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To get some perspective why this is such a hotly debated topic - just got my heating bill for the last year - just a small 2 person flat in a small town - most

by nisa 4y ago

To get some perspective why this is such a hotly debated topic - just got my heating bill for the last year - just a small 2 person flat in a small town - most flats in Germany are heated by gas one way or another - 700€/year with 5.2ct/kWh for 2021 - current market is more like 15ct/kWh and will probably rise. With the rise in rent prices in the last years this could push quite a bit of poor / lower middle class people into poverty/problems which is the majority of the population. Furthermore gas is used in almost every chemical process in some way or another - it's difficult to just disable a single industry because the network effects are not really known. So this will be a shitshow because industry/lobbyists groups and regulation will probably collide at the expense of the tax-payer. Still me and all of my friends are still fine with this. There is no alternative anyway - Russia is a fascist totalitarian state that declared war against Europe and is using gas as a weapon. After reading https://osce.usmission.gov/response-to-moscow-mechanism-report-on-ukraine/ https://osce.usmission.gov/response-to-moscow-mechanism-repo... as just as a single example I just hope we can cut off Russian gas/oil as fast as possible. edit: Looks like I was wrong on the burning of gas for electricity: https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?stacking=stacked_absolute_area&source=fossil_gas_unit&interval=month&l=en&c=DE https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?stacking=s... edit: Damn'it just took a quick look at the calculation of the whole house and took a wrong number it's not 1600€/year but 700€/year - still triple that and it's still a problem.

