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The Energy-crisis is pulling Europe apart

Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, pays close attention to a warning from Viktor Orban

Orban points out how the Energy-crisis is pulling Europe apart.

The decision on decommissioning the last nuclear power plants in Germany during a crisis makes no sense and the rest of Europe is being expected to make up for this folly, as well as the climate change obsession that put the EU into this crisis in the first place:

Europe’s Coming Big Freeze

Rod Dreher

Continent leaders preparing for winter rationing, shutdown of industries. Viktor Orban warned them

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has been warning for months now that Europe’s unqualified support for Ukraine is unsustainable … In his controversial speech in Transylvania, the West stupidly obsessed over his unwise “mixed-race” remarks, but these observations about the war and the coming winter were spot on, and far more important:

In passing, I will say a few words about European values. Here, for example, is the latest proposal from the European Commission, which says that everyone must reduce their natural gas consumption by 15 per cent. I do not see how it will be enforced – although, as I understand it, the past shows us German know-how on that. Furthermore, if this does not produce the desired effect and someone does not have enough gas, it will be taken away from those who do have it. So what the European Commission is doing is not asking the Germans to reverse the shutdown of their last two or three nuclear power plants still in operation, which enable them to produce cheap energy: it is letting them close those power plants down. And if they run out of energy, in some way they will take gas from us who have it, because we have stored it up.

–Viktor Orban

This is exactly what the experts David Wallace-Wells [in the NYT ] say could happen: EU members turning on each other. This winter could see the breakup of the EU over this crisis.

What Orban is warning about in the final lines I quoted is the prospect of mass political instability, even civil unrest, if Europeans suffer power cuts this winter, and can’t keep warm — that, and if their economies collapse because governments have to ration energy, shutting down industries to keep civilians from freezing. This is not an abstract concern!

I was talking to someone the other day who told me that a lot of Europeans are not going to feel a bit sorry for the Germans, given how hard the Germans treated them in the 2008 debt crisis. Nobody made Germany shut down its nuclear power plants, and grow dependent on Russian gas. That was Merkel’s deal.

And from another story. Look at the turmoil and effort required to cope with the current gas prices. This is a 200 year old company struggling to work 3 out 4 weeks, shifting to rolling 24 hour schedules in a desperate attempt to squeeze more efficiency out of the system.

Aluminium foundry fights for survival in European gas crisis (Reuters)

…Gerd Roeders is reluctantly preparing for the temporary shutdown of his German aluminium foundry to survive Europe’s growing gas crunch. Roeders is hoping that by moving the 200-year-old plant to three weeks of 24-hour shifts followed by a one-week shutdown, he can maintain output while cutting his gas consumption. His bill has already more than doubled this year from last, he said, fearing it will triple or even quadruple in 2023. The plan will save the cost of gas needed to fire up the ovens every morning, Roeders calculates, even if it means paying staff at family-owned G.A. Roeders more to work night shifts. Survival for G.A. Roeders GmbH and Germany’s 600 other foundries, most of which are small-to-medium enterprises with less than 250 staff, will mean cost cuts and tough talks with customers. “We’re laying out our prices to customers and telling them they have to pay more,” 59-year-old Roeders told Reuters as workers prepared the plant for the first week of rest. “We can’t deliver parts if we invest and don’t earn anything back.”

h/t Stephen and to Scott friend of DA.

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