry, heating and power generation, the shift away from Russian supplies has been difficult.
Europe is at the mercy of global markets, bidding against the likes of China and South Korea for liquefied natural gas. Prices have recently soared to the highest level in a year, hurting businesses and adding to a cost-of-living crisis in Europe.
The largest source of liquefied natural gas has been the United States, mostly terminals from the Gulf Coast, which provide nearly half of Europe’s supply. Europe has seen a boom in setting up terminals to receive L.N.G., especially in Germany, which had none before the energy crisis.
During a cold snap in January, several American tankers carrying liquefied natural gas to Asia changed course for Europe, where they could make a bigger profit, said Natasha Fielding, head of European gas pricing at Argus Media, a London research firm.
“Europe has made really remarkable strides,” said David L. Goldwyn, who was a State Department energy envoy during the Clinton and Obama administrations. “But when the weather turns cold and competition from Asia for L.N.G. increases, the situation looks more challenging.”
Gas prices remain high
Natural gas prices in Europe have fallen from the punishing highs of 2022, but in 2024, they were still double their five-year average before the war, according to the International Energy Agency.
Although imports of Russian gas through Europe’s pipelines have plummeted, Europe has expanded its purchases of liquefied natural gas from Russia, which arrives via port. There has not been enough time to develop new resources like L.N.G. to compensate for the loss of Russian gas.
The ebbs and flows of L.N.G. are largely determined by market forces. President Trump has pushed Europe to import more fuel from the United States, and Ms. von der Leyen has suggested that L.N.G. from the United States could replace Russian fuel.
Some level of additional gas exports to Europe from Russia could be included as a sweetener for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to agree to a settlement in Ukraine, analysts say. “That would be a serious negative for U.S. energy exporters,” Mr. Goldwyn said.
The cost of the energy crisis
Exorbitant gas costs contributed to soaring inflation and led factories that employed thousands in Europe to close or relocate to countries with cheaper energy.
Some of the biggest European names are trimming their operations. The German chemical giant BASF said it would close some production at its site in Ludwigshafen near the border with France, while making the largest foreign investment in its history in China, where energy is up to two-thirds cheaper than in Europe.
High natural gas prices have translated into higher costs for making ammonia, a crucial component in fertilizers. Yara International, a fertilizer giant based in Norway, is stopping ammonia production at its plant in Tertre, Belgium, potentially leading to more than 100 job losses. “High energy prices are a huge challenge for European competitiveness,” a spokeswoman said.
The energy crisis has also led to a painful cost-of-living crisis for families across Europe. Energy poverty has jumped in Europe, with nearly 10 percent of the population reporting that it is unable to keep its homes warm, and larger numbers of households falling behind on paying their energy bills.
“We’ve created a state of energy precariousness,” said Niki Vouzas, spokeswoman for the National Federation of Rural Families in France. “People are heating their house less, and filling up the gas tank less.”
An uphill battle
Recent months have brought renewed signs of market unease. The colder weather has caused Europe to draw down the levels of storage it builds up for the winter at a faster rate than the previous year, leading to worries that rebuilding these stocks over the summer may be expensive.
“The challenge will be this summer to replenish the reserves ahead of the following winter,” Ms. Fielding of Argus said.
Despite the premium prices of recent years, Europe’s overall gas production has declined. Higher taxes have deterred investment in the British North Sea while the Netherlands is shutting the once prolific Groningen field after production triggered earthquakes. Domestic output in the European Union and Britain amounted to less than 20 percent of consumption in 2024, S&P Global Commodity Insights estimates.
Austria’s OMV is one of the rare companies aiming to increase gas production in Europe. The only way to make Europe’s energy costs competitive with other regions like the United States “is to increase supplies of gas” said Alfred Stern, OMV’s chief executive.
“We are past peak crisis,” said Michael Stoppard, global gas strategy lead at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “But we are not out of the woods.”
In a case that has become a local flashpoint, environmental groups seeking to halt a lithium operation in Imperial County until it gets further review argued before a state appeals court in San Diego on Thursday.
Controlled Thermal Resources wants to extract lithium from hot brine that will be used to power a geothermal electricity plant it plans to build. This type of lithium removal is different from traditional hardrock mining or evaporation ponds. The project also would need 6,500 acre-feet of fresh water annually for washing the mineral and cooling.
