General > General Technical Chat
"Gas Armageddon": Energy/electricity prices in EU/UK (and how to deal with them)
nctnico:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on September 06, 2022, 04:36:11 pm ---So I hope this gives you some background about the stage on which the history biggest economical disaster of this country has been created on. And I'm sure many programmed bots will strongly disagree, but the great thing about facts is, it is totally irrelevant whether one disagrees or agrees with them. And I'm sorry how it's drifting, but it is fundamentally all connected to the gas, and Germany's decision to enable their "green shift" by utilizing cheap natural gas supplied by Russia, and keep doing that even during times it all is falling apart.
--- End quote ---
Yeah. I never understood Germany's push for natural gas (up to the point where they got the EU to label it as a 'green alternative fuel') in a time where fossil fuel use has to be reduced.
If you look 20+ years back in time, Russia was a stable country with reasonably good leadership. And since a significant part of Russia is in Europe, they made a good trading partner for goods and energy. That opportunity is still there. Again, the problem isn't Russia itself but the people who seized power in Russia and like to bring back the USSR. By now Russia could have been a great economic power but Poetin flushed it all down the drain. Partly by supporting dubious regimes as well.
Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: JohanH on September 06, 2022, 04:47:16 pm ---Merkel & Co will go to history as the most failed example of energy policy makers ever.
--- End quote ---
On the other hand, I also think Germany has done some excellent job at going truly green with renewables.
Doing the right choices, and some REALLY bad choices seems to go hand-in-hand.
Sadly, even at the excellent rate Germany is doing with renewables, wind and solar specifically, it still takes maybe 10 years plus some more investments in energy storage before the grid can be freed from Russian's gas.
The biggest single wrong choice was such total dismissal of nuclear. I don't like nuclear in the long run, but keeping the existing plants running is pretty much a must. Replacing both nuclear and fossils with renewables is a good long-time target, but cutting the dependence on Russian import gas should have been #1 priority, but it was clearly the opposite, the whole green shift was based on having that as the only stable resource.
Dismissal of heatpumps in the energy strategy was also a massive mistake. Now it's there, but 15 years too late.
wraper:
--- Quote from: nctnico on September 06, 2022, 05:03:26 pm ---If you look 20+ years back in time, Russia was a stable country with reasonably good leadership. And since a significant part of Russia is in Europe, they made a good trading partner for goods and energy. That opportunity is still there. Again, the problem isn't Russia itself but the people who seized power in Russia and like to bring back the USSR. By now Russia could have been a great economic power but Poetin flushed it all down the drain. Partly by supporting dubious regimes as well.
--- End quote ---
Good for whom? Certainly not Russians. Country was totally crime-ridden and drowning in poverty. Russians literally call that time "Wild 90s". President was a barely speaking alchoholic who sold out his country to whoever he could. Huge external debt, and therefore external control from IMF and friends. So called oligarchs were stealing remains of government property that were not stolen yet (everything was government owned in USSR). Two wars in Chechnya where Russia fought with basically a terrorist local government within its own borders, while West was crying foul about that. And actually country was not that far away from dividing in separate parts even further. Not to say hyperinflation, not as bad as in Zimbabwe but still, they removed three zeroes when exchanging to new Rubles in 1998 after all. Sure Western "friends" were totally happy with that. Putin for Russians was akin of savior after that experience.
Siwastaja:
And saying it was "stable" 20+ years ago is quite a stretch anyway because the collapse of USSR was so recent back then, so no matter how well things seemed, definitely not stable, it was more about expectations for the future. And you can't predict the future; if you absolutely need stable supply of X, better do that with someone with a really stable long-term track record and mutual understanding of the goals of the cooperation. But then again, the cheap price probably seemed like a good deal.
Zero999:
The answer is nuclear power, as well as renewables. There's no need to ban gas heating. There will be excess energy available at some point, which can be used to make synthetic natural gas and oil.
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