Good piece although a little.......confusing. What you might have missed is that gas reserves being "good" or "full" is largely irrelevant. Where I live in the UK, gas reserves are full....but apparently only account for 1% of the natural gas used by the UK in a year, a lot of which is used in winter. Germany's rerves are said to be 70-80% full, but again, completely full reserves only account for 25% of germany's annual natural gas consumption. So the problems truly are only just beginning. Numbers sourced from Doomberg.
I agree - with full credit to Doomberg, and using the UK as an example, the UK only has storage capacity to hold 2 weeks of UK annual natgas usage. So “nearly full storage” sounds great, until you ask “is your countries’ storage capacity sufficient for the entire heating season"? Not even close. Only the country of Austria has anywhere close to “complete winter” natgas storage
Oh, I wrote a special piece on the relevance of gas storage fullness based on those Doomberg numbers. This relevance or, as you rightly point out, absence thereof, is another thing that is being pointedly ignored.
Is it increasing economic activity? Is it increasing the continent's wealth? Or is it being a steward of the environment? Or a vehicle to deliver nebulous political objectives?
There is no right answer. All of the above are quasi-fascist, central-planning-and-execution approaches.
This barely works for a resource rich, low population Middle Eastern dictatorship. Its not going to work for a continent with 500mn ppl who speak 30 languages (or more)
UVDL & co are right that this particular winter will be more or less fine - because Europe gorged itself on Russian hydrocarbons throughout most of 2022 and is now pretending that they have been independent of said products for years.
Disasters of this scale don't happen overnight, nor do they happen in big, defining events that fit nicely into news articles. They happen gradually, everywhere, in bits and pieces, until you wake up one day and its 2025 and you wonder how the hell it got so bad so fast.
I agree with the gradual erosion concept. There's really no big bang breakdown event of one thing at one time. Because of the complex interweave of the 500 M economic actors It will deteriorate in increments and fractals. Widespread and diverse enough it'll be difficult for central planning Commissars to take it all in and to pin it on the one thing. They'll start looking for a culprit or three. The Law of Unintended Consequences plays out in unexpected and unfortunate ways. To put things into balance it sounds like a prescription for shortages, civil unrest, clampdowns, the rise of a despotic overlord (or tribunal) and a multi-front war to galvanize the underlings. Did I miss anything as this insanity morphs into the next William Gibson novel?
The over-arching objectives of the EC is obviously, call it by whatever you wish: The Great Reset, The New World Order, The Green Agenda, UN Agenda 2030, Globalism, The Rules-Based International Order. This is Global governance based on the Club of Rome Malthusian Agenda. They haven't been secret about it.
True and well put. The signs are there -- BASF saying it would permanently decimate activity in Germany, all those steel mills cutting activity, etc -- but only for those who are looking for them. Most people may well wake up in 2925 and wonder how it all got so bad so fast.
Thanks for pointing out that our wonderful Ursula declared that "Europe passed the winter test" when winter officially hasn't even started yet (21st December and yes, I'm a stickler for dates).
This is so petty and nitpicky of you, and I love it. Like you I'm a stickler for accuracy, especially when inaccuracy is being used in a deliberate way to mask facts. Heating season is NEVER three months, not even down here, where it's supposed to be warmer. It's more like six.
Irina, great piece. I note from the same Reuters article that Germany's support for energy is now "around 12% of national economic output." And when a nation "conserves" by shutting its fertilizer, chemical and manufacturing industries, national economic output becomes smaller. Here in the U.S. we await the polar vortex on its way from Siberia and wish for coal in our stockings. Like natural gas and oil, it is an organic fuel.
Crude oil and coal are organic compounds. But you will be censored by the thought police/truth police for using the word in this way even though technically correct. They have redefined “organic” to mean what they want it to mean and if you don’t use their definition then you are part of the problem.
I was told a story about some sort of academic gathering involving high school-age children most of whom became outraged when they were told CO2 is and has also been part of the air we breathe and that it's good for the planet.
Now this is something serious. Did parents complain? Because I would have. Teachers are a huge authority for children, which puts them in a position, from which they can manipulate their minds with extreme ease.
It puts the parents in a difficult situation. The school year was just beginning and they didn’t want their child singled out by the teacher for reprisals all year long. I haven’t followed up recently to see how they decided on what would cause the least harm to their child. If you decide to respond to their narrative, be ready for the consequences.
Germany's numbers are staggering, indeed. I keep wondering if those in charge truly believe they are fixing things or they know very well they are on a sinking ship and they're just pretending nothing is happening.
The way I read the situation is that Europe would be just fine without all of those Europeans and their petty bourgeoise concerns like heating their homes...
Never underestimate the ability of human beings to stay blind to something they don’t want to see!
Good piece although a little.......confusing. What you might have missed is that gas reserves being "good" or "full" is largely irrelevant. Where I live in the UK, gas reserves are full....but apparently only account for 1% of the natural gas used by the UK in a year, a lot of which is used in winter. Germany's rerves are said to be 70-80% full, but again, completely full reserves only account for 25% of germany's annual natural gas consumption. So the problems truly are only just beginning. Numbers sourced from Doomberg.
