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The Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline from Russia to a desperate Europe was supposed to re-open yesterday, instead, Russia announced that it will remain closed due to an oil leak, indefinitely. The announcement was made after markets closed. Germany has about 3 months of gas in storage.
Gas prices are expected to rise Monday.
Ukraine war: Russia to keep key gas pipeline to EU closed
By Robert Plummer & Oliver Slow BBC News
Faisal Islam, the BBC’s economics editor, described the indefinite closure of Nord Stream 1 as a very serious development, noting that Russia had kept supplies into Europe flowing even at the height of the Cold War.
The stand-off with Russia has forced countries to fill their own gas supplies, with Germany’s stores increasing from less than half in June to 84% full today.
Apparently this is the oil spill that shut down a billion dollar pipeline:
Just bad luck then?
Twitter commenters have some doubts:
@PolemicTMM –– Masterful trolling of the EU by Mr P.
@PrivatinvestN — Is this a Friday night joke or have they actually published this?
@JavierBlas — They did. […]
It’s just another day in the global energy crisis: Years of climate goals are evaporating
When your currency is backed by renewables… | 1 year of Euro/USD
The threat of the Russians cutting off gas completely through Nord stream 1 has focused Europe on the blessings of coal and the reality of surviving winter with only windmills and solar panels to keep warm.
Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands, and the UK have already changed plans to shut coal plants or have plans to revive old ones. Poland is buying coal directly for homes. Hungary has now also declared a state of emergency and said it will boost gas production and stop exports. No sharing allowed now.
Only two years ago Greece was going green — phasing out brown coal but now the Greek power corporation has been told to stop the phase out of coal. Last year lignite provided only 5% of the electricity in Greece, now the aim is 20%.
Hungary declares ‘state of emergency’ over threat of energy shortages
Euronews
Budapest says it will boost its annual production of natural gas from 1.5 billion cubic metres to 2 billion cubic metres. The […]
In France the government is banning events “because of a heatwave” of 40 degrees C (104F) — as if adult mammals cannot figure out whether the temperature is too hot for their own health. Ancestors of mice and rats worked out their own temperature sensors and behaviour changes 200 million years ago. It’s a Big Government attempt to infantalize and gaslight the whole population. Will they obey?
It’s only the region around Bordeaux but will French teenagers accept being told to stay home in forty degree heat, something that millions of humans live with all over the world every summer?
The Counter Signal: Heatwave lockdowns: Region in France bans outdoor gatherings
“Everyone now faces a health risk,” official Fabienne Buccio told France Bleu radio, after announcing the regional restrictions around Bordeaux. Outdoor events – including, ironically, annual ‘Resistance’ celebrations – are banned until the officials declare the heatwave is over. They’re even restricting some indoor events that don’t have air conditioning.
BBC: Outdoor public events have been banned in an area of France as a record breaking heatwave sweeps across Europe.
Concerts and large public gatherings have been called off in the Gironde department around Bordeaux. […]
Once, when the West could build things, problems got solved
Back in 2007 at least a few people still remembered that golden era. Here’s Dr Ziggy Switkowski, who at the time was head of the Prime Minister’s nuclear task force:
The French in 15 years went from zero reactors to 59 reactors and 80% of their electricity is nuclear. — ABC
Now we don’t even dream of success. If we had started in 2007, Australia could have had ten plants finished already.
Back in the 1970s and 80’s eh? Wow look at that take off…
The first nuclear plant in France was built by the EDF in 1962. Then the 1972 oil crisis put a rocket under the industry. So Prime Minister Pierre Messmer came up with a plan to build an unbelievable 170 nuclear plants by 2000.
Theanphibian https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_in_France.svg
By the mid 1980s it was clear that would not happen, but not for the reasons you might think. The problem was not that they weren’t building plants fast enough, but that they were building them too fast. Demand wasn’t rising fast enough to keep up. The plants are most efficient running at 80-90% but by […]
Strategically, this seems like it matters.