Earthworks, a nonprofit focused on the impacts of mining, and Comité Cívico del Valle, an Imperial County environmental justice group, allege the county didn’t adequately examine the project’s effects on water supply, air quality and tribal cultural resources when it granted approvals.
The groups filed suit in March 2024 and Imperial County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Jones ruled against them in January 2025, saying the county met its legal requirements.
Before a panel of three judges for the California Court of Appeals 4th Appellate District, plaintiffs’ lawyer Doug Carstens argued that if water becomes scarcer, the project may rely on agricultural runoff that currently feeds the shrinking Salton Sea, exacerbating dust and air quality issues. He also said the environmental review did not account for future water-thirsty projects in the desert area.
“There will be a lot of straws dipping into the pool,” Carstens said.
The project, called Hell’s Kitchen, also failed to adequately involve local tribes in assessing the effect on cultural resources, he said.
Controlled Thermal Resources attorney Suzanne Varco said that the company reached out to 26 area tribes in 2021 and received no reply. She noted that one elder from Kwaaymii Laguna Band of Indians responded with concerns about mud pots and other resources in the area, but it was more than five months after the consultation period closed.
Justice Julia Kelety’s questions suggested the tribes provided names for resources in the area but failed to say how they would be affected.
Justice Truc Do said it was hard to assess fully how the project will affect the region’s water because the environmental review was unclear whether it will last 30 or 50 years. The region primarily relies on water from the overtapped and shrinking Colorado River.
The case is important because Imperial County has pegged its future to lithium, a mineral critical for electric car batteries. Two other companies are trying to reach commercial extraction near the Salton Sea. Gov. Gavin Newsom called Imperial Valley “the Saudi Arabia of lithium” in 2022, and has touted the industry’s potential to bring jobs and community benefits to one of the poorest counties in the state.
Multiple setbacks and deadline extensions later, lithium has yet to materialize even as industry job training programs graduate students into careers that have not arrived in the area. The county has blamed the lawsuit for the slow start. The boom and bust nature of mining as well as shifting federal policies have also played a role.
The court could decide within a few weeks to several months.
Earthworks and Comité Cívico del Valle have repeatedly said they don’t outright oppose lithium development in the area, but want CTR to acknowledge and minimize potential harm.
“We are not trying to stop the Hell’s Kitchen Project, we think it should be fixed, with enforceable protections for the environment, tribal cultural resources, and the health of frontline communities,” said Jared Naimark, senior manager at Earthworks.
Imperial County and CTR declined to comment on pending litigation, but Controlled Thermal Resources spokesperson Lauren Rose articulated a commitment to advancing geothermal and lithium development “as core components of our Hell’s Kitchen Project.” The company recently announced a plan to power local data centers which led some to worry about the company’s commitment to lithium.
Earlier this year the company delayed its plans for lithium production to 2028. Rose said the project is still progressing toward initial construction and will announce timing “as key development, financing, and construction milestones are achieved.”
Netflix on Thursday reported higher revenues and profit in the second quarter as it sought to assure investors about its growth prospects.
The streaming giant reported revenue of $12.6 billion in the second quarter, up 13% from a year ago. Net income during the period rose 9% to $3.4 billion.
Netflix said it expects revenue to grow 12% in the third quarter, but lowered its 2026 revenue forecast to $51 billion from $51.4 billion.
The results were roughly in line with what analysts had predicted and were driven by recent price increase and growth in advertising revenue. The latter is expected to reach $3 billion this year, the company said.
In a presentation with analysts, Netflix executives touted global expansion plans.
“We’re entertaining an audience approaching a billion people with still lots of room to grow into our addressable market on every measure,” said Spencer Neumann, Netflix’s chief financial officer, in the earnings presentation. “We believe we’ve got lots and lots of runway for solid growth ahead of us.”
Those comments appeared intended to assuage investors who’ve grown concerned that people could be spending less time on the streaming service as rivals like YouTube gain market share.
Netflix’s share of TV viewing time in the U.S. has steadily declined in recent months as rivals have gained market share, according to Nielsen data.
The streamer represented 7.8% of all TV viewing in the U.S. in April — the lowest percentage since May 2025. It was 7.5% in April 2025, Nielsen said.
