A major international crisis like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has huge implications and knock-on effects beyond the immediate and continuing one of the grim costs in human death and suffering.

The events there have touched our hearts and have led to a remarkable outpouring from local people in the form of offers of financial and practical help.

But those events will also directly impact households here by adding to their cost burdens. Significantly higher wholesale energy costs as a result of the crisis will directly impact domestic power bills which were already going up.

These effects are being felt now but will continue to ripple out for months and years too, particularly if international threats to boycott Russia’s oil and gas come good and are sustained.

The UK is not particularly directly dependent on buying energy from Russia but ultimately the worldwide market for energy is just that – it is ultimately one market, so the effects in one part of the market will be felt across the whole and they are likely to be long-lasting.

The Ukraine crisis and the moral and geopolitical need generated by it to take action against a Putin-led aggressive Russian state causes real additional pressure to an already-stressed energy market.

Work was already being done to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for the sake of the planet adds another major and urgent element in what was already a very complex picture.

The UK government has already responded by starting to look urgently again at the mix of energy supply possibilities and working on a new energy strategy.

There is a renewed look at all possible sources that will cope with the demands of the new international situation and work towards the government’s net zero target while keeping down as much as possible the costs for consumers.

As part of this a Downing Street spokesman indicated on Wednesday that the UK’s moratorium on fracking may be lifted.

The spokesman said: “Everyone would expect the prime minister to look at all our options.”

So as part of the review of energy strategy the government will be looking at all forms of power generation that reduce reliance of Russian oil and gas and at the same time are effective in combatting climate change.

This will step up the urgency to develop renewable energy sources, a field in which the East of England is particularly strong including the recent planning go ahead for the Norfolk Vanguard and Norfolk Boreas offshore windfarms.

In that context where there is even greater need and pressure to develop other forms of power, the push to include a greater contribution from nuclear as part of the energy mix can only grow.

Prior to this latest review the government had already committed to making a decision on a new nuclear power station in the short term.

In the 2021 Autumn Budget and Spending Review Chancellor Rishi Sunak said it would invest “£1.7bn to enable a final investment decision for a large-scale nuclear project in this Parliament.”

All of the running on this on developing the next major nuclear project is of course based on the planned Sizewell C power station on the East Suffolk coast.

It should be stressed that no final decision on the go-ahead for Sizewell C has been made but all the steps to that final decision have been and are being made.

Final follow-up information has been submitted, company and leadership changes have been made and the Planning Inspectorate report containing its recommendation on the future of the power plant project was due to be being considered by the government now. All of those factors plus a degree of local opposition to the project are up for consideration and judgement.

At the end of January, business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng MP visited the Sizewell site and announced a further £100m in financial support for the development of the project – the money would take it on and prime the pump for attracting further investment in it from private investors.

But of course, since then Vladimir Putin has ordered his forces into Ukraine and the world has changed and with it the urgency and scope of the government’s agenda, placing the Sizewell C decision into the middle of the wider energy review.

It will also have changed the thinking of potential investors, looking at the opportunities for energy investment across a range of countries and international projects. The demand for alternative energy sources is greater but so is the complexity of the picture to work your way through to make investment decisions.

The events and its knock-on impacts on energy are huge including the plan announced by the European Union on Tuesday to cut their imports of Russia’s oil and gas by two-thirds within a year. Currently Russia supplies 40pc of EU gas - with Italy, Germany and other central European countries being particularly dependent - and about 25pc of its crude oil.

Instead, the EU as European green deal commissioner Frans Timmerman said on Tuesday, it will look to reducing this reliance by importing more liquefied natural gas, rapidly stepping up its renewable power generation and seeking to use existing power sources more efficiently. But he also admitted that countries may have to burn coal for longer instead of switching to gas, which would have meant future contracts with Russia.

With an energy future less dependent on oil and gas for general climate change reasons and specific non-trade with Russia reasons then the case for nuclear power as part of the energy generation mix becomes harder to argue against.

The government’s £100m funding package included the proviso that if the new nuclear power plant project at Sizewell does not go ahead, the site would be earmarked for an alternative energy use but the Sizewell C project is well advanced and there for imminent decision.