Why did NATO choose to rely on Russian gas and oil?

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Well a lot of people are not buying electric and say it's not as reliable, if that's true?

NATO still was hanging on to the notion that peace could be secured through trade, and plus Germany had the great idea to go away from fossil fuels and back on to them with Russia as their supplier, which means they now need to either get away from fossil fuels again or get close with Iran and Venezuela. The US as usual is in a safer position with less lost by the embargos but we're also, at least on a cultural level, not as glum or durable as most other cultures and we lose it if gas prices go up anywhere reminiscent of European prices.

It's the logical outcome of their choice to not develop nuclear power (except of course France).

But does sanctioning oil and gas from Russia really cause Putin to shake over it? Does Putin actually care or feel threatened by that? Do the corporations in NATO countries really think they have Putin by the b$%4s from doing that?

Since he has massive security around him, why did they think that sanctions would threaten him then therefore?

pootin has a 5,000 bodyguard trained in martial arts.
He hardly leaves his residence at the Kremlin.
He has a food taster.
He has people with devices checking for radiation.
When he goes out, it is in his armoured limousine surrounded by defence vehicles including those that scramble the wavelengths of transmitters used in remote control bombs and drones.

He has good reason to be paranoid.
But it isn't paranoia if it is really happening.

Oil supplies are relatively diverse. Russia is the largest single supplier of oil to the EU, but only makes up about a quarter of imports.

Coal and gas imports are both 40-50% from Russia. So pivoting away from Russian gas will be painful. That being said, if Europe had already chosen not to use Russian gas then 1) it would be dependent upon Qatari and Algerian gas, and 2) the price rises it is now dealing with would have always been an issue.

Of course there would also have been the option of developing low-carbon domestic alternatives, but most of the technology required for mass electrification (like heat pumps and electrolysers) has not been viable until relatively recently, and even today will be expensive to deploy en masse.

Importantly this is not a “NATO” issue, but a “continental EU” issue. The US, Canada, UK and Norway all have solid domestic supplies of gas and Russia makes up a relatively small part of those countries’ fossil fuel mix.

Last I heard the banks that handle energy transactions have not been cut from account clearing/ messaging systems and the gas is rushing to the stove burners of German customers like it always did. What you see and hear is political posturing, the sanctions haven't hit the real income yet, if they ever will.