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Hoping to change the weather has consequences, and so does printing lots of money:
In the UK they’re being told they might have to avoid using appliances at home from 2pm-8pm this winter and cook dinner after that (your circadian rhythm be damned). Who wants to tuck the kids in without a hot meal? Energy prices are so high pubs are already closing early. Nearly one in four households in the UK say they are planning to not turn heating on this winter because they can’t afford it (and that was before the latest shocking price rise). In a taste of things to come, people are starting to be admitted to hospital because their energy was cut off. The NHS is asking hospital staff to turn of equipment and lights and warns that care may even have to be rationed because of soaring energy bills. People with electric cars may be asked not to charge them til after everyone has cooked dinner. It’s complicated saving the world.
In Europe, the gas storage is nearly 80% full which would cover Europe’s energy use in a normal winter for about three months. But half of Europe’s aluminum and zinc smelters […]
Blistering high prices flow through the interconnectors too.
The energy price cap in the UK is now predicted to reach the £6,552 in April. Pretty soon only the Royal family will be able to afford electricity. If this continues, inflation in the UK may hit 18% by January.
As Javier Blas says: Day-ahead electricity prices in Europe are eye-watering, with lots of countries setting record highs for today. Notable to see the Nordics close to €400 per MWh, and Germany at €600. Before 2020, anything above €75-100 was considered expensive
It doesn’t matter who has the wind turbines, and who has the coal or nuclear power, everyone connected to junk generators gets expensive electricity. Denmark has more “free” wind power than nearly anywhere in the world but they are still paying €600+.
@JavierBlas
Meanwhile the German Energy Minister has decided he really should close the last three nuclear plants. Apparently it would only save 4% of their total gas bills, he says, not the 15% they need — like turning down a jerry can of fuel because it won’t fill the whole tank. I guess he’s not the one having cold showers.
Imagine how different […]
Power and gas prices in Germany more than doubled in just two months, with year-ahead electricity at a blazing 570 Euro per megawatt-hour. Two years ago, it was 40 euros. It’s summer but electric heaters sales are already up 1000 percent and online searches for Firewood are running hot. In the UK — householders are facing bills in the order of £5000 a year — (like $10,000, after tax) people are described as being in “pre-panic mode” already. Some are starting to turn off freezers, giving up toast and showering every second day. Shops and Pubs are closing, consumer confidence is at an all time record low, the most depressed in the last 48 years consumer confidence has been measured for.
European Power Smashes Records as Energy Crisis Intensifies
by Todd Gillespie, Bloomberg
This week’s prices are “unbelievable,” analysts at Energi Danmark wrote in a note. “The rally on the gas and coal market and the very high spot prices we see this week have given the already elevated market further momentum.”
German year-ahead power, a benchmark for Europe, is on a nine-day rising streak. The contract rose 6.1% to a record […]
Normally in a prewar situation a country might be increasing industrial production
h/t Rafe Champion
Russia has cut gas supply again, arguing over the German paperwork, after Canada dithered on sending the last turbine back, and Poland reneged on some dividends. Everyone is playing poker with energy, even if some of them didn’t count their cards before they started — and gas is predictably, hitting new record prices. But even before the ante was upped in the latest round, 15% of German industry were already cutting production. Many others are planning to or were considering moving. People are starting to wonder if this might be a permanent loss for the famous German industrial power.
In other news, rather frantic landlords in Germany want to be able to legally restrict temperatures of their tenants units. Someone has got to pay that gas bill, and just asking tenants to take shorter showers doesn’t seem to be working.
Now they tell us:
“Gas is now not only part of Russia’s foreign policy, but possibly also part of the Russian war strategy,” said [Klaus Müller, the president of Germany’s Federal Network Agency, Bundesnetzagentur]
If only someone saw that coming, like say, in […]
If we measure the vibrancy of an economy by its energy use, the EU peaked in 2006 and is down 10%. The UK, alas has fallen even further and faster and is down 30%.
John Constable at the GWPF has produced a damning report on Europe’s Green Experiment and remarked that there hasn’t been a fall in energy this large “since the end of the late middle ages”.
Effectively, the EU paid €770 billion to export it’s carbon emissions and jobs to China and import nearly everything else.
The study shows that up until 2005 the EU’s energy consumption was on a rising trend, but it has now fallen by over 10% on the 2006 peak, and is now back at levels last seen in the 1990s. The UK is even more severely affected, with consumption falling by about 30% on its peak in the early 2000s and is now at levels last seen in the 1950s. Further analysis reveals that electricity generation productivity has collapsed, with system load factor falling from an adequate 56% in 1990 to a worryingly inefficient and expensive 37% in 2020. A trillion dollars in subsidies to renewables — mostly paid by the EU
It […]
Germany is getting more medieval by the minute
In the latest news the Cities and Municipalities Association is urging local officials to plan for public halls to be used as emergency “warm up spaces” when winter comes. With families needing to find an extra €3,800 to pay the energy bills many people won’t be able to afford electricity or gas.
