Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by bamboozled » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

usrn wrote: post #140

bamboozled wrote: post #122

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...

Part of the reason Germany is still stuck on fossil fuels was the ultimatums of the environmentalists that killed their nuclear power. IMO if they really care about the environment they need to chill out so people can work out how to transition. Hard rules like this will first result in desperation which causes people to make sub-optimal choices like you're seeing now and eventually economic collapse which will absol…

Do we really need to keep blaming hippies?

I've read from a few different places now that people who are part of Nordstream were powerful in German politics and had an incentive to push Gas over nuclear.

I'm sure there are multiple factors at play.

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

#172

Post by cm2187 » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

shafyy wrote: post #146

cm2187 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric heaters are cheap (it's just a glorified resistance). It's easy to switch home heating from gas to electric (with portable devices). Maybe not for every room but enough to survive a winter or two. Water heating is more complicated.

The heaters them themselves are cheap, but running them is not. I've done the calculation for my situation last year in Germany, and using the gas heating came out much cheaper (at least with gas prices last year). I think that's because most portable electric room heaters are not as efficient as the built in gas-based heaters. Does anyone know more about this topic?

Cost isn't even the question. We are talking about a severe gas shortage scenario here.

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

#173

Post by pydry » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

veeti wrote: post #106

jlangenauer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How many of those pensioners naively participated in Germany's anti-nuclear movement in the 70's, 80's, 90's? You reap what you sow. No sympathy for Russian puppets.

It's kind of amazing that Germany can make the biggest effort of any western country to switch over to renewables and when they start suffering because America and Russia decided they want a proxy fight, Americans opine that Germany should be suffering because they decided to switch off a source of 4% of their power and didnt build enough port capacity for overpriced American LNG.

If this truly is the official American line then Id be pushing to have American military bases in Germany shut down.

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

#174

Post by dukeofdoom » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

When ideology meets reality. Expensive, overbuilt capacity for Wind and Solar in countries with not much sun or wind for most of the year. Now with the declining Euro will make purchasing energy even more expensive. Fertilizer shortage and declining working age population. And threats to the free flow of goods across the world. Inflation is here to stay. It will be interesting to see how many governments fall in the next few years the way Sri Lanka's did.

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

#175

Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

zirror wrote: post #154

inglor_cz wrote: post #53

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.

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…

True, but we do not have anything resembling WWII-levels of destruction on the vast majority of the continent, so the effort needed to get back on track is an order of magnitude lower. In 1945, Mariupols were everywhere.

And post-WWII Europe was forcibly split into competing power blocks, which strangulated a lot of the pre-WWII commerce. Contemporary EU is a common market where goods and workforce can freely flow. This compensates for the lack of young people somewhat.

For example, Germany post-WWII was seriously handicapped by the fact that they lost a large portion of their male population in war, either killed/maimed, or taken prisoner by the USSR which only let them return after 1950.

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

#176

Post by cpursley » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #139

cpursley wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you and your friends okay with this? The increase in energy prices due to EU sanctions are making the Russian state fabulously wealthy right now. Russia has alternative customers, y'all don't have alternative suppliers. If the EU doesn't come to their senses and embrace realpolitik, they are looking at literal deindustrialization and a plunge into mass poverty and social unrest. BMWs aren't built nor homes he…

Not OP but i suspect they’re ok with it because the other option is giving in to an authoritarian regime that is intent on expansion. I.e. war on their doorstep. The realpolitik is speeding up the transition off oil and gas, and energy independence.

Yes, but the sanctions are obviously backfiring on Europeans and not hurting the Russians by any objective measure.

I agree on the transition, but where are the bids, construction, etc for new LNG terminals and other replacements?

All I see is "Putin bad" talk and no action on what's actually required. But hey, at least no more Russian athletes and violinists!

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

#177

Post by nawitus » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #92

akmarinov wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution #1 - we already tried that, we gave Putin Crimea in 2014, everything was chill for 7-8 years and now we have this mess. If we give him Donetsk and Luhansk, he'll just be back for more + Moldova in 5-6 years.

In 5-6 years, Europe should be able to free themselves of Russian energy and build a military capable of standing up to Russia. (Ukraine is almost managing the latter on their own.)

Europe already has such a military.

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

#178

Post by time_to_smile » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

oxff wrote: post #24

ceejayoz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's not get nuked" isn't moralistic or insane, in my book. A hot war between EU/NATO and Russia is not something anyone should advocate for, nor is letting Russia just take countries it wants on the edges of Europe. The current situation is a direct result of ignoring a long pattern of Russian aggression and expansionism in Georgia, Moldova, and Crimea.

I'm not recommending to have a nuclear war over who gets to collect vodka taxes in some East European town. I am pointing out that these people let moral foreign policy run their entire trade block and foreign policy choices, and not a cold rational calculus of any kind. All the self-sanctions have come to nothing: they have not and will not materially affect the end result of the war. They've made me, as a citizen i…

> who gets to collect vodka taxes in some East European town.

Is that what you think Russian expansion in those regions is about? It's not. Just like the current military expansion, those conflicts have been about acquiring and controlling natural gas and oil reserves in those regions.

This entire conflict has been about energy and it's been going on for the past decade or so because of relatively recent discoveries of fossil fuel reserves in these areas coupled with control over pipelines transporting these resources.

At the end of the day these struggles are about resources and fundamentally existential in nature. If Russia fails to acquire more reserves it will be on a sure path to absolute decline. This is why the nuclear threat should be taken seriously, if Russia where to lose this conflict entirely, they would be on the path to complete collapse. If pushed too far it makes absolute sense for Russia to take extreme options since they would be backed into a pretty severe corner.

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

#179

Post by rlpb » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:47 PM UTC

the_gipsy wrote: post #70

oxff wrote: post #9

Glad to let moralistic foreign policy drive the entire trade block down the shitter (it is moralistic FP because EU did not nut up and actually deploy to protect the so-precious-Ukraine, but instead threw its own economy and living standards into chaos just so they wouldn't be mistaken to be pro-Putler). In short, insanity.

We should have given up eastern Ukraine, negotiate peace. Better surrender a part than destroying the whole country. We get hyperinflation, giving money to USA's weapons industry, general destabilization, and a lot of dead Ukranians. All because it's politically weak to negotiate with Russia. Only Macron tried and he was sadly ridiculed. Does nobody remember how Sarkozy helped with Georgia's peace negotiations?

Is that what you said about Crimea? Where does it stop?

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

#180

Post by TheLoafOfBread » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:47 PM UTC

bakuninsbart wrote: post #121

yrgulation wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Who in Europe isn't heavily affected by the gas shortage? How is this Germany's fault? To me it seems like a lot of the smaller/weaker countries in Europe just always need a scapegoat to blame when things get difficult.

Switching off their own nuclear power plants, replacing them with gas and coal, when gas is lacking and creating shortage of electricity, thus propelling prices up.

Thing is that energy is traded in EEX (https://www.eex.com/en/) so everyone who is trading there is feeling Germany's stupid decisions. For example Sweden is not in EEX and has no problem with high energy prices.