What If Europe Loses Russian Natural Gas? | Hacker News Reader

What If Europe Loses Russian Natural Gas?

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15 pointsvaghetti37 comments

"The IEA indicates average indoor temperatures in the EU are now about 22° C" Wow, current room temperature here is around 16 degrees Celsius, perfectly fine as long as you don't wear a t-shirt. Still comfortable too. I guess it all depends on what you're used to. As an added benefit, a lower room temperature induces a higher metabolic rate [0] , which could help fight our obesity problem (okay, that might be stretching it a bit)

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/1601308

This is pretty stupid, IMO. Lowering indoor temperature by 8 degrees? What are we, cavemen? That's not even good as a joke. Maslow's pyramid is supposed to be a model too simple to be useful, but I guess some people do need it reminded to them from time to time. We'll most definitely heat our houses to virtually the same temperature, that's not even a topic.

And discussing about electric heaters as if they're even a supply problem. They cost under $10 and they universally have 100% efficiency. As for building them... in my youth I've seen plenty made with just a brick and wire. We won't run out of them.

Issues are electricity cost and peak consumption. I predict plenty of wiring issues - not many people know their house's wiring is rated for a certain amperage, and having an extra 2-4 kw of electrical heating can easily put them over. Quite a few fuses will trip next winter.

But the real issue will be cost.

Russia poses a larger threat to our base needs such as not being shelled by Russian artillery. Many countries are under serious threat, but more importantly, I and many others have a sense of outrage that I don't think has been felt since the second world war. This kind of outrage allows people to make sacrifices to punish the source of the outrage, this has been established in psychological experiments. Personally, as a Swede I'm very much willing to turn down/off the heat if that can force an end to Russian aggression, as I'm sure many others in Europe are. We can still live comfortably by for example heating one room instead of five. The important part is that industry is not affected.

I could copy paste almost verbatim a comment I made a year ago to somebody being equally outraged by plastic packaging and being willing to pay the extra price for bio replacements. The gist of it, you're not the only one who has to pay for your outrage. And more to the point, you're quite likely well above the average income in EU just for being a Swede on HN, so you're not even the one who'd really feel the cost of such policies. Just like how poor people would definitely feel the extra euro paid by supply chain issues created by a full ban of plastic, also poor people will pay the most utility cost of having more expensive heating. Euro, we pay the same, but pain will be concentrated in the lower income levels.

And btw, I strongly dislike having to type this. I'm both a libertarian and a Romanian, and on both counts I shouldn't have to take this position. But those are the facts.

Also I wasn't even talking about total cost, but relative one. People will definitely cut other things before sleeping in 13 degree homes. Hell, they'd take loans if needed. A home is a home, you don't go back there to pitch a tent in the living room, not unless it's a literal war zone. So whatever things we prepare for, imagining 8 degree cuts is just a fantasy. We just have to find other options.

> equally outraged by plastic packaging and being willing to pay the extra price for bio replacements

> Also I wasn't even talking about total cost, but relative one. People will definitely cut other things before sleeping in 13 degree homes. Hell, they'd take loans if needed

Yeah, maybe you're right and the outrage will blow over, but maybe not. I can't speak for the national sentiment of Germans or Romanians, but this feels different to me. Maybe it's given our history with Russia, but we sent anti-tank missiles this time, as a "neutral" country. We haven't provided lethal aid to a country since the Winter War, which again was Russian aggression. This is different than plastic bags.

Oh, it's big. It's definitely big. For us here it's even bigger than you might think - a good part of the reason why eastern europe is still so much behind is russian influence. Getting rid of that means finally picking up the pace and realizing our potential. Not to mention Ukraine... 44 million people free and in EU. The "good ending" here could be incredibly good.

Lowering room temperatures will not help european industries that do need persistent supply of energy to sustain their production chains such as glass blowing and steel casting [1].

[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/gaslieferun...

If you don't waste energy for over heating you have it for industry. Russia doesn't even provide half of the EU's gas or oil so extreme rationing of household and transport energy would mean very little rationing elsewhere.

It doesn’t have to be a half of the EU supply to cause shortages and shutdowns. And shortages at factories cause a ripple effect of supply chain disruptions in many dependent industries [1]

[1] https://m-delfi-lt.translate.goog/verslas/verslas/article.ph...

You avoid all discussion of rationing and rationality and discuss freemarket putzery where you run out of industrial energy because demand from people who are cost insensitive may taper too slowly.

If the the EU can't implement rationing it should immediately impose a 100%+ tax on gas so it can start distributing that money back unevenly to prevent economic damage where gas is needed, pressure down gas usage, and prevent profits from going to Putain.

0% tax is the pathological case where all of society uses energy whether it needs it or not and government has no funds to work with and the suppliers take all profits from limiting supply.

I remember a time when my Serbian neighbours were bombed by the US.

As a Romanian, I fear the US and the EU far more than Russia.

And what of your Kosovar Albanian neighbors? US and EU were there to stop the conflict that caused 5 times more of them to be killed. No one in their right mind could make the case for involvement to be around oil or money, as opposed to humanitarian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War

Serbia supporting Russia in the war on Ukraine is proof enough of who the actual aggressors are.

Don't spread lies. Serbia is not supporting Russia in the war on Ukraine. For proof please check how they voted in UN. They condemned the Russian agression on Ukraine and voted to suspend Russia from Human Rights Council.

Your Wikipedia link is actually much more balanced and not black and white as your obvious anti-Serb sentiment.

And then Vucic just mouthed at EU and US. UN is nothing.

