351–360 of 436 posts
"Russia's decision to halt gas supplies via Europe's key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has increased the chances of power shortages." Europe's decision, Germany especially, to be reliant on Russia for energy when they could have not shut down nuclear plants and built more.
And many people just eat it up without questions :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry but from the perspective of Central Europe, the times when Russian and Germany are friendly, have been the most dreadful. We barely avoided it this time.
So, those times were worse than WW1, WW2? Interesting perspextive, that...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, those times were worse than WW1, WW2? Interesting perspextive, that...
Interestingly, WW2 was one of these times.
A typical cell tower uses 4kW to 5kW, sometimes less (at least in the states). That's reasonably close to a standard home's central air conditioner, or a home's electric stove/oven/range. I'd be highly surprised if, of all possible things, this is where they want to cut to lower electricity usage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apples and oranges. US is not and never was plundering Cuba, unlike Russians who plunder every single state in their sphere of influence until nothing is left. This is not about some nukes on Cuba, this is about living like a normal person and not in a corrupt, fascist despotism where you die decades prematurely and nobody cares.
You're going to have a hell of a time convincing anyone that the Cuban missile crisis nearly started a nuclear war because the US felt bad for Cuba .
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not true, Russia started reducing output last summer. Before their invasion of Ukraine.
They spent billions to create the second pipeline to *increase* exports... are you trying to say they didn't have interest in increasing output? Why?!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Money is not infinite, at least for practical purposes, but it is socially constructed, and consequently not a hard constraint. If a nation has the means to obtain the necessary resources and labour, it will be able to build and run nuclear power plants.
This seems a bit naive. While money is a social construct it is also a proxy for resources. Also, to be clear, just because things are socially constructed doesn't mean they aren't useful. Most things are social constructs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the acrobatics required for Europeans that try to blame all of this on the US because they need a scapegoat so as to avoid personal responsibility.
This has nothing to do with scapegoating, the US military literally attacked european infrastructure this week
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people are fed up with dangerously incompetent leadership, who literally laughed when warned to not be dependent on Russia for energy. It's not a meaningless culture war. The loss of energy means lower standard of living at best and mass death and famine at worst.
There were legitimate reasons to be wary of becoming dependent on Russian energy supplies. There were also legitimate reasons to pursue tighter economic integration, which when it comes down it, is the entire raison d'etre for the EU. There were also legitimate reasons to pursue cheap, reliable natural gas. Trying to now pretend, ex post facto, that this was strikingly obvious and the result of incompetent leadership…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The problem of relying on Russia for energy was obvious. In 2020, the EU imported 13 786 PJ of natural gas, while gross available energy was 57 767 PJ, i.e. gas imports accounted for 23.9% https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... Also in 2020, 27.2% of petroleum gas imports into the EU were from Russia. https://oec.world/en/profile/international_organization/euro... Put together, 6.5% of gros…
I can see why someone might hear that number and shrug. But given what’s happening to the energy prices, I think those 6.5% are more significant than “1/16th” feels like it ought to be.
But there's a limit to the price war. At some point, a factory making widgets is going to look at price increases that make the cost of producing a widget greater than its expected sale price, at which point they'll probably stop their production lines, unless they feel like setting money on fire to keep them running. Those factory closures then provide for the necessary reduction in energy use. But everyone else still needs to pay the higher prices.
Fortunately, higher energy prices also incentivize increasing supply from alternative sources, so the EU probably won't have to reduce energy use by the full 6.5%. And as long as people setting money on fire are sufficiently rare, it will be energy-intensive, low-profitabilty users who give up first, so the economy likely won't shrink by 6.5% either. But a larger fraction will be captured by energy suppliers as profit.