By comparison, YouTube has seen its share of the streaming audience grow. YouTube’s TV viewing share in April rose to 13.4%, up from 12.4% a year earlier, Nielsen said.
Some investors fear that if viewership is down, subscribers could cancel the service, which would negatively affect the platform’s growing advertising business. It could also undercut Netflix’s ability to raise prices in the U.S. and other countries.
Those worries have caused Netflix’s stock price to plummet 41% in the last year. The stock closed on Thursday at $74.35 a share, up 1%. In after hours trading, the stock fell 8%.
“The engagement elephant continues to rear its head and investors are on edge that an earlier price hike in a seasonally tough period and lighter content slate could have driven more churn than usual,” wrote Morgan Stanley Research analysts in a research note.
On Thursday, Netflix said in a letter to shareholders it has a sophisticated understanding of its consumers and “we know not all hours are equal” and that engagement on its platform is “healthy.”
“The entertainment industry remains dynamic and competitive,” Netflix told shareholders. “We aim to stay ahead by executing against our three areas of focus: delivering more entertainment value, leveraging technology to improve every aspect of our service, and improving monetization.”
The Los Gatos-based company said it plans to allocate more than 5% of its content spend on live programming this year. Live content has been a key driver for subscriptions, accounting for six of the top 10 new member sign-up days over the last five years, the company said.
In the first half of 2026, Netflix said members watched more than 97 billion hours, up 2% from a year ago. Among the most popular shows: the crime thriller “I Will Find You,” which had 87 million views; and the romantic comedy film “Voicemails for Isabelle,” which garnered 71 million views.
Netflix has been adding new types of content to its platform, including video podcasts to help increase engagement with subscribers during the day.
As part of the diversification efforts, the platform has expanded its portfolio of live programming over the years, including adding NFL games and streaming Major League Baseball’s opening day game.
In 2022, Netflix had also faced investor pressure when it reported declining subscribers for the first time in more than a decade. That pushed the company to delve into other areas including advertising, gaming and cracking down on password sharing.
SpaceX stock dropped below its initial public offering price for the first time on Wednesday, signaling dwindling hype around the Elon Musk company.
Shares dipped below their IPO price of $135 on Wednesday morning for the first time since listing, a humbling loss for the stock, which had skyrocketed more than 50% in its first days of trading last month.
The shares regained some ground later in the day, closing at $135.27.
The initial offering gave the company a market cap of $2.2 trillion, making it one of the world’s most valuable public companies. For a short period, the IPO also made owner Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, though his net worth now is about $800 billion.
On July 7, the company was added to the Nasdaq-100 after a rule change allowed companies to join 15 days after their IPOs.
SpaceX raised a total of $86 billion after underwriters exercised their right to sell additional shares, on top of the $75 billion initially raised. It was the largest IPO in history.
SpaceX, based near Austin, Texas, is the leading launch services company in the world, with its Falcon 9 rocket accounting for the vast majority of satellites launched last year.
It is also the leading satellite-based broadband provider with its Starlink service. The extraordinary interest in the IPO was driven by Musk’s plans to make the company an AI leader — including plans to launch orbiting satellite data centers powered by the sun that crunch AI data.
The company’s headquarters moved from Hawthorne to Texas in 2024, but it retains large operations in the South Bay city and blasts off regularly from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.
Since the IPO, SpaceX has used its newfound wealth to expand in the AI space.
It announced last month that it was acquiring the AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter. The San Francisco company, founded in 2022, enables engineers to instruct software in English to run coding tasks autonomously.
Musk also merged his xAI artificial intelligence company into SpaceX earlier this year. The combined entity recently announced it was leasing computing power to rivals Anthropic and Google at two terrestrial data centers it has constructed.
Since the IPO, investors have expressed concerns about the company’s spending plans and debt load.
Even with the volatility of the last month, there’s still more uncertainty to come.
The stock could fall further as locked-up shares held by current and former employees are released.
At least 20% of the shares will be released after second-quarter results are disclosed sometime in the coming months, with all the lockups expiring in December.
But Space X isn’t the only megacap stock to experience ups and downs early on.
Shares of Meta, then named Facebook, fell significantly below the IPO price of $38 before recovering. After its May 2012 launch, shares plummeted by nearly 50% and hit a record low of $19.69 in August 2012.
The company took more than 14 months to rebound, finally surpassing its $38 IPO price in July 2013.
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