The energy thread

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Mixed reaction from me.

He bases on a false assumption, I think, that is the 200 bn were money actually produced by German economic productivity, so: so a positive saldo. In fact its new debts with numbers made out of nothing but thin air, its not somebody else's spared consume like I give you an apple because i dont eat it: you get your apple instaed by making it dropping off the sky out of nowhere. This new debt (and they have raised several enormous debt fonds and relabelled them as anything but "debt") will feed back on Germany economy in the future, negatively. Second,He implies that ordinary average housholds that now have consumed up all their saving alrready and are in danger of needing to raise their own private debts by credit, would have suddenly, due to the payout form these aids, additonal money left to consume and go shopping in other nation'S economies. Thjis is not true, most people do not have additonal more buying power, but these aids are meant to porevent them from falling into deeper debts if they already are in debts, or starting toi ake debts. In both casdes these households mostly will barely keepo floating on the water instead of sinkling: they do not win the additonal buying power to start shopping frenzies.



He also seems to not have a problem with the packages by other nations. France for example paid indirect energy aids to its people in form of price caps worth 125 billion Euros. And Macorn showed no intention at all to instead use this money to form a fond for Europe and then user it to pay other nations, like he now demands Germany to do with these 200 billions of Germany.



Its about greed. Plain and simple old-fashioned classical greed, they want the Germans to not spend this money on Germany, but for their own nations instead. Being a good European means: give the others the money they demand from you. Additional to the 2 trillion TARGET 2 credit accountabilties for foreign nations (money we paid out for other central banks but will never get back for sure) , the enormous fundings Germany pays for the EU every ear, and many bilateral payouts it has granted to many European nations over the years in various "projects".


This maker of this film should ask himself: what will happen to the European Union if Germany fails to restabilise its economy, and the German engine in the EU machinery stops working? who then will pay the bills and be accoutnable for a huge share of the 26 other nation's credits and debts?



Then all others will come to a grinding halt.



So if you want to be angry about germany, then for this: with its incompetent energy policies and its stupid China policy and its unwillingness to correct its suicidal dependency from exporting, Germany is provoking right this: that the German economy comes to a crashing halt and pulls everybody else in the EU down with it. Instead the EU yells: "Green Deal!" Stupid. Who sits in a glass house, should not throw with stones. The madness of the EU is not much smaller than that of the Germans. The EU has just announced it wants all cars electric in 2035, no gaosline engiones anymore then. This is nothing else but a policy that secures that Europe will be completely depending on China, helplessly.



To lend from a famous American quote on the dollar's role in the world- "Its our economy - but your problem."



I recently read an opinion piecv eby a British historian whoa rgued that the delcine of the UK did not begin with Brexit, but already with WW2. I think he is right. In a comparable way I think Germany too is on a long steady way down since reunification. Somewhere in the second half of thios century neiether the EU nor Germany will play any signfiocant role on worl,.d pltics and eocnomics anymore, but will be the playing ball of other powers. The joke of it is: it wouldn't have been necessary to come that way at all. Its self-chosen, self made fate. Not necessity, but choice motivated by too many illusions and denial of reality on too many occasions.


Where the author is right is that Russia will benefit if Europe crashes fincially due to iuts debts and inflation. Both are unsustainable, no matter what stupid lefty eggheads try to sell the world in fairy tale theories. Keynes was wrong back then, and he still is today. And that drama is not caused by Putin, the lack of fiscal discipline and economic understanding of the nature of money is something the Europeans have acchieved all by themselves.

[Skybird]

The AdG writes about germany's immediate and middleterm energy future:
-------------------
Finance Minister Lindner has put an end to the FDP's brief rebellion toward a reality-based energy policy. Just a few weeks ago, the news said: "The FDP, on the other hand, is pushing for the continued operation of all three remaining German nuclear power plants until 2024. If there was still hope that by April 15, the last day of the three remaining nuclear power plants, the FDP could bring reason into government policy, Lindner put an end to the hopes of reason with his statement on November 3: The question is "now simply decided, you also have to say, now is the end.