whatshisface 4y ago
>it's difficult to just disable a single industry because the network effects are not really known. Not to mention the unfairness of choosing one industry full of workers to say, "sorry, you're going to go jobless for the greater good," to.
MrRiddle 4y ago
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Have you seen any impact of the Euro's drop against the dollar in your day to day life? Say, things from American companies getting substantially more expensive, or salaries rising to keep pace with American counterparts?
- Juliate 4y ago
  At this point, EUR/USD parity is way less perceivable and concerning in our daily lives than the gas/energy that is coming full speed towards us (seen from France), which is driving a lot of first and second order prices (heating, transportation in general, food, construction).
  - lazide 4y ago
    With a lot of fuel and energy trades denominated in the dollar, and all fuel and energy trades in competition with one of the largest economies which happens to be dollar denominated, these are not separate issues. The ‘stronger’ (relatively) the dollar, the more expensive energy will be in every other currency.
    - Juliate 4y ago
      Yes, but the USD is not the driving factor. It's a coefficient, for sure. I mean, yes, it's very concerning. But what's even more concerning is the perspective of the consequences on the next few years. We'll perhaps get a difficult winter and social/political troubles because of that, yes. But on the balance is: the current Russia powers overcoming this and succeeding to establish something completely different in Europe through war. Plus the incertitude as to USA's support, provided that we now know they may as well elect something as disastrous as Trump in 2 years time.
      - lazide 4y ago
        Well, it isn’t THAT different. Ukraine was part of the USSR after all, and it wasn’t that long ago that most of Eastern Europe was too - because of war. That Stalin wasn’t the most aggressive aggressor that started it THAT time being cold comfort for everyone under the Russian thumb. Europe has a long history of wars of conquest, extermination, religious intolerance, etc. We did recently have a nice sunny spell though.
- larusso 4y ago
  I’m also from Germany so I feel I can answer. 1) No not yet anyways. The inflation is only really visible in gas/energy prices and groceries. I know that some EV car manufacturers had to increase prices but that has a different reason. 2) The german tech sector never tried to compete with US salaries. I for one have quite the income (base+bonus+other monetary benefits) but am way behind a Silicon Valley counterpart. And I mean with cost of living etc included. My company is constantly adjusted the salaries. But we still base it on market conditions in Europe not world wide. And they don’t want to react to inflation so fast. But that is only my experience. Major city in Germany btw.
kuzuman 4y ago
listless 4y ago
Serious question here - I swear I'm not trolling and I've been asking myself this same question...' Would you be fine with it if you were on the margin? I have this same attitude about inflation in the US and rising interest rates. Good - we need to get the situation under control. But I'm not living on the margin. It affects me, but not really. I'll be fine. So I don't really have any skin in the game here. Not yet.
- nisa 4y ago
  I am on the margin. So is my family. I'm getting by fine at the moment but I'm just a little above the poverty line but have no reserves. I have no choice anyway. I just hope that if I can't pay the bills there will be a moratorium to cut energy for a while. I'm trying to buildup a reserve for a few months exactly for that situation. It's also not clear when the price hikes will hit the consumers so I hope I have a few months to set aside money for this.
  - killjoywashere 4y ago
    A large-scale theme in humanity that usually goes unnoticed is how much more the poor are willing accept privations and duties in the name of patriotism. They are also more charitable on a per-cent basis, and certainly on a marginal per-cent basis.
    - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      >the poor are willing accept privations and duties in the name of patriotism Not everyone agrees on what patriotism means or what actions are patriotic or good for the nation. Tolerating a few abstract points off your GDP because people you don't like voted your country out of the EU easy enough so people put up with it. You are not going to get a nation to put up with serious hardship like what the energy situation is shaping up to do unless everyone is on the same page about what the end goal is.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
      In this case it's not just patriotism and noble ideas but sheer realism. The civilized world needs to do everything to weaken Russia to minimize the chances of them expanding the war. We got totally dependent on cheap Russian gas in spite of warnings and now is the price to pay. There is really no alternative. I mean yes, we can lift sanctions and let Russia build advanced rockets with our chips, but is this really the future we want to build?
londons_explore 4y ago
Fun fact: Nearly all gas turbine power stations can also run on oil. Oil is usually a backup method in case the gas supply is disrupted, but it is possible for them to run on oil continuously. The exact oil type required differs, but some can use Diesel/Petrol/Kerosene/ethanol/hydrogen or sometimes even unrefined crude oil. With gas prices so high, many are already running on oil, and that's part of the reason Diesel/Petrol prices are so high, even though the price of crude oil hasn't gone up much for months. On charts of power generation, they still show up in the 'gas' category, even if they're burning oil. As far as I know, apart from the tanker of fuel arriving every 10 minutes day and night there is no way to know what they're burning.
- bilsbie 4y ago