Welcome to the renewables future where lights are dimmer, there’s no hot water at schools and public swimming pools are closed, but town halls are open so people can survive the night.
Renewables supply nearly half of German power demand in first half 2022.
Germany’s Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) and the Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW) said on Monday that renewables had covered around 49% of gross domestic electricity consumption over the period.
The claim of “half” is still inflated. If we remove hydroelectricity and biomass, in the last six months all forms of wind and solar power have produced 35% of the electricity (on a random come-and-go basis).
Meanwhile in related news Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in the world at 35c/KWh (USD).
Germany Plans ‘Warm […]
Tell the children: Energy is Power
And show them this graph. For twenty years the West has been giving up power.
OWID Click to enlarge
A warning from John Constable and Debra Lieberman, Special to Financial Post
The energy of nations and the creation of wealth
Countries where energy consumption is plummeting don’t feel much pain … yet. And there is a good reason for that. One country is increasing its energy use, propping up Western consumption with exports and giving us a false sense of well-being. That country is, of course, China.
Since the West began its energy starvation diet, Chinese energy consumption has increased by over 50 per cent and its electricity consumption has increased by 200 per cent, overtaking the U.S. by a large margin. China, unlike the EU, U.K. and U.S., is still 90 per cent reliant on fossil fuels and nuclear. What’s more, only some of the immense wealth these fuels are generating is being exported. What is China doing with the rest? Time will tell.
But right now, as a matter of urgency, we must reverse the decline in Western energy quality and consumption […]
In Germany, praise be to Gaia, it’s Green to knock down a forest that has sat undisturbed for a thousand years to put wind farms in, and then plant saplings in a fake forest somewhere else as a carbon sink.
When will the environmentalists realize they have been taken for a ride by investment bankers and the renewables industry? Let’s help them speed up that “transition”. There’s a Red-pill moment here. File the story of the Reinhardswald, “fairy-tale forest” away for those moments when a teenager turns up to tell you how important it is to save old growth forest. Exactly, you can say… would you like too help stop the latest rapacious attack on rare heritage forest?
Being “Green” is nothing more than a badge people wear to their weekend dinner party.
NoTricksZone has reported on this environmental crime in February 2022 when the access roads started to go in. In the latest news Swiss NZZ Daily has described it as the absurdity of the German energy transition:
In the fall, the Documenta management planted oaks in the fairytale Reinhardswald near Kassel to save the climate. Now the forest is to give way to wind turbines, which […]
What a contrast. Victoria Australia and the Northern Territory are sacking thousands of teachers for not getting their third injection. And in Western Australia, from tomorrow, the unvaccinated will be allowed to dance in packed nightclubs, but they still can’t go to work and earn money to support their families, for “health reasons” (the health of Pfizer?).
Meanwhile, Denmark is going to pause vaccinations entirely:
Denmark has said it is suspending its widespread Covid-19 vaccination campaign. All remaining Covid restrictions were lifted in the country in February. Noting that the epidemic was under control and that vaccination levels were high, the Danish Health Authority said the country was in a “good position”. “Therefore we are winding down the mass vaccination programme against Covid-19,” said Bolette Soborg, director of the authority’s department of infectious diseases.
Around 81% of Denmark’s 5.8 million inhabitants have received two doses of the vaccine and 61.6% have also received a booster. Denmark noted a drop in the number of new infections and stable hospitalisation rates.
They say they may bring it back some vaccinations in autumn.
9.7 out of 10 based on 38 ratings […]
It’s was the last chance to save The Planet, but nevermind?
Get ready for the Great Reenergize-ment, we’ve reached a tipping point. Even the elite believers know a real threat when they see one. The ruling class, sitting on cushy taxpayer salaries, weren’t threatened by higher fuel prices and carbon taxes, but Russian missiles are another thing. Only a few months ago we had only “ten years til the next mass extinction”. Now, everything coal is good again, and years of pompous energy policies are on fire.
In normal times these would be monster headline backflips with mass protests in the streets from fifteen-year-old school-skippers.
Hat tip to NetZeroWatch
Germany to fire up mothballed coal power stations
By Matt Oliver, The Telegraph
One of Europe’s biggest energy companies is preparing to bring a string of German coal power stations out of retirement as part of efforts to wean the country off Russian gas.
These include plants that have been decommissioned, those that are scheduled to go off-grid this year and others that are currently kept on standby.
Robert Habeck, Scholz’s economy minister, has insisted there will be “no taboos”, throwing into […]
All it took was a War.
Policies based on fashion can be dead-set one day and gone the next. Until Saturday Germany was about to close its last nuclear power plants, gas production had been falling for 20 years and it planned to phase out coal plants by 2030.
