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Natural gas is used in three primary ways: for generating electricity in power plants, for heating homes and offices, and in industries like steelmaking and fertilizer manufacture. Although there are alternatives to gas in power plants--German chancellor Olaf Scholz has raised the possibility of extending the life of nuclear power plants in order to cut down gas usage--it's much harder to find alternatives to gas for industry and heating. The EU also has rules that protect households, hospitals, schools, and other essential services from gas-rationing measures.

About a quarter of natural gas in the EU goes to industry--which means that sector may well have to shoulder a large part of the burden of gas reduction, says Chi Kong Chyong, a research associate at the University of Cambridge. The EU is encouraging companies to switch to other forms of fuel, and it has asked member states to draw up lists of which businesses should be asked to stop production in the event of sudden gas shortages. German steelmarker ThyssenKrupp has said it could cope with restricted production, but warns that it may face shutdowns or damage in the event of a gas shortage. The chemical firm BASF has said it will slow down fertilizer production in response to high gas prices.

"The really urgent and tricky thing is heating," says Gladkykh. About half of German homes are heated by gas, accounting for about one-third of all the country's gas consumption. Because consumers are protected from gas rationing by law, the German government is limited in what it can do to limit gas consumption in homes. But advisers to German climate and economic minister Robert Habeck say that high gas prices will likely cause households to reduce their usage anyway. In other words, people will turn their heating down simply because they can't afford to keep it on.

While the EU is trying to curb gas usage, it's also frantically trying to fill up its gas reserves before winter hits. It has set a target of refilling storage to 80 percent of capacity by November 1, which it is on target to reach, although at a cost 10 times higher than the historical average. All of this means that the EU should be able to weather a winter of tight gas supplies, but in the long run it will need to find a way to reduce its reliance on Russian gas altogether.

Even if a cease-fire in Ukraine is negotiated, it's unlikely that the EU will go back to sourcing so much of its gas from Russia. "It's difficult to imagine that we'd be going back to the situation that we had prior to the invasion in Ukraine," says Chyong. To plug these future gaps, the EU and its member states are negotiating new gas supply deals with Azerbaijan and Italy as well as increasing capacity to receive shipments of liquified natural gas from the US and Qatar. But these aren't quick fixes--it will take years to ramp up gas supply from new countries.

In May the European Commission published its plan to end the EU's dependence on Russian fossil fuels. The €210 billion ($213 billion) plan calls for a huge scaling-up of renewable energy generation, including a scheme to double installed solar panel capacity in the EU by 2025 and a doubling of the rate of heat pump installation. The EU currently has a target to produce 40 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, but the commission is proposing to increase that target to 45 percent. The plan also includes support for industries to replace gas with hydrogen, biogas, and biomethane to further reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels.

"This crisis is a time when we ought to be doubling down on our transition to low-carbon energy," says Jim Watson, professor of energy policy at University College London.

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