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Comment by FirmwareBurner | Hacker News Reader

>but the main focus seems to be on Germany

Because it's EU's beigest economy and saw the biggest economic drop in the block due to its poor political decisions on over-reliance on cheap Russian gas and cheap labor to maintain competitive exports.

It's not some conspiracy, but genuine concern that if EU's richest country is struggling, the rest of the EU members will bear some of the fallout too.

Whether we like it or not Germany has always been the benchmark in Europe. If the Danish or Austrian economy would drop by 0.5% probably nobody would care, but if the EU's richest members like Germany and France were to do that then it's more concerning for everyone. That's why Germany pops up a lot because it's a very important member of the block.

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Not to forget ever-rising sky-high energy prices due to a premature end of coal and nuclear, and a distinct lack of energy storage for renewables.

The sky-high energy prices are not because the end of coal and nuclear, but because the conservative government that ruled for the past 16 years streamlined the entire energy system so that it depended on cheap russian gas. However, prices are already down to normal again.

> not because the end of coal and nuclear, but [...] it depended on cheap russian gas.

Those events aren't independent, they are strongly connected. Coal and nuclear have provided baseload power, with gas and renewables filling in the peaks in the demand curve (e.g. solar for the day-peak). Ending coal and nuclear has ended baseload power, so not only do you have to fill the demand curve, you also have a far more variable supply curve. The only elements in that supply curve you can control are pumped-hydro storage and gas plants. Pumped-hydro is available but rare in Germany due to topography and the green movement. Which left gas plants, strongly increasing the reliance on gas imports.

Edit: And Germany is still dependent on the goodwill and market prices of gas suppliers. It is just that the cheaper and easy-to-transport Russian pipelined gas has been replaced by overseas ship-supplied gas.

The end of coal is not pre-mature.

Climate change is, in a sense, a massive store of value that you can take from without the consent of those who pay. Which makes it very hard for economics-minded thinking to overlook as a lazy way to thrive.

The end of coal has not happened on Germany, who went back to using massive amounts of coal as Russian gas stopped being available : 33.2% of all German electricity came from coal in 2022. https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/Stromerzeugung_2022... (slide 17 braunkohle + steinkohle)

I'd say it's slowly happening. There was a large drop in 2019[0] by around 25% (~50TWh) from 2018, ignoring the 2020 drop (around 25% ~33TWh compared to 2019) due to the pandemic, 2021 was almost back to 2019 levels (-3.5%) and 2022 was an increase by ~6.5% compared to 2019. Looking at quaterly data[1] it looks like 2023 will be well below 2019 again. And no, it hasn't been replaced by gas[2], although there's no clear trend in gas for electricity, if anything gas consumption is down due to the war.

[0]: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...

[1]: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...

[2]: https://energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE...

The end of coal is premature if your only other GW-scale energy source, nuclear, is being phased out at the same time, and you don't even have a replacement planned.

Bullshit. Energy prices are falling right now. I've just switched contracts for my parents at the weekend. They pay 30 cent/kWh for 100% renewable energy now. Down from 44 cent/kWh.

They are falling from the Ukraine-war special-circumstances peak down to the pre-war rising slope. 30ct/kWh is still 50-100% higher than what e.g. France, Poland, or the UK (comparable in size and economy) are paying.

Btw., those aren't even really low. Heavy industry, data centers and other energy-intensive industries are migrating heavily towards 1-digit-cent-per-kWh countries, so <10ct/kWh.

Corporations move operations to places where operating is cheap? How exactly would this not happen if the prices were lower? This kind of concessions is how you end up with domestic sweat shops.

FWIW the answer is not to prevent corporations from leaving the country either. That's silly. The answer is to apply carbon emission regulations to the entire supply chain of a company and to make the fines/fees more expensive than the money a business can save from moving somewhere else. Businesses act on what makes financial sense. If you want to change how businesses act, you need to change what makes financial sense for them.

You can try to ignore that and insist on applying emission regulations on import, which is what the EU currently is preparing.

However, the scenario this will lead to is: Industry will still leave high-energy-price areas. If low-energy-price regions can be found within the EU, industry might go there. Otherwise industry will be off to wherever in the world is cheap and happily charge the EU carbon import duties to EU customers. The rest of the world will enjoy low-priced not-carbon-neutral products that the EU will never be able to compete with because of economies of scale.

The only viable ways out of this isn't import duties but import restrictions, i.e. outright preventing goods that are not up to EU CO_2 standards from being imported. That will lead to local CO_2-neutral industries that have to be continuously walled off, because if they are exposed to the rest of the world they will be too small and expensive. The other way is a global agreement on CO_2 standards, such that those kinds of import regulations are unnecessary.

... which ends the same way as taxation treaties. Foreign countries will happily introduce CO2 emission regulations, then lie about them on a large scale.

See for example China: who have signed plenty of environmental treaties yet are dumping nuclear waste in the oceans on a large scale. Hell, China isn't even protecting their own people or nature just to avoid transporting the waste to the ocean. Rivers can do that for free, you see. To fully demonstrate how governments work, they lie about doing this (despite the fact it can be very easily measured), and secondly they criticize other countries for doing much less (such as China now criticizing Japan being forced into dumping some Fukushima cooling water)

The other alternative is what most tax havens are doing. They are raising taxes on companies ... and handing out subsidies that, somewhat suspiciously, exactly balance the tax raise. This is even done within Europe. This principle can easily be applied to emission regulations. After all, it's always paying to be allowed to pollute. Governments can simply pay that back some other way.

> If low-energy-price regions can be found within the EU, industry might go there.

Which can be a blessing or a curse depending on how you look at it.