I agree - with full credit to Doomberg, and using the UK as an example, the UK only has storage capacity to hold 2 weeks of UK annual natgas usage. So “nearly full storage” sounds great, until you ask “is your countries’ storage capacity sufficient for the entire heating season"? Not even close. Only the country of Austria has anywhere close to “complete winter” natgas storage
Oh, I wrote a special piece on the relevance of gas storage fullness based on those Doomberg numbers. This relevance or, as you rightly point out, absence thereof, is another thing that is being pointedly ignored.
Irina,
Consider the over-arching objectives of the EC
Is it increasing economic activity? Is it increasing the continent's wealth? Or is it being a steward of the environment? Or a vehicle to deliver nebulous political objectives?
There is no right answer. All of the above are quasi-fascist, central-planning-and-execution approaches.
This barely works for a resource rich, low population Middle Eastern dictatorship. Its not going to work for a continent with 500mn ppl who speak 30 languages (or more)
UVDL & co are right that this particular winter will be more or less fine - because Europe gorged itself on Russian hydrocarbons throughout most of 2022 and is now pretending that they have been independent of said products for years.
Disasters of this scale don't happen overnight, nor do they happen in big, defining events that fit nicely into news articles. They happen gradually, everywhere, in bits and pieces, until you wake up one day and its 2025 and you wonder how the hell it got so bad so fast.
I agree with the gradual erosion concept. There's really no big bang breakdown event of one thing at one time. Because of the complex interweave of the 500 M economic actors It will deteriorate in increments and fractals. Widespread and diverse enough it'll be difficult for central planning Commissars to take it all in and to pin it on the one thing. They'll start looking for a culprit or three. The Law of Unintended Consequences plays out in unexpected and unfortunate ways. To put things into balance it sounds like a prescription for shortages, civil unrest, clampdowns, the rise of a despotic overlord (or tribunal) and a multi-front war to galvanize the underlings. Did I miss anything as this insanity morphs into the next William Gibson novel?
The over-arching objectives of the EC is obviously, call it by whatever you wish: The Great Reset, The New World Order, The Green Agenda, UN Agenda 2030, Globalism, The Rules-Based International Order. This is Global governance based on the Club of Rome Malthusian Agenda. They haven't been secret about it.
True and well put. The signs are there -- BASF saying it would permanently decimate activity in Germany, all those steel mills cutting activity, etc -- but only for those who are looking for them. Most people may well wake up in 2925 and wonder how it all got so bad so fast.
Thanks for pointing out that our wonderful Ursula declared that "Europe passed the winter test" when winter officially hasn't even started yet (21st December and yes, I'm a stickler for dates).
This is so petty and nitpicky of you, and I love it. Like you I'm a stickler for accuracy, especially when inaccuracy is being used in a deliberate way to mask facts. Heating season is NEVER three months, not even down here, where it's supposed to be warmer. It's more like six.
Irina, great piece. I note from the same Reuters article that Germany's support for energy is now "around 12% of national economic output." And when a nation "conserves" by shutting its fertilizer, chemical and manufacturing industries, national economic output becomes smaller. Here in the U.S. we await the polar vortex on its way from Siberia and wish for coal in our stockings. Like natural gas and oil, it is an organic fuel.
Crude oil and coal are organic compounds. But you will be censored by the thought police/truth police for using the word in this way even though technically correct. They have redefined “organic” to mean what they want it to mean and if you don’t use their definition then you are part of the problem.
Indeed, and their renewable energy machines are largely inorganic, while requiring lots of organic energy to make.
I was told a story about some sort of academic gathering involving high school-age children most of whom became outraged when they were told CO2 is and has also been part of the air we breathe and that it's good for the planet.
My grandson’s 7th grade class was told by the teacher that the steam coming from nuclear cooling stacks is radioactive!!!!
Now this is something serious. Did parents complain? Because I would have. Teachers are a huge authority for children, which puts them in a position, from which they can manipulate their minds with extreme ease.
It puts the parents in a difficult situation. The school year was just beginning and they didn’t want their child singled out by the teacher for reprisals all year long. I haven’t followed up recently to see how they decided on what would cause the least harm to their child. If you decide to respond to their narrative, be ready for the consequences.
It is a difficult position, indeed. Who could have known it would come to this...
Germany's numbers are staggering, indeed. I keep wondering if those in charge truly believe they are fixing things or they know very well they are on a sinking ship and they're just pretending nothing is happening.
As my second ex-wife use to say, “ facts, facts, stupid facts, don’t bother me with the stupid facts.”
A little religion goes a long way.
The way I read the situation is that Europe would be just fine without all of those Europeans and their petty bourgeoise concerns like heating their homes...
Never underestimate the ability of human beings to stay blind to something they don’t want to see!
I think that if anything, this ability has become blatantly obvious in the past couple of years.