What changes on 15.4.2023 that one can do without 4,500 MW of nuclear energy?
It is worth looking at the expansion of renewable energies, which is being driven forward with all its might. Planned wind power plants will have to participate in tenders organized by the Federal Network Agency. So far this year, the first year of the traffic lights, about 3,000 MW of onshore wind power plants have been awarded contracts to be built over the next few years (see here). That's about 7 terawatt hours of electricity. But there will be about 35 terawatt-hours of nuclear power dropped on 4/15/2023. At this rate, it will take five years to replace the amount of nuclear power that will be eliminated. However, with the significant disadvantage that the electricity will come when the wind sees fit and not necessarily when we have demand.

Why is the demand for permits for new wind power plants so low (as recently as 2014-2016, there were twice as many per year)? The cost of wind energy is essentially materials and capital costs. The massive increase in material costs is a result of the global increase in energy costs. The components of wind turbines such as rolling bearings (steel), magnets (copper and rare earths), rotor blades (fiberglass-reinforced plastics) have become so expensive, especially in this country, that the end of Germany as a production location is now threatening for wind energy after the "end" of the solar industry. Of the ten largest wind turbine manufacturers, seven come from China. In addition, the interest on capital has now quadrupled, making it possible to generate electricity from wind energy for 5.88 €ct/kwh (this is the guaranteed feed-in tariff) only in particularly windy areas. It is already foreseeable what the green lobby will demand after the nuclear power plants have been shut down: the increase of the guaranteed feed-in tariff.

However, there will probably not be a collapse of the power supply on 16.4.2023, because the traffic lights have, after all, brought all the coal-fired power plants that are still available online. Replacing nuclear energy with coal significantly increases CO2 emissions in Germany. This is the result of green policies. In addition, the high price level in Germany will become entrenched, because coal and gas-fired power plants were made expensive with the high European CO2 emission certificates. Instead of lowering CO2 certificate prices in the time of the energy crisis, they prefer to distribute tax money to households and businesses.

How many more double whammies can we afford? After all, it is clear that the supply of electricity in Germany will be too tight for years to come due to a lack of power plant capacity. The companies know this, and they are not impressed by the slogans of the German government. 55 percent of invoices in the chemical industry are no longer paid on time. BASF has to cope with additional energy costs of €2.2 billion and announces job cuts. Investments in China, on the other hand, are being stepped up. In China, a kilowatt hour costs 2-3 €ct. No subsidy policy can compensate for this disparity without also eroding the state finances in the end. The simple answer would be to increase the supply of cheap electricity through nuclear power plants, domestic fracked gas production, and green coal plants. The government really believes it can make ends meet through wind and solar power, which today represent about 5 percent of primary energy. If that doesn't change, the result will be a massive deindustrialization of Germany. I'm afraid there are also some in the traffic lights who have no problem with that at all.

Renaissance of coal


Germany is not the only country to return to coal. Italy, the Netherlands, Greece and Hungary are also reactivating closed coal-fired power plants - all countries that had relied on gas. Already in the first half of the year, EU coal consumption increased by 10 percent; in the second half, it will be significantly more. "Germany will be the largest contributor to the increase," says the International Energy Agency (IEA). All of these countries had still insisted on the phase-out for coal at the 2021 UN climate conference in Glasgow. It was only through the intervention of China and India that the compromise of "phase down" rather than "phase out" was agreed upon. But even in India and China, it looks like anything but a phase down for coal. Seventy percent of the world's coal use is in China and India. China will build more coal-fired power plants by 2025 than the U.S. has in its inventory. India will increase its coal fleet by 25 percent by 2030. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had called for CO2 emissions to be cut in half by 2030. But three-quarters of the world's CO2 emissions come from coal-fired power plants (nearly 30 billion tons out of 40 billion tons total).

China burns more coal than the rest of the world. Last year alone, it was six percent more. Some of the emissions are in the goods that China exports, e.g. in the batteries of supposedly low-CO2 e-cars, which, according to the EU, may be offered exclusively from 2035 onwards for climate protection reasons. However, e-cars with Chinese batteries will emit more CO2 than cars with combustion engines for years to come. The consequences of the strong demand for coal have consequences: Coal prices have increased six-fold compared to 2020.

Will LNG help us next year?

The IEA fears a 30 billion m³ shortfall of gas in Europe next year, putting storage replenishment for the winter after next at risk. The marginal additional volumes of LNG appearing on the world market will be tapped by China at 85 percent. China had reduced gas imports by 15 percent as recently as this year because the Chinese economy needed less gas due to the COVID lockdown policy. It should also be remembered that as recently as August of this year, imports of Russian pipeline gas helped fill storage. IEA head Fatih Birol: "Europe faces an even bigger challenge next winter." One thing is certain: gas prices will rise again next year.