  I wonder if they could run on wood gas.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    Probably. The 1300C burn temperature ought to even make it quite clean. I would guess the main limiting factor will be that these machines cost tens of millions of dollars, and even with a small probability of the wood gas damaging the machine, the owner will say no to any experimentation. Having said that, the manufacturers do tend to like to add extra things to the spec sheets of their turbines, so might well support trials of such things. It's obviously gonna be needing extra infrastructure for heated feed pipes (to keep the wood gas from condensing) and high temperature valves, filters, and flow meters. You might be needing gas composition sensors and a feedback system to deal with the fact wood gas can be pretty variable in its composition. I would imagine you might also tap off some of the post-combustion hot gasses from before (or even after) the turbine to act as thermal input to your gasifier too. That wouldn't be strictly necessary, but should improve efficiency.
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  Not really true. Liquid fuels are much dirtier and reduce the lifespan or time between maintenances a lot. It’s used only as an emergency.
cpursley 4y ago
Why are you and your friends okay with this? The increase in energy prices due to EU sanctions are making the Russian state fabulously wealthy right now. Russia has alternative customers, y'all don't have alternative suppliers. If the EU doesn't come to their senses and embrace realpolitik, they are looking at literal deindustrialization and a plunge into mass poverty and social unrest. BMWs aren't built nor homes heated with unicorn butterfly karma.
- madengr 4y ago
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Not OP but i suspect they’re ok with it because the other option is giving in to an authoritarian regime that is intent on expansion. I.e. war on their doorstep. The realpolitik is speeding up the transition off oil and gas, and energy independence.
  - cpursley 4y ago
    Yes, but the sanctions are obviously backfiring on Europeans and not hurting the Russians by any objective measure. I agree on the transition, but where are the bids, construction, etc for new LNG terminals and other replacements? All I see is "Putin bad" talk and no action on what's actually required. But hey, at least no more Russian athletes and violinists!
    - atlasunshrugged 4y ago
      Europe announced a REPower initiative to speed up investments in alternatives; the problem that they have is that no one wants to build more LNG infrastructure because that's a 20+yr commitment to gas that has some environmental impact and want to go full renewable but this is quite slow to do (and of course is hugely dependent on China which controls the processed critical mineral market). Also, German environmentalists especially do not want to build nuclear facilities, so the options for the government to respond with are limited. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_3131 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_...
excieve 4y ago
As a Ukrainian, I sincerely thank you for writing this. It is often disheartening to see how many people of HN don't realise what is happening (and, frankly, has been happening for 8 years) and then read cold opinions devoid of empathy. What is the compromise when the other side's goal is extermination?
- baisq 4y ago
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    And it's not just Ukraine - what about Sri Lanka which is collapsing by the minute? I do care about the people, but if I am completely honest, I could care less about the government. If the current government can fend off Russia, great, but maybe (I don't know for sure) it would be better for the people for some sort of diplomatic solution to be created (perhaps surrender a part of Ukraine but allow anyone interested to leave the new Russia peacefully), that might be better for people on the ground than an endless war. Surrender for now for the sake of stability, but regroup and don't allow such a thing to ever happen again and take some lessons learned from this.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      Sri Lanka hasn't spent the last decade invading multiple nations. Ukraine's not facing internal strife, they're facing an external threat.
      - gjsman-1000 4y ago
        But are the people of Sri Lanka not going to suffer immensely in a different way and thus also need our aid, assistance, and attention?
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        Yes, and when the famine (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/we-are-going-die-sri-lanka-warns-food-shortages-2022-05-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/we-are-going-die-...) hits in a few months, we should - and probably will - assist. We're just not likely to intervene with the protests going on right now.
kmlx 4y ago
not sure if my bills are too low or yours are too high. i live in a large flat in London with my partner. fully electric, no gas, but the building was awarded for being ultra efficient. i used to pay £60/month for the electricity in summer and £100/month in winter. now it’s £80 during summer. winter heating involves shorts and tshirt. usual amenities: large oled, dishwasher every day, washing machine every other day etc etc > There is no alternative anyway - Russia is a fascist totalitarian state that declared war against Europe and is using gas a weapon. sure, but inflation reached historical highs before the war even started: https://www.ft.com/content/088d3368-bb8b-4ff3-9df7-a7680d4d81b2 https://www.ft.com/content/088d3368-bb8b-4ff3-9df7-a7680d4d8... luckily for the today’s politicians, Russia invaded Ukraine, so now they can point to Putin instead of analysing what they did wrong (spoiler: we actually know what they did wrong).
- nisa 4y ago
  Took the wrong number it's more like 700€/year. And we heated quite a bit in 2021 due to homeoffice and other causes. Sorry for the mishap.
- TuringNYC 4y ago
