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Comment by asdajksah2123 | Hacker News Reader

> What was obviously completely underestimated was the elasticity of consumer demand for gas

I don't think it was evident that individuals and businesses would be willing to make some of these changes they have. For example, German companies are planning on shutting down factories for the winter. Cities are planning on ending night lighting.

In addition, winter so far has been fairly warm. It may still turn cold, so Europe isn't out of the woods yet.

Finally, the increase in the LNG supply was achieved incredibly fast. If someone had predicted Europe would have the LNG supply they do today at the beginning of the war they would have been dismissed as a utopist.

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> In addition, winter so far has been fairly warm.

It's Autumn. Winter starts on the 21st Dec.

October in most of the Europe is not that much of a heating season, November will make us start digging into the gas we prepared. It's way too early for early to judge how easy it'll be.

That's true but I think the normal reaction is when it feels cold to turn up the heater and not waste a thought about getting wool blankets to sleep for instance. Also I never used indoor thermometers until very recently.

> Winter starts on the 21st Dec.

21 December is Midwinter Solstice...

By orbital mechanics, winter starts around 10 November.

Nope.

This year, astronomical winter begins on 21 December 2022 and ends on 20 March 2023.

Meteorological winter begins on 1 December.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/sea...

Irish winter starts the day after Halloween https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_calendar

      Now is the winter of our discontent
      Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
      And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
      In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.[1]

[1] Shakespeare, William, Richard III, 1.1.1-4

> Winter starts on the 21st Dec.

Or on Nov 10, or on Dec 1 depending on how you count.

> If someone had predicted Europe would have the LNG supply they do today at the beginning of the war they would have been dismissed as a utopist.

Not really. It was always a matter of cost. Losing 30% of gas supply is no laughing matter - and the shock will naturally push governments to willingness to pay above premium prices to stabilize supply.

Europe can't just "pay above premium prices" to replace Russian gas. It would have been physically impossible to replace the Russian gas (and it still is physically impossible to fully replace Russian gas within 2022) without creating a tremendous amount of infrastructure around getting LNG, which European countries have been incredibly successful at doing so.

The progress they've made in creating that infrastructure is beyond what basically anyone would have predicted at the start of the war.

Replacing gas also means taking it from someone else and, hence, disturbing poor countries.

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