It would be interesting to know the end game here.
If the Ukrainian war ends, I assume that isn't the end of it. I assume the taps from Russia will turn back on, but it has shown itself to be an unreliable supply.
If the Ukrainian war ends, I assume that isn't the end of it. I assume the taps from Russia will turn back on, but it has shown itself to be an unreliable supply.
I suspect the goal is also also to trigger conflicts between EU member nations over energy scarcity. E.g. Germany has enough gas to last Germany for the winter so it prioritizes Germany and throws Lithuania under the bus so Lithuania lashes out, etc. A short term scarcity will lead to long term fractures - maybe even EU exits.
Meanwhile, this opens the door for politicians who will make peace with Russia and bring the gas taps back online and revive a sputtering economy - a role that Orban seems to be trying to fill pre-emptively.
I don't know when countries typically shift from economic conflict to kinetic conflict, but I hope that Russian intelligence isn't dumb/arrogant enough to assume that transition has zero probability.
They are too entangled at this point for either to survive the collapse of another.
Up to Russian invasion this February: old oil furnaces were being avidly replaced with natural gas ones. Solar installations were starting to slack off. Lots of re-roofing and new exterior wall insulation.
Since then: no slacking in the roofing and exterior wall insulation, but now everyone has a keen interest in heat pumps, and solar panels are being installed everywhere.
Gonna be hard to convince people to take their chances again with a fuel from such an unreliable source in the next few years, I think, especially if this is a bad winter and rationing happens.
I won't say that good things have come from this war, but it certainly is a wake-up call for countries to get their future plans in better order.
There is simply no excuse for the most industrially advanced country in the world (Germany) to have slacked off so much when it comes to energy. It must be some political angle, because not too many years ago Germany was one of the leaders in expanding their renewable energy sources.
France here... Seeing how things were turning in May I turned my open fireplace into a closed one (way better efficiency) and ordered metric shit-tons of dry wood (I've now got enough for at least two years). Thankfully my house ain't using natural gas at all so at least I'm dodging that one problem. Now electricity may be rationed this winter: dunno, we'll see. But at least I won't be dying of cold.
Heating oneself burning wood has this advantage that it's stone-agey enough: chop a tree into smaller pieces, let them dry for a year, you can heat now heat your house during winter.
And nobody can "ration" me / prevent me from putting wood in the fireplace: that's the "stone age" part of it. The main french electricity company, on the other hand, is ran by state apparatchiks and if they decided to ration electricity (because, by "chance", half of the nuclear reactors are all simultaneously down), I'm pretty much sorry out of luck.
Overall I'm pretty disappointed by the EU (I'm an EU citizen) and plan to GTFO. I tried last year but it failed (residency was hard to obtain where I tried to go) but I'll very probably try again.
What do you mean with the quotes? It's not by chance, it's due to backlogged maintenance (due to Covid) and some corrosion issues in a few reactors. The plan is to have all maintenance over before the winter.
Europe didnt make enough hay while the sun was shining.
Why? The current trend is to work hard in order to reduce any form of business with Russia that would help them to rebuild the army and become a threat again.
Especially right now, when they can leverage the Russian situation and annoy the EU by striking favorable deals.
>but it has shown itself to be an unreliable supply
Russia is using gas to try and keep Europe out of the conflict. Once the war ends that ceases to be a motivator. Thus I assume they will turn the taps back on. That doesn't mean we want to rely on it which is the whole point of the question. Victory in Ukraine doesn't end this, so what's the end game. Is there going to be a further push for renewables? Gas from other sources? What's the time frames?
But it's not working, is it? Practically the whole Europe is helping Ukraine, sending weapons and everything we can to help.
It's not the question of how much gas Russia offers, it's the question of how much Europe is willing to take from them. Russia's status is very close to North Korea now - it's just unethical to make business with a state that got mentally stuck in XIX century and still thinks killing innocent people to grab more land is a good strategy.
I'm not saying we're going back to russian gas. Again that's the point of the question!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...
Throw in some <$100/kWh 4-12hr storage, and it's starting to look really appealing to make your own.
Also, not all output is equal, not does all output have to be done at a fixed time. Heating homes has to be done during winter, but some factories can postpone production a few months to wait for more favourable circumstances.
Furthermore, it's only a reduction in a few energy sources that are required, with gas being the most important. Other sources could be used to compensate to an extent. We're seeing some gas power plants moving back to coal for example. Not great for carbon emissions, but it has more and more flexible sources.
Sounds trivial, but keeping 25m long indoor pool 23-24 degrees in the winter takes a lot of energy.
It would suck for people who had gotten used to them being open again after the Covid years, but wouldn’t have much negative economic impact.
The goal is not to permanently ration. The goal is to get through the winter, so there’s time for the longer term fixes to be put in place.
(I'm actually a little surprised just _how_ un-aggressive the plans generally are.)