European energy crisis due to war

Seadog

Woodpecker
Bloomberg article:

Bloomberg | Germany Revives Coal as Energy Security Trumps Climate Goals | Nation increased coal burning for power by 13% from last year | Uniper plans to extend operations for some plants in Germany | December 22, 2022:

"Germany is set to boost its reliance on coal as it battles an unprecedented energy crisis — even at the expense of its ambitious climate goals.

Europe’s largest economy is burning the fossil fuel for electricity at the fastest pace in at least six years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. It’s also poised to be one of the few nations to increase coal imports next year.

On Thursday, utility Uniper SE said it would extend commercial operations of two of its coal-fired plants in Germany until March 2024 at the latest, in an effort to conserve natural gas in the coming winters.

Across the globe, highly polluting — and relatively cheap — coal is making a comeback as countries seek to prevent soaring energy costs from triggering an economic meltdown. In Europe, the crisis is acute, after Russia curbed gas supplies in the fallout of its war in Ukraine. Germany is now trying to balance the short-term priority of bolstering energy security with the longer-term goal of net-zero emissions by 2045.

“Everyone is keeping their climate targets, but it’s true that when you face the dilemma to keep the lights on or decrease carbon emissions, the choice is to keep the lights on,” said Carlos Fernandez Alvarez, the acting head of gas, coal and power at the International Energy Agency.

Germany plans to phase out coal use by 2038, but the ruling coalition is pushing for an even earlier target of 2030. To weather the current crisis, the country has temporarily brought back some plants that were offline.

In most countries, a limited amount of capacity is returning to service. “Only in Germany, with 10 gigawatts, is the reversal at a significant scale,” the IEA said in a report. That’s enough to power about 5 million homes, according to Bloomberg estimates.

Germany now generates more than a third of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, according to Destatis, the federal statistical office. In the third quarter, its electricity from the fuel was 13.3% higher than the same period a year earlier, the agency said.

“The coal phase-out ideally by 2030 is not in question,” a spokeswoman for the German Economy Ministry said in a statement. “Against the backdrop of the crisis situation, the most important thing is that we have apparently succeeded in consuming significantly less energy in 2022, especially natural gas.”

He noted that the European Union and Turkey are the only major energy users worldwide expected to increase coal imports in 2023 compared to 2022.

This year Germany will also likely be a net exporter of electricity to France, the first time that has happened in record-keeping since at least 1990, according to Destatis.

At times this month, German electricity became as polluting as power produced in South Africa and India, after lower wind speeds curbed renewable generation and coal consumption spiked, according to Electricity Maps, an app that aggregates grid data.
Path Forward

There are some bright spots for Europe that may help it avoid burning coal. Gas prices have slumped as previously mild weather pushed back the start of the heating season, and the region has seen record levels of liquefied natural gas imports recently. Gas inventories also remain above the seasonal average.

In addition, nuclear power in France has started to return. While some delays continue, reactor availability is now at about 68%, grid data show. That compares with about 50% in early November. Germany also plans to keep its three remaining nuclear plants online until at latest mid-April, beyond their original retirement date.

While Europe’s imports of coal are likely to rise, exactly how much of it is actually burned for power production is unpredictable, especially if hydropower increases in the region. Germany also increased its renewable energy generation by 2.9% on an annual basis in the third quarter of this year, according to Destatis.

“The acceleration of renewables deployment is the linchpin for both achieving energy sovereignty in the middle of this decade and our 2030 climate targets,” said Fabian Hein, project manager for EU policy at think tank Agora Energiewende."

Germany’s power-market interventions that have led to an increase in emissions are limited in time, and the country has accelerated the development of renewable energy, she said.

Revival’s Origins

The German coal revival has two main causes: fuel switching away from expensive natural gas, and rising power demand from France, where electricity generation has been hobbled by nuclear-reactor outages.

European gas prices spiked to record levels over the summer and remain about twice the five-year average for the time of year. Earlier this year, companies including power generator Steag GmbH brought back coal capacity due to soaring gas prices. Automaker Volkswagen AG also shelved a plan to switch away from coal at its Wolfsburg facility in Germany.

While both gas and coal prices have declined recently, it’s still more profitable to burn the dirtier fuel to produce electricity.

“Coal is coming back as a baseload generator,” said Guillaume Perret, who leads energy consultancy Perret Associates Ltd. “We think it will be less seasonal than it has been – with more coal-burning in summer, spring and autumn, as long as coal remains so much in the money versus gas and there remains a gas shortage.”

It’s possible that Germany’s emergency coal stations could be kept online as far into the future as December 2024, nine months after the government’s planned closure date, Perret added.


Wait. I'm confused. I thought it was a climate crisis, not an energy crisis.

If you're on the lam, being chased by police, normies, dragons, whatever, starting a fire on the mountainside and broadcasting your location to anyone within 20 miles is borderline suicide. Since you don't want to die, you bundle up, hunker down, and eat your soup cold.

Did Germany just kill us all? Or is there more to the story.
 

paternos

Kingfisher
Catholic
Wait. I'm confused. I thought it was a climate crisis, not an energy crisis.

