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Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

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

#201

Post by kennywinker »

cpursley wrote: post #176
kennywinker wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

> the sanctions are obviously backfiring on Europeans and not hurting the Russians by any objective measure

I’m not sure that’s an accurate summary of the situation.

> "If the goal is a quick and complete collapse of the Russian economy, then no, sanctions are not working because the Russian economy is still functioning. But if the goal is to weaken Russia economically over time, then sanctions are 100% working."

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/01/1109033582/are-sanctions-actu...

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

#202

Post by atlasunshrugged »

olivermarks wrote: post #33

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,

I don't think it's fair to blame France, they have long been pushing for nuclear as evidenced by their energy sources being hugely reliant on domestic nuclear rather than foreign energy. It's really been the German greens hellbent on holding back nuclear across the EU.

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

#203

Post by XCSme »

xyzzyz wrote: post #155
XCSme wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do live in Europe and lived in various European countries, that being said the apartment buildings could also have a similar solution (their own solar panel/wind turbine/geothermal) OR simply do that in a more localized way (each city has their own solar/wind farms). Combine this with more regulations regarding energy saving/consumption (promote more efficient electric devices).

In the end I see it as having multiple independent energy-generating clusters (each building, or each city, or each country) and sharing excess energy outside the cluster only when needed.

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

#204

Post by skrause »

danans wrote: post #193
nisa wrote: post #18

To get some perspective why this is such a hotly debated topic - just got my heating bill for the last year - just a small 2 person flat in a small town - most flats in Germany are heated by gas one way or another - 700€/year with 5.2ct/kWh for 2021 - current market is more like 15ct/kWh and will probably rise. With the rise in rent prices in the last years this could push quite a bit of poor / lower middle class peo…

> Still me and all of my friends are still fine with this. There is no alternative anyway There is an alternative: heat pumps. The problem is the upfront cost, which needs to be lowered through economies of scale.

Heat pumps are not an alternative in the next few years because there are not enough available on the market. I know someone who wanted to buy one for his house in Germany and the waiting list is more than 1-2 years right now.

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

#205

Post by theplumber »

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.

The issue is that if Germany is building pipelines and importing cheap Russian gas any other country would be at disavantage if it were to build a more expensive alternative. It would not be competitive. It is like some small country would tell the U.S that it's not wise to offshore electronics manufacturing to China. The small country would not be competive if it were to manufacture at home or in the U.S. Tomorrow China starts a war with the US and you could say that the small country is just using the U.S as a scapegoat because it didn't build an alternative in the U.S.

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

#206

Post by hans1729 »

jonah wrote: post #116
listless wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question here - I swear I'm not trolling and I've been asking myself this same question...' Would you be fine with it if you were on the margin? I have this same attitude about inflation in the US and rising interest rates. Good - we need to get the situation under control. But I'm not living on the margin. It affects me, but not really. I'll be fine. So I don't really have any skin in the game here. Not yet.

Long-term vs. short-term thinking. Would you rather be colder in the winter for a couple years or live in a warzone and have your family killed and culture destroyed?

This asserts that Russian aggression would transcend across NATO-borders. Is that a given?

1. Party Z invades Country U. 2. Continent C denounces the invasion of U and sanctions Z. 3. Z retaliates against C.

Does an act of retaliation (weaponizing Gas) from Z towards C count a declaration of war? Because if not, who exactly did Russia declare war on? Europe is many things, most prominently a continent and an idea. Was Germany declared war on? If not, is it reasonable to assume that Germany will be declared war on, and if so, which escalations from which involved party would lead to that?

(As always, I don't have strong opinions, just trying to make up my mind on what to expect/how to read the situation)

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

#207

Post by yrgulation »

nimish wrote: post #191
bakuninsbart wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We can trace the dependency on gas to Germany's ill advised policy to go all in on coal & gas after shutting down nuclear. Other countries now have an enormous economy entering the market, driving up prices and effectively controlled by Russia, as Russia supplies most of the gas. Russia and most eastern european countries have a poor relationship. Now money is expensive and there's no time to build alternatives. And…

Oh we can trace far back to many cancelled alternative pipelines.

I will link to only one as people need to do their own homework.

Here is such an example: https://www.rferl.org/a/Germanys_Gas_War_Nabucco_Vs_South_St...

"So I think that when both the Russians and the other players want to find a lobbyist, they very naturally look at Germany first. In this respect, I am not surprised that Schroeder and Fischer were the two [chosen]," he said.

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

#208

Post by oxff »

rlpb wrote: post #179
the_gipsy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It stops when NATO deploys there. NATO will not deploy there.

So, more sanctions I guess. It is immoral if any EU citizen has heating this winter when that could be going to Ukraine.

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

#209

Post by wewxjfq »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #180
bakuninsbart wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Every year Germany has been a net electricity exporter. If other countries buy German electricity, it means they can't produce it cheaper. You know who is paying by far the highest spot prices in Europe causing prices to go up? France.

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

#210

Post by iso1631 »

jlangenauer wrote: post #71
throwawaysleep wrote: post #10

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?

I have sympathy for people in states like Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea when they suffer do to their governments. Changing governments there is tricky

The German population are well informed, well educated, and have a free media, they have a wide selection of political parties to choose from every few years, changing political direction is trivial, nobody will arrest you for talking about it, nobody will shoot you for voting the wrong way

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