Europeans, what are you doing for preparation?
In my street, I see some people buying wood, while others claim nothing will happen and no preparation is needed.
In my street, I see some people buying wood, while others claim nothing will happen and no preparation is needed.
I don't drive a car and I can afford some amount of raises in price.
So I not really doing anything.
Switzerland made the brain dead choice to stop all nuclear research and eventually remove all nuclear plants. I just hope to god that we can reverse that absurdly tragic choice and start planning for a next generation reactor.
I would love if Switzerland could plan for a GenIV reactor to replace its aging fleet. We really don't have any other decent option. Importing coal power from Germany seems to be an alternative.
Maybe the single worst popular vote in my lifetime. Except maybe some of the immigration votes.
Nuclear is more reliable, cleaner, less deadly and much better to look at.
Not that it diminishes your point, being less deadly for birds is a legitimate factor. I am just curious if you omitted the "for birds" part or if windmills are deadly for humans in some way as well.
There are other reasons as well.
Good point, thanks for bringing it up. I was legitimately confused how windmills manage to result in operational deaths, with the construction never even entering my mind.
Chernobyl I think shouldn't even be counted, its such a different technology stack.
Neither is very deadly. I would just really like to see a nice modern nuclear plant.
I managed to snap up one of the last relatively favourable long term energy contracts that controls the damage a bit, and fortuitously I had solar panels installed a year ago. For a heatpump we'd need to replace all radiators as well, so it's something I'll have to get done before the contract is up.
By chance I moved to a country with mild winter, close to the seaside (which helps regulate the weather, both in summer and in winter). I just had my open fireplace (which wastes 80% of the burned wood's energy and which requires me to constantly refill) replaced with an efficient closed one (which moreover looks gorgeous). 5 K EUR investment which I'll regain on energy bills in no time.
Buying wood is great, especially so if you happen to have an efficient way of burning it (which an open fireplace certainly isn't).
I'm, so far, one of those who still can deal with crazy energy price raises but I wouldn't want to suffer actual gaz or electricity shortages preventing me from warming the house during the few cold months.
A fireplace and reserves of wood, medieval style, should help.
Bought a limestone fireplace for 6K euros or so a few years ago, if we get the same crazy prices the rest of you got it might have paid for itself in a couple of years. :)
I'm not anticipating major blackouts or anything, just made me think back to my childhood when blackouts did occasionally happen, and we had one of those lamps and it was more versatile than candles.
They are talking about possible blackouts here, but it's early days.
It’s not like we won’t have heat at all. Bills and prices will just become super high. The fact that everyone knows this will blunt impact. I’m seeing lots of city lights out or turned down. Smart energy use will probably become a bigger topic.
I live in a big Polish city though, so someone will just take care of it and charge me. For people who own houses and live outside cities I have heard of friends’ parents stockpiling coal, fuel, wood etc. And that it can be difficult to buy those at reasonable prices.
However I think it is important to remember at moments like this that we live in the 1st world and in 2022. We have gotten used to cheap luxuries. Headlines would like us to have great fear in losing even a little tiny bit. But I don’t think this is the case. Normal people aren’t afraid at all, they’re just pissed that everything is expensive.
Everyone understands that there is a war going on, and that there are very important values which we represent as the EU. In this attack the enemy intends to cripple those beliefs by creating discomfort for us. They want to prove to themselves that we are these decadent materialists that go into a mass hysteria at first sign of trouble.
But we got hit by a huge wave of refugees, and instead of lashing out at them, we’ve made them feel welcome. I suspect something similar will be the case here - people will just do what they can to conserve energy.
Yeah, tell that to people in Eastern Europe where pensioners will have to decide between paying for heating and paying for medicine.
Maybe boomers in Western EU countries like Netherlands or Germany will be fine with their 3 houses they rent out to supplement their "measly" 2k Euro pensions, but in eastern Europe boomers don't have it too good with their 200 Euro pensions living in uninsulated shacks or commie blocks.
Being in Eastern Europe myself I would comment that families support each other with this. No reason to call our homes “commie blocks” and “shacks”
We are ready to defend - our only weakness are the incompetent people we have elected into power. In a very quiet way they have done nearly everything possible to weaken us strategically.
(Netherlands)
Electricity is more problematic.
Most of my country's power comes from nuclear and coal power plants, and most of heat is district heating using waste heat from the plants. We're going to be impacted by electricity prices but that's about it.
The biggest way this affected me is I started to despise Germans. They cause this with their anti-nuclear bullshit. They emboldened Russia. At least half of Ukrainian blood spilled is on German hands.
And saying half of the Ukrainian blood is on Germany's hand is such a strong argument that some explanation, besides personal feelings, would be helpfull. Besides, I call those things out every time I see them, be that Gorbatchev and Afghanistan, the US and Iraq, France and Algeria...