Germany has three months to save itself from a winter gas crisis

Maybe not much killing, since solar requires consistent sunlight, which is not as prevalent in Germany.

Also a lot of landlords (corporate ones) have already announced that they will only supply heating up to 20C this winter. There's a lot of discussion about that going around i.e. people complaining about that.

China would stand to lose a lot of money in that situation, but our economy would be severely disrupted as well. Russia is showing that for a totalitarian regime, losing a lot of money may not necessarily be a complete show stopper. They could make that choice and decide it's worth it, if they don't have to worry about the polls and are able to shape the narrative their own population gets to see.

You mean like the last time?

German–Soviet Trade and Credit Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Credit_A...

"expectation of eventual territorial expansion to the Baltic countries, Finland and Poland, with the approval of either the Western powers or Germany" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin's_speech_of_19_August_1...

"In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San."

"With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia (Moldova & Ukraine). The German side declares its complete political disinterestedness in these areas."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany%E2%80%93Soviet_Union_r...

"On February 27th, the German arms industry gave Chancellor Olaf Scholz a 48 page list of military equipment that they could send to Ukraine. Scholz waited until today to forward it to the Ukrainians but his office only sent the Ukrainians half the document)"

"While Ukraine was offered Marder IFV, Boxer APC and even Leopard-2 MBT as well as Panzerhaubitze 2000 by German companies, it is not allowed to buy any of these systems in Germany"

1) At the end of February Germany's defense industry sends Scholz a long list of all available weapons.

2) Scholz doesn't share the list with Ukraine.

3) Scholz says that there are no more weapons left in Germany to give to Ukraine.

4) Germany's defense industry leaks the list to Ukraine's ambassador.

5) Scholz says that the weapons on the list don't work.

6) The defense industry denies this and leaks the list to the press.

7) Scholz states Ukrainians can't master the weapons in the available time.

8) German defense experts tell the German press that Ukrainians can master the weapons in 2-3 weeks.

9) Scholz says the weapons are needed by NATO and NATO must approve their transfer.

10) NATO officials and German generals deny this.

11) Scholz says no other NATO/EU ally is delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine.

12) The US, UK, Australia, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Turkey, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Romania, Netherlands, etc. publish the lists of heavy weapon they deliver to Ukraine.

13) Under pressure Scholz announces €2 billion for Ukraine's military.

14) German parliamentarians find out that it's really just €1 billion, which won't be available for another 2-3 months, and then Scholz can veto or delay indefinitely every item Ukraine wants to buy.

15) The US, France, Poland, Romania, Japan, the UK and Italy, plus the heads of EU and NATO spend an afternoon trying to talk sense into Scholz.

16) Scholz makes a statement and says Ukraine can have the €1 billion now and order whatever it wants from the list.

17) Ukraine's ambassador says that Scholz removed all the items Ukraine actually wants from the list before giving it to Ukraine and what remains on the list is just a fraction of the €1 billion.

18) Scholz claims that there is no ammunition anymore for the Leopard tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles.

19) Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, the US, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, Egypt respectively France are saying the produce these ammo types.

20) Scholz says countries delivering armored vehicles to Ukraine will be attacked by russia with nuclear weapons.

21) The US, UK, Australia, France, Poland, Spain, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Czechia, Netherlands, Denmark all report they were not hit by nuclear weapons.

a.) there are not enough skilled workers that know how to deploy these. in fact it was just published in the news that due to boomers going in pension the workforce in this area already reduced over 10% in the last years and projected to sink even more. b.) most houses that are using Gas heating are not isolated well enough to make a switch to heat pumps financially viable.

ref: Nega-Watts

* wind energy deployment decreased massively in the last 3-4 years due to bureaucracy.

* Solar was always complicated, if you had it on the roof of your own house you would need to register a small business regardless and declare extra taxes every 3 month.

If you want to criticise them, criticise them for not going with nuclear, not for trying to build out alternatives to gas. That makes no sense.

In this case "Isolation" in German is used both for insulation and isolation while they are separate words in English for the two.

So Germany will indeed learn the hard way, despite ignoring the repeated warnings.

Trump also yanked the rug out from under the TPP which effectively locked in our manufacturing relationship with China, so glass houses and all that.

Not energy, but only gas.

> What does this mean for people on the ground? Energy prices can easily go 10x (so a $300 bill becomes $3000/month).

Almost no household pays $300 for heating here. We life in a large flat and paid 120€/month last year (including warming all water for the year).

> You’d have to drop the heating of your home by 20 degrees and you’ll still be seeing $1000/month bills.

If we drop heating altogether our flat cools down to 11°C during winter (found out the hard way because our heating system broke down during winter a few years ago), so reducing heating by 100% means a delta of 9°C. Reducing target temperature to 18°C instead of 20°C would save perhaps 25% of gas. I personally expect increases of about 1000€ for the whole heating season for our household (i.e. about triple costs).

The German depencence on gas is bad for multiple reasons, but your numbers are quite hyberbolic.

That said, this is for the bed room. I wouldn't want to get up and sit at the breakfast table at 16C. That should stay comfy.

Napoleon's army occupied Moscow by late summer. They started their retreat in early fall, and got stuck in the mud. His army had been mostly destroyed before winter even started.

In the first world war, the German army fought through 3 winters in Russia before Russia surrendered.

In the second world war, the German army fought through 3 winters before they were defeated.

In the February 2022 Russian invasion in to Ukraine, the Russian army got stuck in the mud and was forced to abandon their siege of Kiev under heavy losses.

The Russian winter isn't necessarily any more pleasant for the Russians than for their enemies. I'm sure they made use of the climatic circumstances, but the weather didn't do the work for them. Napoleon and the nazis were both defeated by an opponent with a better grand strategy and logistics.

Why would Russia need to maintain leverage at that point? Wouldn't they be better off just selling the gas and taking the money?

>Russia decisively takes more of Ukraine... and somehow all sanctions are dropped?

If that happens, and the immediate conflict is resolved, what material reason is there for EU citizens to endure the cold?

There's plenty of time for the situation to change drastically, but nobody should rely on that happening.