If you're on the lam, being chased by police, normies, dragons, whatever, starting a fire on the mountainside and broadcasting your location to anyone within 20 miles is borderline suicide. Since you don't want to die, you bundle up, hunker down, and eat your soup cold.

Did Germany just kill us all? Or is there more to the story.
The web of lies is just so great. The pathologic liar that lied his whole life and created this weird web of contradictions. Nothing holds up anymore. The only thing that holds it up is a class of paid actors acting as if this is true and normal.

FNy2_EhVUAAP0SB.png

For the forum I updated the current thing with the new "cooking with gas kills kids" feature.

It's just a never ending stream of filth and contradicting lies.

War is bad - Ukraine needs to fight Russia to the end
We need to quit coal for the climate - We need to burn coal
Gas kills kids - Gas is the cleanest form of fossil energy
China is bad because of strict lockdowns - China is bad because they open up too quick
Electric cars are pure good - No CO2, so good.
Inject to protect other - Inject not help others
Ukraine bad and corrupt (2020) - Ukraine best in the world standing ovation

I think we need to give all power to international financiers to protect us from the meteorites that threaten to destroy the earth, and we need to give all money left to international jewish science doctors to protect us from new viruses and I forget the climate, the weather will destroy us if we don't get the poison gas CO2 down on earth and become neutral and ESGs I forget so everyone is equal and equitable.

It's increasingly surreal (and somehow I doubt it was better in the past)
 

TruckDriver9

Hummingbird

"Russia has halted supplies to Poland, for which we are prepared. Only 10% of crude oil has been coming from Russia and we will replace it with oil from other sources," PKN Orlen Chief Executive Daniel Obajtek wrote on Twitter.
The company said it could fully supply its refineries via sea and that the halt in pipeline supplies would not impact deliveries of gasoline and diesel to clients.
 

Bird

Ostrich
Catholic
Natural gas nearly 70 percent cheaper than in 2008 and 65% cheaper than in November 2022

February 26, 2023

Wholesale natural gas prices have been going up and down for decades. Price increases last occurred from around October 2020, so the high prices in the past two years had nothing to do with the conflict in Ukraine and the Nord Stream blow-up. Since mid-December 2022, prices have now been in free fall.

In the chart, we see a drop of 65.1% from the peak at the end of November. Prices initially fell, then rose again, and since mid-December there has been an almost uninterrupted downward movement.

1.webp



Here we see the development of the past 12 months - again a minus of 44.3%.

2.webp



And compared to the maximum of gas prices in 2008 - on the occasion of the previous financial crisis - there is a minus of 69.3%.

3.webp



Causes: speculative profits

The question is what triggered these massive fluctuations. And, of course, who earned billions from them. Strategic risk consultant, economist and best-selling author William F. Engdahl has analyzed the causes in an article.

The energy crisis, he said, is not because politicians like Scholz or German Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck or EU Commission Vice President for Green Energy Frans Timmermans are stupid or clueless. "Corrupt and dishonest, maybe yes. But they know exactly what they are doing. They are reading off a script. It's all part of the EU's plan to deindustrialize one of the most energy-efficient industrial concentrations on the planet. This is the UN's Green Agenda 2030, also known as Klaus Schwab's Great Reset."

The deregulation of the EU gas market.

Deregulation has brought about a change in how natural gas prices are determined. "For nearly two decades, the EU Commission, backed by megabanks like JP MorganChase or large speculative hedge funds, began laying the groundwork for today's complete deregulation of the natural gas market." This kind of change, of course, is always sold as "liberalization." Liberal sounds good, but it is just a method that allows the oligarchs and big financial institutions to make quick profits. Instead of signing and honoring long-term contracts, prices are now determined by unregulated real-time trading on the free market. Trading is also allowed with various derivatives, futures and the like - basically betting on future events similar to roulette.

And then it is no wonder that prices fluctuate enormously. Those who can play this roulette are, of course, only those organizations that can afford to buy and sell an entire tanker of LNG virtually.

The ones asked to pay are the consumers, whether companies or end customers. The companies naturally pass on the higher energy prices to the consumers, if they were able to do so at all against possible competition, for example from the USA. It is therefore clear who is being asked to pay. The energy suppliers are now making nice profits. Because, as usual, price increases are passed on quickly, but falling cost prices are passed on with longer delays.
 

paternos

Kingfisher
Catholic

Quite depressing to see great industry and society get ruined. The bombing of Dresden wasn't the end of the war, it was just the beginning of the humiliation of the German people.

This is the price of being a puppet state of the judeo/american internationalist empire.

The puppet leaders in Europe have no guts to pursue a national interest.
Europe is becoming a hollow shell with state functionaries propagandizing kids, office typers and bureaucrats.

Real industry is in decline for 15 years, due to state regulations, international order and internationalists activist groups.

No normal person would ever start an industrial business in Europe today.

I hope people wake up to the humiliation that has been done to them.
 
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Handsome Creepy Eel

Peacock
Catholic
Gold Member
The USA of today isn't the industrial and military behemoth that forcefully occupied Germany and genocided its people. It's a pathetic, degenerate, crumbling contry incapable of defeating even illiterate shepherds armed with WW2-era rifles.

All it would take for Germany and Europe to free themselves from USA's tyranny would be a tiny sliver of willpower to say "no". Alas, not even that can be found.
 
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