Germany was the largest energy consumer in Europe, but was also determined to pursue Energiewende, the policy of transitioning from fossil fuels.
On Sunday all that changed:
Nuclear, coal, LNG: ‘no taboos’ in Germany’s energy about-face
By Christoph Steitz, Riham Alkousaa and Maria Sheahan, Reuters
In a landmark speech on Sunday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz spelled out a more radical path to ensure Germany will be able to meet rising energy supply and diversify away from Russian gas, which accounts for half of Germany’s energy needs.
“The events of the past few days have shown us that responsible, forward-looking energy policy is decisive not only for our economy and the environment. It is also decisive for our security,” Scholz told lawmakers in a special Bundestag session called to address the […]
If there was a sign of a major problem with energy policy it might look just like this:
In the EU for most of the last ten years gas prices were €20. Last week they spiked to €180. Prices have come down in the last few days as a flotilla of 15 US tankers crosses the Atlantic to rescue the EU and some Russian troops departed from the border near Ukraine.
Who needs gas? Everyone apparently… | Source: Trading Economics
It’s heartwarming to see the US tankers on the way:
US Tankers headed for EU
No sign the EU governments get the message:
What will it take? The Netherlands announced that they will limit coal stations and pay them not to produce electricity most of the time in the hope of stopping floods and droughts:
Dutch Government will limit coal-fired power stations to just 35% capacity from January 1.
Dutch coal-fired power stations may not operate at more than 35% of their maximum capacity in the coming years. “In the short term, this will lead to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions at coal-fired power stations of approximately 6-7 megatons,” the Ministry […]
The COP 26 organizers must be quaking in their chardonnay. Just when they need all the usual hyped up wind powered record headlines, they’re getting headlines of record gas prices, rocketing inflation, and industries thinking about shutting down.
Welcome to the Green Revolution:
UK industry could face shutdowns as wholesale gas price hits record high
Rob Davies and Joanna Partridge, The Guardian
…
Wholesale gas prices hit new all-time highs on Wednesday, prompting warnings that factories could be forced to shut down over winter or switch to more polluting fuels just as the UK hosts the Cop26 climate conference next month.
Trade body UK Steel said it was now “uneconomic” to make steel at certain times in the UK, with British firms facing double the electricity prices paid by rivals in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
Don’t say “oil” say “polluting fuels that had been abandoned”:
Paul Pearcy, the federation coordinator at the trade body British Glass, said companies that make windows could be forced to revert to powering their furnaces with polluting fuels that had been abandoned.
British Glass makers are thinking of using fuel oil again because gas […]
Some great Green plans are starting to come undone and it’s not even winter yet
But it is just in time for a reality check on COP26.
Europe’s energy crunch is continuing, as gas storage volumes have shrunk to 10-year lows. In the UK 12 energy companies have collapsed this year leaving 2.2 million customers stranded without an electricity provider. Things are so bad the Dutch government is thinking of reopening the Groningen gas field, Europe’s largest onshore gas field. This is a big backward step for the transition to magical energy. “Until recently, the plan was that Groningen would be closed completely by 2023, ending the large-scale gas production and export by the Netherlands with a bang.”
There are even thoughts of switching back to coal. Drax is suddenly talking about keeping some coal plants running a bit longer, something that would have been blasphemy a few months ago.
Across Europe and Asia — the energy crisis runs amok
No one can blame Brexit for food shortages in Brussels:
https://twitter.com/hermannkelly/status/1442901773958582274
But people can blame Green policies for energy pain
Kate Andrews: Britain’s weak energy security puts net zero in doubt The Daily Telegraph, 29 […]
The irony — the renewables propaganda was so overdone that the EU and UK got caught with their pants down without enough stable fossil fuel powered electricity. European investors were so afraid gas and coal would be stranded assets that they stopped building reliable power generators. Russia supported the “anti-frack” movement in the West in order to sabotage competition, and now wants to squeeze a hot deal on its Big New Pipeline, so it has reduced the gas supply, so gas prices are headed for record highs and businesses are collapsing, food shortages are predicted. In the short run coal is being reinstated — Drax is thinking of keeping coal plants running. But the only long term path out of the Green-Energy-Quicksand without breaking the sacred “anti-carbon-dioxide” jinx is with nuclear power.
So thus, the greedy power grab and profiteering by the renewables industry, the globalists, the Chinese, the Russians and the Greens may force out cheap coal in the long run, but accelerate the dawn of a new era of nuclear power.