  I've found a lot of bills are driven by how well insulated apartments are. Some leak heat left and right. Another factor is how many open surface areas they have and the size of windows. I had an apartment that I rarely heated in the winter because it was wrapped on 5 of 6 sides by other apartments and the only exposed surface was a wall. Other apartments had multiple outside-facing walls/roofs.
- Scarblac 4y ago
  Remember that Russia started delivering less gas than contracted last autumn. That was the moment from which energy prices started to spike. In hindsight it was an obvious preparation for the war, making sure that Europe had lower gas reserves so that installing sanctions on Russia would hurt more.
antisthenes 4y ago
> just a small 2 person flat in a small town > 1600€/year Something really doesn't add up here. If your bill is so high, why haven't you done anything to mitigate it? Can you add insulation? What's the temperature kept at in the heating months? How much would lowering it lower the costs? Is there a possibility of putting solar collectors on the rooftop and heating with hot water? Even in winter they can get water up to 35-40 Celsius, which is considerably higher than comfort temperature.
- nisa 4y ago
  You are correct. Just took a brief look in the calculation for the whole house and it's more like near 700€ - sorry for that. I've corrected it.
klpons 4y ago
There is an obvious alternative: The West must stop doubling down every 2 months and seek a diplomatic solution. The U.S is relatively fine. Europe is being screwed over by the virtue-signaling policies. Europe canceled cheap long term Gazprom contracts and is now buying expensive gas (including from Russia!) on the spot market. Europe buys expensive liquid gas form the U.S. Meanwhile, China is laughing and buys cheap Russian commodities using RMB instead of Dollars or Euros. India resells Russian oil. The policies are a disaster, and Europe suffers from not standing up to Nuland, Lindsay Graham et al. Luhansk/Donetsk are lost. Europe needs to deal with that and ensure that it stops there (don't give me that nonsense about Peter the Great or other propaganda).
- Scarblac 4y ago
  If Europe gives in now, then it is certain that it _won't_ stop there. It would mean Russia can do whatever it wants, and will. It's war. We have to win it. Yes that is expensive, but Russia commits genocide in the areas they occupy, so there is no alternative.
- leoedin 4y ago
  Living in the UK, US policy on Ukraine barely registers. It's surprised me how strong most people's feelings are that we need to do everything we can to cut out Russia. This isn't an economic question any more, it's emotional. War in Europe is suddenly a reality, and it doesn't feel very far away, even in London. The UK may have left the EU, but we still have millions of Eastern Europeans living here. Whether this sentiment stays when winter comes and energy prices really start to bite is another question - but right now our attitude towards Russia is driven by our own emotions - nothing to do with American virtue signalling.
- btilly 4y ago
  No. Absolutely not. You can't understand anything Russia does until you understand that it has a bully's mindset. Anything you negotiate with them just emboldens them to do more to you later. When confronted, they escalate but there is a lot less muscle behind that than it seems. Therefore any negotiation of the kind that you describe will embolden them to reach for more as soon as they think they can. Appeasing Russia will no more prevent further aggression than giving Czechoslovakia to Hitler avoided WW 2. Also you completely misunderstand the war situation. The current phase has been a war of attrition with a slow retreat. The Ukrainian counteroffensive will come in August or September, once Russia's ability to wage war has been exhausted. From projects that I've seen, it is an even bet whether there will be a COMPLETE Russian collapse before the end of the year. (Yes, they won't even get to keep Crimea.) If you want to understand the military situation in detail, I recommend https://www.understandingwar.org/publications https://www.understandingwar.org/publications. You don't have to follow it in detail. For example if you'd read https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-28 https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens... a couple of months ago, you'd understand everything you need to understand to realize that Russia won't be able to hold the territory that they have taken.
danans 4y ago
> Still me and all of my friends are still fine with this. There is no alternative anyway There is an alternative: heat pumps. The problem is the upfront cost, which needs to be lowered through economies of scale.
- skrause 4y ago
  Heat pumps are not an alternative in the next few years because there are not enough available on the market. I know someone who wanted to buy one for his house in Germany and the waiting list is more than 1-2 years right now.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Presumably this means that every available heat pump and heat pump installer is booked for the next two years, in which case they are an alternative and will make a difference.
  - belorn 4y ago
    Couldn't German industry produce more of them? Heat pumps seems like a technology which isn't import dependent in the way that natural gas is, especially if the government were there to help with funding.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      It takes a while to spin up production. It also takes a while to find and train a sufficient number of people to can install them. It also takes a while to increase the supply of electricity so that we have enough power for tens of millions of heat pumps running all winter.
      - danans 4y ago
        > It also takes a while to increase the supply of electricity so that we have enough power for tens of millions of heat pumps running all winter. The same therm of natural gas that would have been burned in a domestic gas boiler, if burned in a modern combined cycle gas electricity plant, can provide 2-3X the amount of domestic heat via heat pumps even in the coldest conditions. In shoulder seasons it's more like 3-4X. The load we need to expand electricity production for is EVs, which use a ton of it comparatively.
