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Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

economist.com

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Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#141

Post by swottler »

cinntaile wrote: post #49
VBprogrammer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it feels like cherry picking when people say something like "climate change makes severe weather events more likely" in connection with a drought or unusually hot spell but ridicule anyone who tries to use a particularly cold winter as evidence that climate change is not happening. We should avoid the association between climate and short term weather phenomenon altogether. And yes, the COVID lockdowns showed th…

> Yes, it feels like cherry picking when people say something like "climate change makes severe weather events more likely" in connection with a drought or unusually hot spell but ridicule anyone who tries to use a particularly cold winter as evidence that climate change is not happening. Climate change results in more extreme weather, both warm and cold. So a particularly cold winter can be a result of climate chang…

Source?

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#142

Post by cameronh90 »

m000 wrote: post #110
kuratkull wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem to expect the free market to adapt immediately, for consumers immediate benefit. The market will regulate itself, but it may not happen in timeframes that people are comfortable with.

No, consumers just expect it to show consistent reaction times. A rumour is typically enough to warrant an overnight price hike in consumer prices. While for experiencing reductions, consumers have to wait for a few months for the market to "adapt". And in the end, it usually is the consumers that adapt to the increased prices, so companies don't see any good reason to reduce them.

You can - at least in the UK - switch consumer energy suppliers if you feel like your current energy provider is charging too much.

However, the recent crisis sent a large number of consumer energy suppliers into bankruptcy, suggesting that actually they'd been keeping too little back rather than fleecing the consumers.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#143

Post by SilasX »

kube-system wrote: post #124
m000 wrote: post #62

Gas prices plummeting, energy bills soaring. The market will regulate itself. /s

This is because there are multiple markets for gas, depending on when and where you want the gas. The price for gas being delivered today is not the same as the price for gas in January. Because in the meantime, someone needs to store it.

Right — you might remember during the big freeze in Texas (February last year), a lot of people were ridiculed for using Griddy, whose very premise was “hey don’t pay those inflated utility prices, just pay the usually-cheaper spot price for your energy!”

The utility price is higher because the result of longer-term price-locking contracts. The spot price can spike pretty hard, wiping out your gains, as those customers learned then.

(Sorry, I don’t know the standard jargon for some of those concepts.)

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#144

Post by andsoitis »

photochemsyn wrote: post #50

One major theme in the ongoing US-Russia conflict over the past decade-plus (dating back to at least 2008) is a fight over who gets to sell oil and gas to Europe. With the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines, and with countries like Qatar refusing to alter long-term energy contracts to increase supplies to Europe, and with Iran still under the Trump-era sanctions (which Biden continued), that mostly leaves the US…

> Mission accomplished?

What is the mission?

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#145

Post by magnetic-recoil »

politelemon wrote: post #5

> enjoyed the warmest October I abhor this kind of language that news sites use. It takes away from the seriousness of the underlying cause (and its effects), and associates hot/warm weather with "good". Public apathy towards climate change starts here.

I think this might have been a bad choice of words, I interpret the writer as intending "enjoyed" here to mean "to have had the use or benefit of" the warmest October, rather than explicitly endorsing that unseasonably warm weather is pleasurable. One does not need to be satisfied by something they "enjoy", especially in formal or legal language.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#146

Post by throwaway2203 »

cromka wrote: post #52
bertil wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be as many people from Pakistan, East Africa, or China who have to migrate because of global warming this winter too. Not sure whether they’ll go to Europe, but millions isn’t an exaggeration in those cases.

China is too big of a territory; if the Chinese needed to migrate because of global warming, they'd likely move within their own land. Probably the same case with Pakistan.

Pakistan is already exploding at the seams due to population growth. It's not just a matter of moving, the country doesn't have enough resources to feed and clothe its population. The growth rate isn't abating and global warming is eating into water resources and desertifying land / reducing the arable area.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#147

Post by nyokodo »

pcrh wrote: post #117
photochemsyn wrote: post #50

One major theme in the ongoing US-Russia conflict over the past decade-plus (dating back to at least 2008) is a fight over who gets to sell oil and gas to Europe. With the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines, and with countries like Qatar refusing to alter long-term energy contracts to increase supplies to Europe, and with Iran still under the Trump-era sanctions (which Biden continued), that mostly leaves the US…

Is the difference in price between Europe and the US down to shipping costs?

To transport Nat Gas you have to cool it down to -265F thereby reducing its volume 600X to transport economically as a liquid (LNG), then it needs to be safely turned back into a gas at its destination. That is expensive relative to pipeline fed Nat Gas.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#148

Post by cinntaile »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #66
cinntaile wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, it feels like cherry picking when people say something like "climate change makes severe weather events more likely" in connection with a drought or unusually hot spell but ridicule anyone who tries to use a particularly cold winter as evidence that climate change is not happening. Climate change results in more extreme weather, both warm and cold. So a particularly cold winter can be a result of climate chang…

Sure but that's not the point. The point is associating any single weather event with climate change is wrong whether it helps your case or not. You can say something like over the last decade droughts are 32% more frequently than in the previous decade but just tacking it arbitrarily on to any reporting about a particular weather event is misleading.

Ok, I agree with that.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#149

Post by andrepd »

woah wrote: post #123
m000 wrote: post #62

Gas prices plummeting, energy bills soaring. The market will regulate itself. /s

These oil and gas futures are all publicly traded, as are most of the corporations working in the field. If it’s really so easy to make money because the market is rigged, guess what? You can get in on the action too.

Sure, let me just get a couple hundred million in capital, I'll be there in a minute.

If people are complaining that something is wrong, the answer isn't "well why don't you take advantage too"

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#150

Post by sgt101 »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #99
pydry wrote: post #31

Mild autumn weather [ and not enough storage capacity to take advantage ] has sent European gas prices plummeting. 90% full in the UK means about a week's worth of gas. In Germany it's about 2.5 months.

In UK it is completely self inflicted, because they got rid of gas storage infrastructure in 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/20/uk-gas-stor...

This has reopened (25%) and is excluded from the economist's figures. In fact some research [1] shows that approximately 93 days of supply will be stored in the Rough gas facility at 25% (28Bcf {capacity}/313Mcf {daily}). This is inadequate (of course) and has probably not been filled yet, but should be helpful to the UK if it can be properly commissioned.

[1] https://www.costadvice.co.uk/latest-news/will-the-reopening-...

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