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

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

#81

Post by nisa » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

listless wrote: post #62

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…

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.

I am on the margin. So is my family. I'm getting by fine at the moment but I'm just a little above the poverty line but have no reserves. I have no choice anyway. I just hope that if I can't pay the bills there will be a moratorium to cut energy for a while. I'm trying to buildup a reserve for a few months exactly for that situation. It's also not clear when the price hikes will hit the consumers so I hope I have a few months to set aside money for this.

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

#82

Post by greggsy » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

nickserv wrote: post #44

Gravityloss wrote: post #23

Unfortunately Brunsbüttel terminal only finally got the go ahead in January 2022 and it will take 3.5 years to build. It's anyway a good alternative source. https://www.gem.wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_LNG_Terminal Increasing insulation and installing and building more heat pumps are obvious ways to save on gas. Italy used some big EU subsidies to pay 100% of people's home and house renovations. Would something like that be…

A lot of manufacturing for these materials aren't in Europe though. New factories and associated logistics chains, finding and training workers, these things are difficult to set up in a few months, never mind the actual process of renovating millions of homes.

It certainly shouldn’t be ignored, simply because it might take some time. Targeting public housing and (responsibly) incentivising landlords to improve less efficient homes would go a long way.

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

#83

Post by Wowfunhappy » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:28 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 is to say Russia will stop at Ukraine? They clearly weren't satisfied with Crimea. Is Poland safe? Is Germany?

I don't mean to be alarmist but we've seen similar scenarios play out in Europe before. This isn't merely about what's morally correct, it's also about self-interest.

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

#84

Post by oxff » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

V__ wrote: post #40

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.

I think this argument is very short-term thinking. Letting Russia take Ukraine would have enormous security implications long term. I mean the lack of sanctions, hasn't stopped Russia after taking Crimea, so it's only fair to assume Ukraine wouldn't be the end to Russia's (Putin's) expansion either. They implied so many times. Their enormous investments in the destabilization of foreign politics, have made it a very…

> Letting Russia take Ukraine would have enormous security implications long term

Yes, I am not disputing that.

I stated that the actions of EU (self-sanctions) have not, and will not affect whether or no Russia takes Ukraine though, this was the entire point of my post. It is part of what makes them so absurd.

An action that would affect would be to deploy there via strategic military action, but which our Moral Leaders are too scared (for right reasons, Russia has lots of nukes) to make. So they do this idiotic self-sanction regime to Feel Good (all paid by the tax payers and lower quality of life by people like me, who live in EU).

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

#85

Post by secondcoming » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

MichaelRazum wrote: post #43

jonathan-adly wrote: post #25

There are solutions, just unpopular and require a political class that is not fickle and weak. Solution #1. Capitulate to Putin and treat Russia as a regional power that can gobble and punish its neighbors when they stray too far. Solution #2. Forget about the climate for the next 5 years, turn on all coal, nuclear powerplants. Solution #3. Put the Euro printer in overdrive and pay whatever price needed for the littl…

According to the EU nuclear power is green. So solution #2 would save the climate, based on that logic. Actually inflation was already there before the war, so it is mostly because of #3.

The EU classifying nuclear power as being Green is a recent development.

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

#86

Post by dathinab » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

MichaelRazum wrote: post #43

jonathan-adly wrote: post #25

There are solutions, just unpopular and require a political class that is not fickle and weak. Solution #1. Capitulate to Putin and treat Russia as a regional power that can gobble and punish its neighbors when they stray too far. Solution #2. Forget about the climate for the next 5 years, turn on all coal, nuclear powerplants. Solution #3. Put the Euro printer in overdrive and pay whatever price needed for the littl…

According to the EU nuclear power is green. So solution #2 would save the climate, based on that logic. Actually inflation was already there before the war, so it is mostly because of #3.

Nuclear is climate friendly!!

Just not environment friendly.

Especially for "longer living" species like humans.

I don't understand why its supper common for people not understand that climate and environmental friendly often overlap but are not always the same and sometimes in direct conflict.

For climate protection nuclear power is currently probably the best choice we have (globally).

But for environmental protection and protection of human health it isn't.

Anyway coal is worse for both and tbh. the German green party should have focused on getting out of coal not nuclear power.

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

#87

Post by XCSme » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

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,

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.

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

#88

Post by LudwigNagasena » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

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?

Are you saying that Germany is not a democracy?

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

#89

Post by Juliate » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #37

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…

Have you seen any impact of the Euro's drop against the dollar in your day to day life? Say, things from American companies getting substantially more expensive, or salaries rising to keep pace with American counterparts?

At this point, EUR/USD parity is way less perceivable and concerning in our daily lives than the gas/energy that is coming full speed towards us (seen from France), which is driving a lot of first and second order prices (heating, transportation in general, food, construction).

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

#90

Post by grapeskin » Fri, Jul 15, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

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,

> They are now in an energy checkmate situation with a hostile country with an economy the size of Italy.

I think looking at national threats by their GDP is kind of weird. Afghanistan led to the downfall of the USSR but had basically nothing going for it economically. The US also blew decades of effort and money. ISIS plowed through its region with sheer mongol-like savagery and managed to wreak havoc in major western countries sometimes as well. America went basically all out trying to stop Vietnam, then one of the poorest countries on earth, and got nowhere.

Gas is currently cheap and that makes Russia’s economy look small. If prices, say, quintuple globally and Russia keeps pumping out the same quantity, that’s a huge jump despite few internal changes and they’d have the world by the balls. Meanwhile, the Swiss could decide to all retire tomorrow permanently and drop their relatively huge GDP (half of Russia’s) to 1% of what it is now and the world would probably shrug and move on.

Russia is depended on globally for food, fuel, and loads of random resources. They’re just temporarily considered cheap while some things (eg banking) are currently considered high value. That could change very quickly.