What lie am I spreading? Ok, I'll grant that saying "Serbia" as whole supporting Russia is incorrect, I should've said "many Serbians." Yes, Serbia's recent UN vote condemning the invasion of Ukraine is appreciated, given their usual Putin-friendliness. But the state still frequently sides with Russia on issues like invading and annexing Crimea:

https://balkaninsight.com/2020/12/08/serbia-backs-russia-aga...

What other non-Russian country would this pro-"invasion of Ukraine" rally happen?

https://twitter.com/SerbiaBased/status/1499815809065132033?r...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/world/europe/ukraine-serb... and https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-presidential...

explain more details:

"Serbia, a traditional Russian ally, has rejected calls from the European Union and the United States to join in sanctions against Moscow, citing national interests. The country’s representative to the United Nations did vote in favor of a resolution condemning Moscow’s attack on Ukraine as a violation of international law.

Despite the Serbian government saying it is seeking EU membership, Vucic and his allies have refrained from condemning Russia over the invasion, a possible sign they want to avoid alienating pro-Russia voters ahead of Sunday’s election.

Thousands of people in Serbia have turned out for pro-Putin rallies during the five-week invasion, waving Russian flags and displaying the letter Z - a symbol seen on Russian military vehicles in Ukraine. The support for Moscow makes Serbia somewhat of an outlier in Europe."

You're a minority, not only here but also in Romania. To be perfectly frank, most of us appreciate being in EU exactly for the checks and balances it provides. I DON'T trust our leadership (or electorate) not to lead us to killing innocent people 10 years down the line. It's the kind of stupid we don't usually do, but still, if it somehow happens, I'm happy that there will be NATO bombers there to stop us.

What happened in Serbia was stupidly simple, and I really can't imagine how Serbian citizens rationalize this: Yugoslavia broke up, but Serbs wanted to keep their tiny empire even if then had to force ex-members. And while fighting, some ugly ethnic and religious animosities came up, with pretty horrible results.

It was about as clearly white and black as what's going on in Ukraine right now.

Electric heaters also warm indirectly when the next power bill comes. Using that anger will probably produce some heat as well.

People would burn wood, plastic and tires before using this tactic.

They could always try to revisit synthetic fuel methodology as there’s a long history of that in Europe. Can try novel technology, conservation or throwing money at the marketplace. Europe rebuilt from devastation a few times over the last century. I suspect they can deal with energy cost.

It takes a lot of energy to create synthetic fuels. You need a source of that energy.

Liquid fuel from coal is commercially viable. I guess the same would be true for gas.

It might be a good way to get a transportable form of solar - use it w/o transmission (or distant transmission) to process solid -> liquid/gas and transport that. Processing the coal might be able to reduce some of the worst environmental effects (sulfur?).

They took what looked like an easy solution that would help integrate Russian into the European economy. Not every decision pans out.

Barring a sudden but protracted scenario like an all-out-embargo that fuels (pun intended) my crazy post-apocalyptic gas war fantasies following massive heated social turmoil of the cold rabble boiling with rage, I anticipate minor problems for the grid, to which millions of electric heaters are suddenly connected. And although electric heaters are child's play to produce, I have my doubts about rapid implementation.

Of course, I already have two of them. One in the basement, one in my garden shed. And a small portable power station, nothing fancy.

Real patriots isolate their windows!

Real patriots use they own body temperature to heat the house.

Really real patriots do not need to heat, because they have an inner fire, burning fiercely.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/01/19/putin-takes-icy-di...

... And hopefully with heavy weapons that bastard and his miserable minions will be stopped cold.

Slava Ukraini

Generalized world recession spilling into epic, catastrophic famines and wars in the third world.

The problem with "electric heaters" is that electricity for ANYTHING can NEVER be better that 50% efficient and often is worse. Natural gas heating can EASILY attain 70%-80% efficiency in heating.

Green Energy is generally contrary to the laws of physics in this sense. It's one step forward and three-to-five steps backward.

Electric heat pumps can be over 100% efficient as they are using ambient heat to warm the house.

Indeed. A recent Technology Connections video was on this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEHFsO-XSI

Damn entropy.

This is a really bad take.

Heat pumps can have coefficients of performance (joules of cooling provided over joules of energy consumed) between 2.5-5 (going down as outside temperatures drop).

In most situations, it’s more efficient to burn the gas for electricity and then put it into a heat pump than to burn it directly for heating.

In the very coldest situations, where the heat pump less effective, then you may use the resistive heating to augment it.

And “green” tech is about changing power generation sources so that, even if you have some more inefficiency, it’s not polluting the planet or running down finite resources as much.

Must… resist… “well actually” this person about heat pumps…

Heat pumps are either impractical or very expensive and time consuming to install in apartment buildings, which is where most of the European population lives, so there's that.

At least in Sweden I’m seeing more and more appartment building with a big honking air-to-water units outside of them.

I'm not even touching heat pumps. But I do have to say that "loss of efficiency" in a supermajority of case is by... heat. Pretty much all the electricity that enters your house leaves it as heat. Heaters at 50%? I guess, if you use a long wave radio as an electric heater. Otherwise it's just 99.99%.

And if you mean electricity _generation_ is 50%, well, say so. That's a completely different topic, and electricity generation method are varied enough to make any single number meaningless. How do you calculate efficiency of hydro?

> The problem with "electric heaters" is that electricity for ANYTHING can NEVER be better that 50% efficient and often is worse.

Electric heaters are 100% efficient in transforming joules to heat. The powerplant/transmission lines are the issue in this case.

Yes, but when the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, that process is only 40% or so efficient, whereas using the heat directly is lossless.

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