71–80 of 130 posts
What's rarely mentioned is that many European countries have massive reserves of recoverable shale gas but have banned fracking and are thus depending on imported gas... That's one of the reasons the US are cashing in right now while Europe is having an "energy crisis".
So there is zero point in digging holes in the ground. They can easily buy the rest and quickly grow renewable energy share (basically what they are doing now).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you feel the need to share your hateful/bigoted and absolutely wrong opinions? There is indeed an intense propaganda campaign, but it's coming from Russia and unfortunately you seem to be repeating their talking points. Joining the EU improves and aligns countries, so what if they currently have issues, they will in time improve. We are stronger together.
His opinion is perfectly reasonable. Even without the war, Ukraine is extremely far from EU accession standards. It was very nearly a failed state in the early 2010s. Nobody West of the Elbe river wants to deal with yet another ultra-conservative and corrupt state, at least certainly not while veto powers exist. > so what if they currently have issues, they will in time improve Or they'll take EU cohesion funds to fu…
> Ukraine is extremely far from EU accession standards. It was very nearly a failed state in the early 2010s.
That's what long term russian ocupation, constant russian meddling after 89 and now invasion does... see moldova, belarus too.
Ukraine is at 28.4%, that probably speaks how much reserve storage they have. After the war it will be important location for Azerbaijan gas transit (via Georgia and Black Sea). The pipeline will take some time to build, but it will make it more likely that they eventually join the EU and NATO as well.
Quoted post unavailable.
>they refused to join the Istanbul Convention
Ukraine has joined the Istanbul Convention.
>because it violates their Christian values
Outside Poland the social conservatism in Eastern Europe has very little to do with religion. Russia and Hungary are full of irreligious/atheist people with some rather controversial views on minorities and LGBT people.
To put this in relation, here is a comparison of gas storage capacities in Europe: https://erdgasspeicher.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ines_ga... Here is table from Sunday which also shows the total gas stored in each country, along with the capacity ("Working volume"), annual consumption, and injection / withdrawal capacities: https://agsi.gie.eu/ Missing from the list is Switzerland, which does not have any gas st…
The UK has 35Mtpa LNG port capacity and spain has 44Mtpa which is more than the rest put together though (Germany has 0!), so it probably balances out in terms of screwedness. The UK also produces about half of it natural gas. Each country has differing reliance on natural gas too. The UK is particularly reliant, for example. Only the Netherlands looks well prepared - 8.8Mtpa of LNG import capacity, 120TWh of storage…
What if the people not paying decide that, since they are not paying, they might as well use as much as possible?
All it would take is a charismatic populist to come along and to promote such a thing for any reserves to be gone.
I am not sure that having LNG ports makes much difference if you have a minor currency such as Sterling and you have to just print more of it to pay for LNG. Other customers might have a manufacturing base or lots of gold, which would trump paper money.
It would be interesting to know the end game here. If the Ukrainian war ends, I assume that isn't the end of it. I assume the taps from Russia will turn back on, but it has shown itself to be an unreliable supply.
A view from Germany: Up to Russian invasion this February: old oil furnaces were being avidly replaced with natural gas ones. Solar installations were starting to slack off. Lots of re-roofing and new exterior wall insulation. Since then: no slacking in the roofing and exterior wall insulation, but now everyone has a keen interest in heat pumps, and solar panels are being installed everywhere. Gonna be hard to convin…
France here... Seeing how things were turning in May I turned my open fireplace into a closed one (way better efficiency) and ordered metric shit-tons of dry wood (I've now got enough for at least two years). Thankfully my house ain't using natural gas at all so at least I'm dodging that one problem. Now electricity may be rationed this winter: dunno, we'll see. But at least I won't be dying of cold.
Heating oneself burning wood has this advantage that it's stone-agey enough: chop a tree into smaller pieces, let them dry for a year, you can heat now heat your house during winter.
And nobody can "ration" me / prevent me from putting wood in the fireplace: that's the "stone age" part of it. The main french electricity company, on the other hand, is ran by state apparatchiks and if they decided to ration electricity (because, by "chance", half of the nuclear reactors are all simultaneously down), I'm pretty much sorry out of luck.
Overall I'm pretty disappointed by the EU (I'm an EU citizen) and plan to GTFO. I tried last year but it failed (residency was hard to obtain where I tried to go) but I'll very probably try again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Britain may in fact be the most backwards country, socially, in Europe* Probably time to go and touch some grass * apparently the op has gone back to edit this out of their original comment
Yes, but surely freedom of speech, the right to protest etc. are much more basic than the stuff the Polish dislike? As long as the Poles and Hungarians aren't arresting people willy-nilly for protesting or writing things on the internet then they're not even in the same league as the Brits when it comes to social regression.
a) No, that's pretty arbitrary. Every country has limits on freedom of speech and expression, and they all draw the line in different places.
b) It is 100% not illegal to express an opinion that Charles isn't fit to be king, that the monarchy should be abolished and so on. No end of people saying just that on the radio, on the TV, in print, etc
c) Protest remains legal; there was a large protest about the shooting of Chris Kaba this weekend
d) Picketing funerals is considered a breach of the peace, and a public order offense
To use point D to claim the UK is the most socially backward country in Europe is to have spent faaaar too long online.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer to your question "How long can we go without new gas?" would be a meaningless metric if not accompanied with a large amount of qualification. What is meant by "without new gas"? Without LNG shipments? Without local/European produced NG? Or just without Russian NG imports? Without any imports? What does it mean "to go"? To consume at some historical rate? Consumption varies with NG prices - recently consump…
> What is meant by "without new gas"? I guess that could all be calculated and presented and give us an idea. The looming threat is Russia not giving us any of their gas now, other sources are "safe", so I guess that's the baseline: How long can we go without Russian gas? > And an unqualified time answer - say one month, for example - would be meaningless as the rate of gas consumption is highly seasonal at various s…
That's probably about as close as you can get to having an idea. You might also have a look at the graphs at bruegel, but that wont help all that much.
It's very vague, but so is the situation.
If climate change doesn’t bless Europe with a warmer winter this year I see no way that a bunch of people won’t freeze to death.
Aside from maybe the coldest two weeks, the climate is not even uncomfortable if you are inside (no wind or precipitation), wear thick clothing, and move a little. If you do physical labor, you're going to be sweating. Nobody is going to die from cold in western Europe's semi-oceanic climate, even without any gas at all. For the vulnerable, there's plenty of alternative fuels. But we do have gas and lots of it, so th…
What's rarely mentioned is that many European countries have massive reserves of recoverable shale gas but have banned fracking and are thus depending on imported gas... That's one of the reasons the US are cashing in right now while Europe is having an "energy crisis".
Currently in EU renewable energy is practically 40%. So there is zero point in digging holes in the ground. They can easily buy the rest and quickly grow renewable energy share (basically what they are doing now).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is an emergency plan being executed and expedited to reduce total gas demand by 30%, which just happens to be the amount Europe imports. With half of that 15% this winter.
Reducing energy consumption will only lead to impoverishment.