DeWilde 4y ago
I share the sentiment regarding Russia's fascist regime but it seems much more realistic that the EU will just silently walk back on the embargoes. After all, if the populace gets too uneasy with higher energy bills the politicians won't have any issues dealing business with Russia. And with the support for energy embargoes already falling to 32% in Germany[0] in mid July this seems like the most likely outcome. Question is will Russia then attempt to hurt Europe by blocking gas deliveries like it is doing now with Nord Stream 1. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-germany-gas-idAFL1N2YU232 https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-germany-gas-i...
- TuringNYC 4y ago
  >> Question is will Russia then attempt to hurt Europe by blocking gas deliveries like it is doing now with Nord Stream 1. Sorry for the naive question, but are the Nord Stream gas deliveries: 1. blocked because sanctions dont allow for commerce/transactions, or 2. blocked to hurt the customer (Europe) by not transacting even when transacting is possible?
  - DeWilde 4y ago
    Currently NS1 is blocked under the excuse of repairs. Now that could be true, but it could also be a showcase from Russia of what it can inflict. So yeah, option 2 it is.
    - origin_path 4y ago
      The repairs are standard, planned in advance and happen every year. No gas is actually blocked. The articles stressing about the pipeline are all based on pure speculation about whether it won't come back, but there's no actual evidence that will happen. It's just what-if scenarios.
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    There are no sanctions against Russian gas and the contractual agreed money is paid as specified in the contracts. The involved Russian banks have been excluded from the sanctions to facilitate that. On the other side, Russia has started to starve Europe of Gas about a year ago, also showing how long planned this war is. The boiling of a frog metaphor applies here and has been executed perfectly by Russia. As shown by how many people don't realize what had happened.
rmbyrro 4y ago
I remember Trump saying that "Germany is a captive of Russia" [1] because of the prospect of weaponized gas supply cuts. I also hate to say, but, at that particular moment, the man was right. This is why political extremism is bad. Nobody in Europe listened to him. Had him be more respectful, polite and balanced in his communication, maybe he could have convinced Germany to anticipate what they're scrambling to do now... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liGZGGQTYQk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liGZGGQTYQk
- _ph_ 4y ago
  A lot of bad country leaders have been right at times. I am trying to resist to invoke Godwin's law here...
  - rmbyrro 4y ago
    No idea why you're bringing up Godwin's law here, to be honest...
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      Not? There is no doubt, that even Hitler every now and then did something right. But of course that doesn't excuse him from being the Monster he was and all the crimes he was responsible for.
      - TMWNN 4y ago
        By saying "not wanting to invoke Godwin's Law", and by the above comment, you are saying that Trump = Hitler. It is sad to see a /r/redditmoment on Hacker News. I'll reword rmbyrro's comment in another way. Trump was right, and the German envoys laughing at him on camera (including Heiko Maas, the foreign minister), was wrong, on the biggest German blunder in 80 years. Just in July alone we've had a German minister stating that becoming dependent on Russian gas was a "grievous mistake", and that his country is begging (yes, begging) for turbines from Canada "with a heavy heart" * His government stating that entire industries might "collapse" * Rationing of gas announced * Local municipalities planning warm buildings that those without heat in their homes can visit during the winter Again, this is the greatest German catastrophe in 80 years. It is an existential threat to the German (and, thus, European) economy and nation. It is also 100% self-inflicted. You know this. Instead of acknowledging that Trump was right on this issue, people like you can only resort to some variant of "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" | "Trump = Hitler and even Hitler every now and then did something right" | etc., etc.
slaw 4y ago
So you pay 700€/year for electricity and twenty times more for rent. I think energy is still inexpensive compared to rent prices.
- nisa 4y ago
  700€/year for heating in a rather modern flat (modernized 15 years ago) add to that 1200€/year for electricity - rent is without heating around 5000€/year here but not a lot of families can stomach a tripling of heating costs and likely growing electricity costs. Consider the price of gas stays at 15ct/kWh that an additional 1500€/year - for most people in Germany a full month of earnings. And my situation is rather in the best-case bucket. Lot's of people live in badly insulated houses or flats that have much higher energy costs. I guess it won't matter that that much for upper middle class families - maybe they postpone their expensive vacation or don't buy another SUV but everyone that is poor or just survives without any chance to buildup reserves this could get nasty.
  - slaw 4y ago
    Rent 400Euro/month is very inexpensive. For me electricity including heating is 1/20 price of rent.
    - nisa 4y ago
      yes, small town, no rent raises in 15 years and owned by the municipal housing association. I guess it would double if on the market again and it would still be reasonable.
tim333 4y ago
In terms of fighting Russia we probably get more bang for the buck by sending more rockets rather than cutting the gas. At the moment Russia shows no sign of running out of cash but is having issues with all their ammo stores exploding.