The article which this article links to [1] provides some interesting insights on the exact causes. In particular it's been driven by declining household consumption which, in turn, has been caused by a surge in food prices - with food cost inflation in Germany exceeding 20%. This was simultaneously paired by falling demand for German exports, particularly in China which had been driving German growth for years.

[1] - https://archive.is/h4ncN

I simply hope that's the coolest typo and not a technical term I've never heard :D (At least if you think like I do and beige being the most boring color)

As can be seen, over-reliance on expensive non-Russian gas is not exactly a blessing and indicates that the “over”-reliance on cheap Russian gas was rational, but alas incompatible with US hegemony.

Many EU countries depended and still depend on Russian gas, including hardcore Russia hawks. It’s cheap and easily transportable. This beats morality every time, as can be seen from the past support of various dictatorships, autocracies and the various coups enacted to secure energy for the US and Western Europe.

With an important chunk of deliveries coming from Quatar, Azerbaijan, etc new suppliers are hardly better, but on the positive side at least aren’t invading anyone at the moment.

> “over”-reliance on cheap Russian gas was rational, but alas incompatible with US hegemony.

Europe seems to prefer US hegemony over Russian bullying. See how Finland and Sweden wanted to get into NATO without anyone forcing them to do so.

Preferring one bully to another is not the warming endorsement you think it is.

Well, the speed at which Finland and Sweden rushed into NATO (aka US) arms, when their illusion of "peace forever" was shattered, is a far stronger endorsement than anything else.

Unfortunately, we are humans and the only thing that organizes us beyond a certain scale (100-150 people) is force. Either you are strong enough yourself, or you need some strong backers.

Oh, you can be absolutely certain that Germany only decided to support the sanctions through gritted teeth. Prior to the war Russia was a highly-regarded trading partner for a lot of companies. Many companies had employees or contractors in Russia, especially in tech. The corruption and "conservative values" (e.g. its de facto ban on homosexuality) were well-known but mostly ignored.

Supporting the sections meant cutting off a limb with heavy blood loss. It's absurd to be confused why Germany hasn't managed to regain composure yet. We barely cauterized the wound.

> the “over”-reliance on cheap Russian gas was rational, but alas incompatible with US hegemony.

It was incompatible with the safety of Europe first of all. Both economic and military. Yes, we had a cheap ride, but it's over. In 2014 you could still pretend but in 2023 nobody wants to have blood on their hands.

No, I think Europe and especially the US are both fine with having blood on our hands. Depends whose blood, that’s all.

Also don’t mix morals and geopolitics, they’re often incompatible.

Our safety in Europe is at risk because of our stupid wars destabilizing the Middle East and because we’re stuck between great power rivalries, most recently as vassals in training of the US, which wants to drag us in its conflict with China.

See https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-art-of-vassalisation-how-rus...

I don't know how much Middle East blood is on our hands as Europeans were totally against the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. 36 million people protested. In Rome itself, 3 million people. No other event has managed to put that many people on the streets.

And Bush haven't managed to build a great coalition for his stupid war. His famous "you forgot Poland" will be laughed at for many years. These two wars were stupid before they ever begun, and Europeans knew about this from the very beginning and they did what they could to stop them.

An yet, Kremlin loves to say Russians are just doing the same things as European did. We are not the same.

Europeans failed at stopping them and no one was punished. That’s the only thing that matters, trying is not good enough.

I agree we’re not the same as the Kremlin and I like to use a metaphor of Western vs Eastern EU corruption to illustrate the difference: in EE, doctors and police may politely ask your for bribes. In WE there’s lobbying, “consultants” and cushy nepotism. It’s the sophistication which makes the difference, you see…

While Russia stupidly invades another country in blatant violation of international law, the US and EU invade to protect democracy and freedom, try at least to get the UN to rubber-stamp it and later make an effort at a botched up reconstruction, transforming the invaded countries in a living hell where children are sold for food (e.g. Afghanistan).

> the US and EU invade to protect democracy and freedom

No, the EU does not invade for any reason. People in the EU want to live in peace. The USA managed to convince Blair to ally with them to invade Iraq but that's it. Both Blair and Bush should be held responsible for their crimes.

Thanks for the Kremlin talking points on the Middle East. I'm sure instability in another continent is more risk to Europeans than the Russians having control over our energy AND food production -- had they taken all of Ukraine as Putin planned.

Luckily the Ukrainians are willing and able fight Russia for us, with reluctant support from their allies. An utterly embarrassing situation for most European countries.

Everyone should be familiar with the US and (Western-)Europe led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria which destabilized those countries with horrendous human costs. Two important consequences for the EU were:

* the refugee crisis in Europe peaking in 2015 and still continuing today, which led to a reaction from local EU populations and a political reorientation towards the far-right.

* radicalization (including the rise of ISIS/ISIL) which in turn led to terrorist attacks and an increased interest in mass surveillance within the EU.

If that happens to be a Kremlin talking point, then those Kremlin guys and girls are correct.

As for the Ukrainians fighting Russia “for us”, that’s definitely an EU/Washington/Kiev talking point and it’s objectively wrong: they’re fighting for their own country.

Our military support and tens of billions of EUR of financial support are keeping Ukraine in the fight much longer than they would have managed by themselves. The EU rep for foreign affairs and security policy pointed out that Ukraine would fall within days without our “embarrassing” support.

But if you feel we’re not doing enough, there’s always the foreign legion…

> Everyone should be familiar with the US and (Western-)Europe led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria

You are mixing things up. Western Europe didn't lead any of these wars. The UK joined the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a stupid decision but it had nothing to do with the rest of Europe. Unless you claim UK=EU.

The Kremlin propaganda is repeating these statements very often so I can understand some people started believing these lies.

A stable energy market in Germany is safe for Europe. What we have now is less safe.

American gas has the blood of millions of innocents on its hands too, you know ..

Pretty much. Germany and France are engines of EU

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