The French nuclear power plants are the backbone of the EU grid, but this winter, just when Europe is trying to not-buy-Russian-Gas, the French might need to import power instead of export it.
France runs off 70% nuclear power — it’s highest proportion in the world, and the second largest fleet — after the USA. For some reason, known only to international bankers or Renewable Gods, Early in Macron’s reign, he decided to reduce the carbon-free reliable nukes to just 50% by 2035 and fill the gap with short-lived, unreliable generators that cost a lot, need storage, backup, rare metals from China and slave labor from the Congo. Perhaps he was afraid (or whoever it was that helped him get elected) that France would show up all the schmuck-countries going to renewables?
But then the gas crisis started in Europe last October, and like clockwork, in November President Macron muttered the words “energy independence” and belatedly announced that it wasn’t such a bad idea to build some new nuclear plants. As things got more serious, in late February the French nuclear safety authority decided to extend the life of the 32 oldest reactors for […]
Do EV’s make good reefs?
h/t to Paul Homewood who notes The BBC didn’t mention the burning lithium battery story.
The Felicity Ace cargo ship caught fire on Wednesday last week:
German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that an internal email from Volkswagen USA stated that the ship was carrying 3,965 vehicles of the VW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini brands.
It’s not clear if the fire started in an EV battery but once the flames got into them, the ship was abandoned to burn.
According to a study done in 2013 by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building, and Urban Development, the batteries burn extremely hot and produce noxious gases.
“In the event of a lithium ion battery catching fire, it is important to note that such a fire reaches very high temperatures, produces toxic gases and is inextinguishable,” the report concluded. — The Independent
Five days later the fire has finally run out of material to consume.
Now Felicity Burnt. | Reuters
Luxury cars on fire on cargo ships is a thing now
March 12th, 2019: The Grande America caught fire with 2,000 luxury cars on board and sank.
[…]
It’s not even winter yet but suddenly all eyes are on the gas prices
Gas through the roof…
Thanks to fear of climate change voodoo many nations in the EU have effectively stopped exploring for gas and decided not to frack their shale deposits to get cheap gas too. (In Australia too). Vainglorious governments aimed to change the weather instead of having cheap electricity and lo, wind-towers were built everywhere.
What could possibly go wrong? Nearly everything.
Even the massive size of the European market hasn’t saved them from price rises so large that retail suppliers are collapsing, and fertilizer factories are closing.
Its a great way to give your enemies the upper hand
The wind drought in spring and summer meant that wind farms failed. Then the Russians squeezed gas supply in to the EU looking suspiciously like they were hoping to push up prices and pressure Germany into approving the controversial Nordstream 2 pipeline. Now the Kremlin is suggesting a quick approval will alleviate the gas shortage (they’re just trying to help). In the latest news one large interconnector between the UK and France has suffered a fire and broken down and won’t be restored til […]
From Pierre Gosselin at No Tricks Zone:
Germany needs 80GW of electricity. It has 40GW of installed solar PV.
See the graph: The red line is what the country used, and the orange bumps are the solar contribution.
Clearly, solar power will take over the world.
…
In December, Germany got ten hours of sunlight. That’s not a daily figure, that’s the whole month. So in summer on a sunny day, solar PV can make half the electricity the nation needs for lunch. In winter, almost nothing. From fifty percent, to five percent.
Imagine what kind of havoc this kind of energy flux can do. Not one piece of baseload capital equipment can be retired, despite the fact that half of it is randomly unprofitable depending on cloud cover. Solar PV eats away the low cost competitive advantage. Capital sits there unused, spinning on standby, while wages, interest, and other costs keep accruing. So hapless baseload suppliers charge more for the hours that they do run, making electricity more expensive.
They just need batteries with three months supply. It will be fine once Germany turns the state of Thuringia into a redox unit.
Read about it: Dark Days […]
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