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Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

spiegel.de

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Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#151
post #5

Errr... How about turn on those Nuclear plants?

Besides heating, natural gas is a major component in many industrial processes. It's also used as input for a wide variety of petrochemical products. Can't make those from nuclear power. People tend to overlook that nearly a quarter of all oil & gas goes into non-energy use. I can't think of a single modern product that doesn't use petroleum-based products in some way.

Yes, but if you reduce natural gas use where there are alternatives, then you free it up for things where it's 100% necessary.

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#152

Given that Germany ignored decades of warnings about this, let them take the brunt of the cuts.

There are so many people who want to see ordinary Germans suffer for decisions their government made. Do you think the pensioners who will freeze are the ones who decided on energy policy?

They did vote for them. I'm all for people suffering consequences for their political choices. Be it freezing to death or dying as combatants in their own countries.

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#153

The whole Ukraine/Russia conflict underscores how poor the strategic position of Europe and the US is with respect to Europe. We’ve been phoning it in since the Clinton era and assuming that “norms” and oligarchs would keep Russia at bay. End of the day they got tanks, nukes and are learning what they can get away with.

No, most europe and the us told germany it relies too much on a single source of energy. Schroeder, Merkel, both were in bed with russia’s oil and gas tsars. Nord Stream’s ceo is a former stasi officer, ursula is corrupt and many many alternative pipelines have been pushed back in favour of we know who. Please dont mix everyone else in. As you can see some german commenters even admit to germany wanting to push for e…

Correct. This was known in advance that Russia will inevitably use natural gas for political reasons, but Germans weren't listening to "russophobic" Eastern Europe, instead they were actively trying to undermine Nuclear Power together with nuclear hypocrites from Austria (anti-Nuclear fanatics, suing everyone in EU who happens to have NPP, but has no problem to buy energy from Czech Republic NPP Temelin)

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is no lng supply possible for Europe. you can frack as much as you want and ship as much as you want. the next 4 quarters will decide about the downfall of Europe (and ultimately the US).

"downfall of Europe" Go look at some photos of Europe immediately post WWII. Especially Poland and Germany. If we survived that and rose again from literal ashes, we won't be done in by one winter without Russian gas. This continent withstood a lot worse than a limited period of expensive heating.

But that was when we had the majority of our industrial capability in Europe and with aid from the US. We also still had open coal mines and people didn't mind burning coal and wood in masses (which was the primary heat source at the time).

But, most importantly, we also had lots of young people. The aging of Europe will be the final nail in the coffin. Who will rebuild Europe? Not the roughly 30 percent over the age of 60 (who, coincidently, ran Europe into the ground for the last 30 years+).

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#155
post #87

https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactor... I'm on the fence about an all electric future- we simply don't have the grid capacity in most parts of the world - but the Germans and French who control the EU should have been developing SMNR years ago. They are now in an energy checkmate situation with a hostile country with an economy the size of Italy. Not clever,

This is why I think the more likely future is for each house to have their own electricity generator (solar panels?) and batteries to store the energy.

In Europe, much fewer people live in houses, and thanks to the dense, walkable cities they enjoy, they have much fewer roof and yard space to put the panels. Also, unlike US, most of Europe doesn’t have huge swaths of hot and sunny plains that are currently not used for anything valuable. Look at the satellite view of Germany, France or Poland: it’s all farms, with occasional forests.

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#156

My uninformed bet is that a) Russia likes money more and b) if they wanted to cut the delivery of gas they would have done it already They like playing the panic angle of course, and closing the tap once in a while, but I think it's mostly hot air

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Europe is currently off. Its a planned maintenance however. But what if they run into "issues" and the maintenance takes a few weeks? A month? Pure speculation of course, but these things do happen. I doubt they would keep it off forever, Putin likes Europe being dependent on him.

Yes but there are other pipelines (and they still continue pumping)

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#157

I love the absolute BS of the world in 2022. The whole world is supposed to be off fossil fuels by now, and here we are hoping and praying Germany and the rest of the EU gets enough fossil fuels to burn this winter. If humanity was to look at itself in the mirror, it would see an image stupid freaking hypocrite clown. Solar, Nuclear, Wind, get after it, it's so late now it almost feels like a waste of time...

the Great Filter is approaching

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"downfall of Europe" Go look at some photos of Europe immediately post WWII. Especially Poland and Germany. If we survived that and rose again from literal ashes, we won't be done in by one winter without Russian gas. This continent withstood a lot worse than a limited period of expensive heating.

I suggest the following: those who support the vAlUeS should stop consuming ALL products from China and energy from Russia those who dont care should get those products to normal prices This is fair. Then we will see how many people actually support all this political bullshit.

"normal prices" - such thing does not exist, because there isn't any "norm" in the markets. Markets develop.

Do you mean "pre-war prices"? They aren't going to come back anytime soon because the entire political and economic balance in Europe has changed and the prices already factor in the uncertainty.

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is no lng supply possible for Europe. you can frack as much as you want and ship as much as you want. the next 4 quarters will decide about the downfall of Europe (and ultimately the US).

Downfall is hyperbole. If it gets bad enough NATO might force shipment.

What? From whom? How? Russia? Nuclear armed Russia?

Re: Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

#160
post #30
post #5

Errr... How about turn on those Nuclear plants?

Bearing in mind the contents of this graph and that unlike gas nuclear power isnt dispatchable, how much difference do you think it would make? https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...

From that graph it looks like it would solve the problem completely.

We are only talking about a 20 or 30% shortfall here.

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