The German government should know all this. Whether it also lets us know it is another matter after the falsification of the audit notes from the Ministry of Economics on the nuclear energy phase-out by the minister himself. It should also know that, according to a report by Norway's Rystad Energy, the production and transport of LNG releases ten times as much CO2 emission equivalent as pipeline gas. A major factor is the energy required to cool the gas to minus 160 degrees Celsius. Replacing Russian natural gas with pipeline gas would produce an additional 35 million metric tons of CO2, the report says. That's almost as many emissions as the 15 million diesel cars in Germany emit.

What are the politicians doing?

It could be the great hour of Christian Lindner, who has called for a quick start to fracking for shale gas in Germany. But who still believes a word Lindner says? If it comes to conflict with the Greens, he will fall over again. He prefers to rely on freedom energies like wind power (Lindner).

A smart German government in terms of energy policy would have long since further developed green coal use, i.e. coal-fired power plants with CO2 capture (CCS), and would have implemented the recommendations of the report of the Fracking Commission, which has been before the German Bundestag since June 2021 (!) and is not being discussed there. To make the ignorance of the German Bundestag clear, the Commission submitted its June 2021 report again to the German Bundestag in June 2022 with the remark :

"With the technical basis of the 2021 report already available, the expert commission believes that the examination of the German Bundestag on the appropriateness of the ban on fracking in unconventional deposits (according to § 13a paragraph 1, Water Resources Act, WHG) can be carried out." (June 2022) What do you say to such ignorance by elected officials in a fundamental gas and electricity crisis? A smart FDP would have made this report the focus of an energy policy debate long ago.


But we don't have a smart German government in terms of energy policy, not for 10 years, at least since nuclear energy research was abolished in the Atomic Energy Act (2011), CCS was banned in Germany (2012) and so was fracking (2017). With CCS, we could be more relaxed about the trend of increased coal use in China and India. Instead, since Merkel's exit from nuclear energy and coal, energy policy has become nothing more than a creed.

One relied in this faith on green advisors like those of AGORA-Energiewende [a national lobby organization, Skybird] AGORA's leaders are now at the levers of power, showing after just one year that they are well on their way to ruining Germany's strong economy.
-------------------------

[Skybird]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...ty-starvation/


A sisngle case illustration from germayn for the above: some days agao media rweprted the first detah in Germany, a man who died from legionellas in the houses'S tap water. The hosue amanagement had redcued warm water and heating temperatures that the germs no longer got reliably killed inbside the pipes and the water. They multiplkied to levels that they were able to overwhelm the man's immune system.


I preicted such cases alreadsy mon ths ago. I also said that ther eis mor eproblems to be expected from fiunghi and mould spöreadin g in rooms and houses and goign deep into the walls if room tempertaures go below 18-19°C. Even more so sicne today the fully isolate dmmodenr homes in germany no longer have fucntional air exhcnage between inside and outside. You cannot reliably prevent these unwanted things to happen by openign windows every couple of hours for few minutes and cretaign air stream. The physics of air streaming inside most appartments with furniture at the walls are such that a sufficient exchange of too humid and too cold air cannot take place in full, it even can help to support the spread of funghi and mould. Your energy advisors all will jusat happen to forget to tell you. If they even know this heretic truth. Most do not, and live by the pure gospel only.



Hot water in the heating system must have a minimum temperature (they now reocmmend to ignore). Room temperature must stay above a certain treshhold level (which they now reocmmend you tio ignore).



Maybe drinking every day a glass of chlorine to desinfect your blood from funghi and mould and legionellas does the trick to save if not yourself then at least the planet. In the new fake-is-the-same-as-fact world order, evertyhing has become possible.

[em2nought]

Always have to get your dig in at Trump don't you?

[Skybird]

With the Donald being all over the place again, its impossible not to hit him, no matter what direction you blindly shoot at.

[Jimbuna]

Why high UK energy bills were decades in the making

In a year of soaring electricity bills and fears of blackouts, energy has become the subject of a bitter blame game.

The world is in the grip of a global energy crisis, sharply exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and the strain that has placed on the supply of gas, a major resource.

But household energy costs are higher in the UK than almost anywhere else in Europe. How has it come to this?