Suddenly government love nuclear
Here come the Small Modular Reactors:
Dawning of Britain’s ‘new nuclear age’: Gas crisis prompts ministers to ‘change focus’ with Kwasi Kwarteng poised […]
Arson must be one of the easiest crimes to hide by anyone half competent, but in Greece arrests are already happening. People were caught with cans of gasoline. There are so many fires, the Supreme Court prosecutor has called for an investigation into possible organised arson and is asking for sweeping investigative powers. On social media people are blaming arsonists and slow or inept government responses.
In Media-World, people are blaming climate change, because if the world was a degree cooler, the fires would put themselves out or something. Who knows?
Coincidentally, over in Algeria, strange things are happening too. The Interior Minister says 50 fires were started at the same time. In Turkey, recent arson is suspected to be a terrorist activity. A few days ago the Israeli airforce bombed Hamas targets to “counter #arson attacks“. And in California a professor of criminology was actually tracked, caught and arrested for setting fires “on the edge” of the huge Dixie blaze. He might be nuts, but the others may have a plan. Has anyone asked them?
Apparently CO2 turns nice people into arsonists, but it’s surely also possible there may be other interests at work, or who knows, even […]
With great sympathy for all our European friends. It’s like European history doesn’t exist.
In 1717 on Christmas Eve a flood started that killed 14,000 people and spread across the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. It was followed by savage frosts, and more floods in February of 1718.
So much for the theory that solar panels, windmills, or global cooling will save us from floods.
In the Little Ice Age, the floods were vast, common, and very, very cold.
Daily Mail, Christmas Floods 1717
How one of the most devastating storms in European history killed 13,700 people in 1717
Daily Mail, Dec 2017
On a chilly Christmas Eve three centuries ago, one of the most devastating storms in the history of Europe smashed into the coastlines around the North Sea, killing over 13,000 people, annihilating thousands of houses and wrecking countless farms.
The apocalyptic weather caused enormous floods to submerge coastal areas in the Netherlands, Northern Germany and Denmark by Christmas Day.
As the surviving population struggled with the wind and the waves, Arctic gales spread across the continent and caused a crippling frost to descend on […]
Is this the future of wind all over the world? The salad days of wind power in Germany are over. Bad news is rolling in from several directions. Twenty years of hope-n-subsidies has run aground. Profits are grinding down, and hardly any new towers are being erected. People are fighting back against the noise, the views, and the bird chopping. Conservationists might like the idea of wind, as long as it’s in someone else’s forest. Suddenly groups that oppose wind towers are gaining traction, and the red tape and legal battles have grown wings and settled on new developments like a bat plague.
New turbines are now supposed to be two kilometers from any home, and there just isn’t enough spare land to build them on. German wind farms are running out of Germany.
If only they were profitable and provided an essential service, they might still have friends.
Wind energy in crisis as expansion stalls in Germany
Alex Reichmuth; Nebelspalter, via GWPF
Lengthy planning and approval procedures stand in the way of the expansion of wind energy. There is too little designated space for possible locations and too many lawsuits against projects. The resistance to […]
God’s joke on governments that try to control the climate with their electricity grid:
Europe talks itself out of building gas plants in order to stop global warming, then after an extra cold winter, they also run out of gas, and now they have to go back to burning coal.
Spooked investors weren’t funding many gas plants now that the glorious renewable era was here and policy makers were all wearing their Hydrogen badges, and waving their carbon capture wands. In the last year all the geniuses of the European Investment Bank, the IEA, the European Commission were saying “gas is over” and it would be a stranded asset.
One month ago, Nina Chestney was predicting a gas supply crunch:
Gas faces existential crisis in climate wary Europe
May 14, 2021, , Reuters
Europe faces the prospect of higher electricity bills and a supply crunch, as utilities struggle to finance new gas-fired power plants unless they meet tougher emissions criteria imposed by banks pressured to stop financing fossil-fuel projects.
…Gas projects worth some 30 billion euros were cancelled, delayed or indefinitely postponed last year as they struggled to find funding.
The […]
Most Cantons in Switzerland voted “No”.
The Swiss just voted down their governments plan to change the weather with increased car and airline taxes, albeit by only 51.6 to 48.4. That nearly half the population voted yes is testament to thirty years of non-stop propaganda, and the near complete suppression of skeptics.
Imagine what the vote would have have been if they allowed skeptics equal air time and funded skeptical scientists even at 10% the rate the believer-modelers get?
BBC reporters were shocked:
Swiss voters reject key climate change measures Switzerland’s policy on fighting climate change has been thrown into doubt after voters rejected key measures in a popular vote.
A referendum saw voters narrowly reject the government’s plans for a car fuel levy and a tax on air tickets.
The measures were designed to help Switzerland meet targets under the Paris Agreement on climate change.
But no one mentioned this on the ABC or SBS news tonight. Instead they told us “Australia is increasingly isolated” for the 440th time.
A huge shock
By Imogen Foulkes, BBC News, Bern
The no-vote to limiting emissions is a huge shock. The Swiss […]
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