by nisa 4y ago

whatshisface 4y ago

>it's difficult to just disable a single industry because the network effects are not really known. Not to mention the unfairness of choosing one industry full of workers to say, "sorry, you're going to go jobless for the greater good," to.

MrRiddle 4y ago

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Have you seen any impact of the Euro's drop against the dollar in your day to day life? Say, things from American companies getting substantially more expensive, or salaries rising to keep pace with American counterparts?

Juliate 4y ago
At this point, EUR/USD parity is way less perceivable and concerning in our daily lives than the gas/energy that is coming full speed towards us (seen from France), which is driving a lot of first and second order prices (heating, transportation in general, food, construction).
- lazide 4y ago
  With a lot of fuel and energy trades denominated in the dollar, and all fuel and energy trades in competition with one of the largest economies which happens to be dollar denominated, these are not separate issues. The ‘stronger’ (relatively) the dollar, the more expensive energy will be in every other currency.
  - Juliate 4y ago
    Yes, but the USD is not the driving factor. It's a coefficient, for sure. I mean, yes, it's very concerning. But what's even more concerning is the perspective of the consequences on the next few years. We'll perhaps get a difficult winter and social/political troubles because of that, yes. But on the balance is: the current Russia powers overcoming this and succeeding to establish something completely different in Europe through war. Plus the incertitude as to USA's support, provided that we now know they may as well elect something as disastrous as Trump in 2 years time.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Well, it isn’t THAT different. Ukraine was part of the USSR after all, and it wasn’t that long ago that most of Eastern Europe was too - because of war. That Stalin wasn’t the most aggressive aggressor that started it THAT time being cold comfort for everyone under the Russian thumb. Europe has a long history of wars of conquest, extermination, religious intolerance, etc. We did recently have a nice sunny spell though.
larusso 4y ago
I’m also from Germany so I feel I can answer. 1) No not yet anyways. The inflation is only really visible in gas/energy prices and groceries. I know that some EV car manufacturers had to increase prices but that has a different reason. 2) The german tech sector never tried to compete with US salaries. I for one have quite the income (base+bonus+other monetary benefits) but am way behind a Silicon Valley counterpart. And I mean with cost of living etc included. My company is constantly adjusted the salaries. But we still base it on market conditions in Europe not world wide. And they don’t want to react to inflation so fast. But that is only my experience. Major city in Germany btw.

kuzuman 4y ago

listless 4y ago

Serious question here - I swear I'm not trolling and I've been asking myself this same question...' Would you be fine with it if you were on the margin? I have this same attitude about inflation in the US and rising interest rates. Good - we need to get the situation under control. But I'm not living on the margin. It affects me, but not really. I'll be fine. So I don't really have any skin in the game here. Not yet.