Looking back at decades of political decisions, former energy ministers and industry experts have told the BBC where they think some mistakes were made.





https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63477214

[Skybird]

In German only, the whole thing is interactive. The NZZ has calculated, what wind farm operators try to keep secret: the utilization levels of wind turbines throughout Germany.

To call the result sobering would be an understatement. It will now take completely new and greater drilling depths for the head-in-the-sand-sticking-game not to get irritated by the nasty, uncooperative reality.

Probably sooner or later this page will disappear again behind a paywall, but for the moment it is still visible:


https://www.nzz.ch/visuals/windkraft...ege-ld.1710681

[Jimbuna]

You are required to register after five seconds or so.

[Jimbuna]

Germany joins other European countries in exiting the Energy Charter Treaty

Germany announced Friday that it will leave the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an initiative from which countries such as France, the Netherlands and Poland have also withdrawn for standing in the way of the climate targets set in Paris.

"We are consistently aligning trade policy with climate protection and are therefore withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty," Franziska Brantner, State Secretary at the Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, Franziska Brantner, said on her official Twitter profile.

In another message on the same social network, she stressed that this is an "important" measure for Berlin, since it comes in the context of the holding of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) in Egypt.

"In addition, we are serious about diversification and we want to quickly establish partnerships with Chile and Mexico that allow free and fair trade," he said, adding that Germany will ratify the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada, while deepening cooperation with the United States.

For his part, the deputy head of the parliamentary group of the Free Democrats, Lukas Koehler, explained that "in the face of the growing threat of authoritarian regimes, we must strengthen economic relations with our allies in the Western community of values," according to Bloomberg.

Likewise, Andreas Audretsch, a member of parliament for the Greens, emphasized that "the numerous demands for billions demonstrate the extent to which the Energy Charter Treaty stands in the way of climate protection", as reported by Bloomberg.

The ECT allows energy companies, especially those involved in fossil fuels, to sue countries in a court system if they consider the legislation to be against their interests. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called the treaty a "serious obstacle to climate change mitigation".
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...f3b3050b28cc8e

[Jimbuna]

National Grid announces plans to prevent blackouts: Will the lights really go out this winter, and for how long?

Millions of British households are expected to struggle with their energy bills this winter.

Issues with gas supplies have been well-documented over the past year following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Higher energy prices have started to be felt across the country, even with the introduction of the energy price guarantee.

Once this is reviewed in March, energy consultancy Cornwall Insight predicts the average consumer will pay £3,702 a year.

Unfortunately that's not where the problems end. Issues of supply are starting to mount ahead of a cold winter, leading to concerns the UK could face blackouts this winter and evoking memories of the 1970s.

Why is the UK at risk of blackouts this winter?

National Grid has warned households could lose power for up to three hours at a time this winter if supplies run really low.

This is mainly due to the emergency measures taken after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

While the UK is less reliant on Russian gas than Continental Europe, the squeeze on supplies will start to intensify the pressure on the UK power grid because of the lack of gas storage.

Although the UK has been exporting gas since late Spring to help European countries, the continuing lack of gas storage means there is a reliance on imports in the colder months.

Gareth Kloet, energy spokesperson for GoCompare says: 'About a third of our electric supply has come from the burning of gas in the past. So when it's restricted, like it is now, it becomes very expensive.

'We really have got an electricity problem because we will struggle to meet our peak demand periods. I don't want to sound overly alarmist… at this time of the year it's not a problem, but when we get a real peak, that could be problematic. That's why people are talking about blackouts.'

Gas isn't the only source of energy supply as the UK also has offshore wind capacity, but relying on the weather makes forecasting much harder.

'If demand outstrips supply you'll start to see power cuts. Then the question is how quickly you can bring back the supply in order to give enough people their energy,' says Kloet.

'If we have a very cold winter, it will put a lot of demand on the system… A lot of people are still working from home, people will want to heat their homes much more than before the pandemic. It's a lot of demand… [but] this will only really happen if we have a very cold winter.

'The perfect storm would be a Monday morning on a cold day. You'd have lots of demand from offices coming online, people at home putting their heating on, lots of businesses running, and it's cold. I think you could have problems with energy supply.

'If it just happened to be a particularly non-windy day across the whole of the country, so you lost wind power capability, that would be a problem.'

How likely are blackouts and how long could they last?

A milder October has helped to lower demand and provide the opportunity for storage to refill, meaning there is less pressure on the system.

