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Europe is going to be ruined by this conflict. Most people (understandably) focus on gas price in residential heating terms, but the real damage will be to Euro
by hunglee2 4y ago
Europe is going to be ruined by this conflict. Most people (understandably) focus on gas price in residential heating terms, but the real damage will be to European (especially German) manufacturing and the costs that now need to go up throughout the supply chain now that Russian gas supply is restricted.
Any widget made in Europe - already losing in cost competition with East Asia - will now become even more expensive to make. It takes circa 10 years for nuclear reactor from plan-to-grid, and that is on the basis *with& the available workforce to do it, which of course Europe doesn't have any more.
Mass purchase of the Hualong One reactor might be a solution if the Chinese can make them fast enough. Either that, or dig up some more coal and burn that for the next decade or two, so goodbye climate change goals. It's an absolute mess, pain has started to percolate now, but will reverberate for years
- mdp2021 4y ago> the real damage will be to European (especially German) manufacturing German and Italian.
- 88840-8855 4y agoWe will be ruined. But at least we got something something demoncrency to some random country 90% of us have not been able to identify on a map before the war. I mean.. come on, it is not some brown-people shithole like Syria, Iraq, Yemen that it was totally OK to bomb. This is the evil Russia who we are talking here about! And we are the good guys. Better to live poor in a recession than having some random corrupt country where people anyway dont care who robs them being part of Russia. NOT MY WAR.
- baxtr 4y agoAccording to this logic, the United States should never have liberated Nazi Germany.
- polotics 4y agoPray tell who is the "we" you claim to be writing in the name of? Letting bullies succeed only produce bigger bullies. So yes, my war and Pust sve' gorit...
- genocidicbunny 4y ago> But at least we got something something demoncrency to some random country 90% of us have not been able to identify on a map before the war. You're quite a moron, or willfully ignorant, if you can't identify the second biggest country on the European continent. > Better to live poor in a recession than having some random corrupt country where people anyway dont care who robs them being part of Russia. No, if 'some random corrupt country' becomes part of Russia, you're next. You have a choice to live in recession, or to live under the Russian yoke. And these days, the first time you speak out against being under the Russian yoke, you're going to find yourself in a gulag deep in siberia. You may want to get yourself sized for your coffin in that case, you won't make it out alive.
- mdp2021 4y ago> You're quite a moron, or willfully ignorant, if you can't identify the second biggest country on the European continent I could post links to video clips of quiz shows where privileged citizens (public figures) of countries which owned very large parts of the world literally could not (exactly the case you point to, and much more - not even their own former and present colonies, not even after wars...). So, while I agree with your statement (which I would not have written in those terms), do not underestimate the dire situation of societies.
- petre 4y agoThis is the price we pay for years of dependence on Russian gas. The US has long warned EU leaders (especially Germany) about this, but they refused to listen.
- sofixa 4y agoThe US also warned for years about Saddam's WMDs, and love a boogeyman. They were right this time, eventually, but that doesn't make them trustworthy.
- blub 4y agoTo be fair, if somebody warned me of something for 40 years and that something would not happen, I’d be tempted to dismiss such warnings.
- genocidicbunny 4y agoThis could also be the straw that breaks the fossil fuel camel's back, and gets more european countries to move to clean energy, leaving their fossil fuels for the industrial processes that cannot do without them.
- mdp2021 4y agoHow? Surely it will place the problem of energy acquisition as a priority - but also with the need of assessing the problem of access to /cheap/ energy, also to compensate for the past luxury that now appears compromised. The matter of "clean energy" will have to compete with other pressing parameters.
- genocidicbunny 4y agoIn the short term yes, it will create problems with energy acquisition, but in the longer term it provides a direct lesson in the need to reduce your dependence on foreign supplies. Even 20 years ago, there were few avenues to doing so. These days with renewables, the domestic supply could be significantly increased at relatively reasonable costs. It also becomes a strategic/national security imperative to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources. For a long time now, Europe had this idea that as long as they strengthened their energy economy ties with Russia, they could prevent this sort of conflict. That fantasy has largely been shattered now.
- mdp2021 4y agoAutonomy is an absolute value that does not need rediscovery in theoretics; diversification of source for securing supply is a topic forced by the paradigm of Ricardo, unless taken in a most mindless form. The issue is (and was) always "how", realistically, feasibly with regard to all practical and decision-making constraints. What is new now is that the parties are forced to compromise given that the ideal scenario became dead past (and yet not fully).
- dispat0r 4y agoIf you mean nuclear with clean energy, yes, but you can't run a power grid with renewables you always need a backup gas is out so what is left?
- stareatgoats 4y ago> Europe is going to be ruined by this conflict If so, then the trans-Atlantic unity will come under serious strain as well. This is happening just as Europe began to climb into a bigger suit, that of an independent economic and military bloc to be reckoned with (not that it was at any moment a realistic ambition). Instead Europe will be forced to take a back seat again, have thousands of US troops on the ground for protection, while the US escapes unscathed if not considerably strengthened. It's going to be a bitter pill to swallow.
- drippingfist69 4y agoC%@r3at4r5i
- stareatgoats 4y agoCongrats to your first comment here on HN, even if I see room for improvement. Like writing something intelligible for example, always a good rule of thumb.
- sofixa 4y ago> This is happening just as Europe began to climb into a bigger suit, that of an independent economic and military bloc to be reckoned with (not that it was at any moment a realistic ambition) For military it's not a reality today, but pre-pandemic it was absolutely a realistic goal many were working towards. Economically, it rivals the US in GDP terms and has some extremely strong sectors. Politically it's the main leader in human rights and regulation of new stuff that needs it (GDPR, Digital Markets and Services acts). With the US in the process of imploding politically, the EU needs to maintain all of those and go even further.
- morsch 4y agoAny widget made in Europe ... will now become even more expensive to make. Sure, but that's always the case. The question is, how much more expensive. And that's going to vary a lot depending on how much the natural gas and electricity required is part of the overall price. No doubt we're in for a rough transition, which we should have avoided by embarking on it twenty years ago, but I see any evidence for long term ruin. Not due to loss of energy imports from Russia, anyway.