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Looming natural gas shortages has the EU scrambling for solutions

spiegel.de

321–330 of 423 posts

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

#321
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, you can get one shipped to you in 1-2 days right now: https://iwae.com/shop/4-to-5-ton-18-seer-variable-speed-mrco... Germany is a manufacturing powerhouse. Why can't they build them?

> In the US, you can get one shipped to you in 1-2 days right now: Sure. Can you get millions, though?

I can't, but governments can.

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

#322
post #116

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?

Easy: warzone. Europeans need to be armed like Ukranians and Americans and the fact that we aren't just shows the tyranny we are living under.

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

#323
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, you can get one shipped to you in 1-2 days right now: Sure. Can you get millions, though?

I can't, but governments can.

Governments have to wait for manufacturing capacity to spin up just like the rest of us do. There's no magic wand that gives you a heat pump for every European household who'd need one in any reasonably short period of time.

Even something comparitively simple like toilet paper took months at the start of the pandemic.

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

#324
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…

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.

Yes, because I'd know that if I was adversely affected, it was an explicit choice of the politicians running my country to force me to bear the cost, and I'd be angry at them, not anyone else.

As for inflation control, in mamy ways the whole point of that is to punish those at the margin, who might otherwise gain at the expense of those with large assets.

If you're about to say, what about the poor pensioners on a fixed income, see my first paragraph.

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

#326
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's unadulterated bullshit and I think both of us know it. "mass rape, mass murder etc". Look, I don't think the Russians are innocent in this at all. Obviously they have economic incentive and don't mind killing some folks to get what they are after. They don't want to kill everyone though or they would act very differently. It's not genocide. Very simple. Even by a stretch of the word to include removing Nazi el…

Unfortunately it's not bullshit. I wish it was - read the summary of the OSCE report: https://osce.usmission.gov/response-to-moscow-mechanism-repo... It's even worse.

Yep. The Russians are posting the same kind of thing for their populations to consume. I fully believe neither.

Here is what I do know. As of last week less then 5,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed so far in the campaign. Contrast that with the US did during Iraq, or even in Raqqa. Was that genocide? No, it was just we didn't care. Which is pretty disturbing especially now as we try to proclaim moral high ground and talk about atrocities.

This is not genocide either and false flags and exaggerations abound on all sides.

Edit: responding to the comment below because I'm obviously on a time out at this point:

`As delivered by Ambassador Michael Carpenter`

This is a guy, with a strategic national interest, who addressed the org you are talking about with some claims. Not an series of independently verified facts.

Have bad things happened? Yes. It's a war. Have Russian soldiers done some bad things? Almost certainly. Is there widespread or systemic murder of civilians and rape by Russian troops? No, that is not happening. And it makes sense as it would be counterproductive to Russia's aims.

In short. Unadulterated bullshit.

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

#327
post #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

And all this crap from the madness of a few people plus broken systems.

I used to think the great filter thesis stems from the natural hostility of the universe, but I'm now convinced it stems from the danger of monkey brain.

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

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old cynic in me wonders what it would take, for Germany to care about building major new infrastructure fast . Asteroid Dino-Doom 2.0 headed straight for Dortmund, and the needed interceptor rockets stacked like logs outside the barely-started launch facility?

When covid hit, governments across Germany realized wait, we need videoconferencing for students! . For the prime ministers and their ministers of education, this meant they could either shine in comparison to the others, or the opposition would rip them apart in the next election. Suddenly: money everywhere, zero red tape, worry about compliance later, get it done now . So, if the political will is there, things are…

Sounds credible. OTOH...lack of Student Videoconferencing showed up instantly in millions of homes, and I suspect that political opposition to Student Videoconferencing was pretty light.

Vs. with natural gas, there aren't so many people shivering in the dark now that all the carbon-neutral, Green, anti-global-warming, NIMBY, etc., etc. opposition can just be ignored.

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

#329
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's not bullshit. I wish it was - read the summary of the OSCE report: https://osce.usmission.gov/response-to-moscow-mechanism-repo... It's even worse.

Yep. The Russians are posting the same kind of thing for their populations to consume. I fully believe neither. Here is what I do know. As of last week less then 5,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed so far in the campaign. Contrast that with the US did during Iraq, or even in Raqqa. Was that genocide? No, it was just we didn't care. Which is pretty disturbing especially now as we try to proclaim moral high grou…

This is from the OSCE - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_for_Security_and_... - Russia is a member of the OSCE. This not some think-tank or media exaggeration. This is as serious and legit as possible.

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

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to imagine, it is commonplace around the world. Lots of tax revenue from countries all around the world is distributed to different areas of the country/world (obvious e.g. foreign aid). If the amount of tax isn't excessive, allows everyone to have a good standard of living, and is resulting in something positive, why not?

As a US citizen, there is no way I would stand for getting taxed to pay 100% of a home improvement bill in Canada. In hindsight, brexit is starting to look pretty damn smart

That's not the situation though. It's more like federal tax revenue from residents of California being distributed to other less well-off states. Or re-distribution payments from Alberta and Quebec to Nova Scotia and Manitoba.
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