While we might not see a public campaign encouraging people to cut their usage, the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) will run a 'Demand Flexibility Service' until March 2023.

This will pay households to reduce their usage during peak hours of the day to avoid blackouts across the UK

When will energy bills start to fall?

Gas prices have started to fall in recent weeks. The spot price of gas has fallen from record levels and is now similar to where it was 18 months ago.

Energy companies 'hedge' by buying gas and electricity well ahead of when it is needed. Suppliers will buy a certain amount of energy in advance to lock in the price and to reduce the risk of adverse price movements.

It means that our monthly bills don't reflect today's prices, but rather the wholesale cost from when the supplier first paid for the energy.

Cornwall Insight expects gas prices to remain high and volatile for quite some time and it will be heavily dependent on developments in the Russia-Ukraine war, international gas markets, LNG prices and prevailing weather conditions.

'Drivers at present predominantly highlight that gas prices are expected to remain high and volatile for the foreseeable,' the consultancy said this week.

Under a similar scheme launched last week, Ovo customers will be rewarded with up to £100 - £20 a month if they slash their energy use in peak times. Ovo has narrowed down its peak demand to between the hours of 4pm and 7pm, as its data shows that the average household uses 19 per cent of its daily total usage during these times.

'Natioal Grid have, over time, developed a lot of programmes to prevent these blackouts from happening,' says Guillaume Proost, founder of climate technology startup OakTree Power.

'I think we're certainly less at risk than other nations from that point of view. There is always a risk because of the intermittency of renewable energy. We rely increasingly on wind in the UK in particular.

'There is always a risk of blackouts, but I suspect that these risks are being extremely well managed and hopefully there will be an increasing participation from electricity consumers across the board, which will help National Grid to maintain stability.'

Energy consultancy Cornwall Insight has said the base case scenario currently is that there will be adequate power across the winter, and the ESO predicts demand to be lower than previously forecast.

This is in large part because prices continue to be high given ongoing storage concerns.

The Demand Flexibility Service was developed to encourage customers to cut their usage and give National Grid a bit more leeway at times of high demand. In the base case scenario, this service would be used for between 0 and 5 days according to Cornwall Insight.

In the event there is not enough gas because of a lack of imports from France, Netherlands and Belgium, contingency measures are in place, although Cornwall says a scenario where these would need to be called upon is 'highly unlikely'.

ESO has also agreed contracts with Drax, EDF and Uniper to extend the use of coal-fired power plants this winter until the end of March 2023.

Cornwall Insight says these units won't be contracted to the open market and 'are only intended to be used when all commercial options have been exhausted.'

However, it warns that without sufficient uptake of the flexibility service, especially during cold spells, some customers could well face interruption to their supply.

Another scenario could see negative supply surplus in the new year ,which would lead to more significant interruption. It could see the temporary implementation of something called 'rota load shedding' to control or reduce the demand for electricity, although the ESO sees this as unlikely.

Rota load shedding, also referred to as a rolling blackout, would mean some customers could be without power for pre-defined periods during a day, typically for three-hour blocks.

Businesses and emergency services will have back-up generators to ensure minimal disruption.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/othe...19ccfb64b89b5b

[August]

They can't keep the power on as it is and they want to force millions of electric cars onto the grid.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Skybird

With the Donald being all over the place again, its impossible not to hit him, no matter what direction you blindly shoot at.

Good one!

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Huhu, Robert - have your read the news?

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/21/e...eal/index.html

QatarEnergy chief Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters on Monday the firm signed a 27-year sales and purchase agreement with China’s Sinopec, the longest in the history of liquefied natural gas (LNG) deals.
“Today is an important milestone for the first sales and purchase agreement for North Field East project, it is 4 million tonnes for 27 years to Sinopec of China,” Kaabi said at an interview in Doha, shortly before the signing of the deal.
“It signifies long-term deals are here and important for both seller and buyer,” he said.

-------------------
There is also still no answer where all the needed additional LNG tankers should come from that Germany would need to ship and ride all for Germany only, in order to have its plan to partially (!) replace Russian gas with LNG working. Dozens of additonal tankers would be needed. There are 509-60 such tnaker sin the world currently. Germany would need to have a minimum of 38 (they said in summer) exclusively operating all for Germany all year long. And then we still would have replaced only a part of the Russian gas.