nisa 4y ago
I am on the margin. So is my family. I'm getting by fine at the moment but I'm just a little above the poverty line but have no reserves. I have no choice anyway. I just hope that if I can't pay the bills there will be a moratorium to cut energy for a while. I'm trying to buildup a reserve for a few months exactly for that situation. It's also not clear when the price hikes will hit the consumers so I hope I have a few months to set aside money for this.
- killjoywashere 4y ago
  A large-scale theme in humanity that usually goes unnoticed is how much more the poor are willing accept privations and duties in the name of patriotism. They are also more charitable on a per-cent basis, and certainly on a marginal per-cent basis.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    >the poor are willing accept privations and duties in the name of patriotism Not everyone agrees on what patriotism means or what actions are patriotic or good for the nation. Tolerating a few abstract points off your GDP because people you don't like voted your country out of the EU easy enough so people put up with it. You are not going to get a nation to put up with serious hardship like what the energy situation is shaping up to do unless everyone is on the same page about what the end goal is.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    In this case it's not just patriotism and noble ideas but sheer realism. The civilized world needs to do everything to weaken Russia to minimize the chances of them expanding the war. We got totally dependent on cheap Russian gas in spite of warnings and now is the price to pay. There is really no alternative. I mean yes, we can lift sanctions and let Russia build advanced rockets with our chips, but is this really the future we want to build?

londons_explore 4y ago

Fun fact: Nearly all gas turbine power stations can also run on oil. Oil is usually a backup method in case the gas supply is disrupted, but it is possible for them to run on oil continuously. The exact oil type required differs, but some can use Diesel/Petrol/Kerosene/ethanol/hydrogen or sometimes even unrefined crude oil. With gas prices so high, many are already running on oil, and that's part of the reason Diesel/Petrol prices are so high, even though the price of crude oil hasn't gone up much for months. On charts of power generation, they still show up in the 'gas' category, even if they're burning oil. As far as I know, apart from the tanker of fuel arriving every 10 minutes day and night there is no way to know what they're burning.

bilsbie 4y ago
I wonder if they could run on wood gas.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Probably. The 1300C burn temperature ought to even make it quite clean. I would guess the main limiting factor will be that these machines cost tens of millions of dollars, and even with a small probability of the wood gas damaging the machine, the owner will say no to any experimentation. Having said that, the manufacturers do tend to like to add extra things to the spec sheets of their turbines, so might well support trials of such things. It's obviously gonna be needing extra infrastructure for heated feed pipes (to keep the wood gas from condensing) and high temperature valves, filters, and flow meters. You might be needing gas composition sensors and a feedback system to deal with the fact wood gas can be pretty variable in its composition. I would imagine you might also tap off some of the post-combustion hot gasses from before (or even after) the turbine to act as thermal input to your gasifier too. That wouldn't be strictly necessary, but should improve efficiency.
SnowHill9902 4y ago
Not really true. Liquid fuels are much dirtier and reduce the lifespan or time between maintenances a lot. It’s used only as an emergency.

cpursley 4y ago

Why are you and your friends okay with this? The increase in energy prices due to EU sanctions are making the Russian state fabulously wealthy right now. Russia has alternative customers, y'all don't have alternative suppliers. If the EU doesn't come to their senses and embrace realpolitik, they are looking at literal deindustrialization and a plunge into mass poverty and social unrest. BMWs aren't built nor homes heated with unicorn butterfly karma.

madengr 4y ago
kennywinker 4y ago
Not OP but i suspect they’re ok with it because the other option is giving in to an authoritarian regime that is intent on expansion. I.e. war on their doorstep. The realpolitik is speeding up the transition off oil and gas, and energy independence.
- cpursley 4y ago
  Yes, but the sanctions are obviously backfiring on Europeans and not hurting the Russians by any objective measure. I agree on the transition, but where are the bids, construction, etc for new LNG terminals and other replacements? All I see is "Putin bad" talk and no action on what's actually required. But hey, at least no more Russian athletes and violinists!
  - atlasunshrugged 4y ago
    Europe announced a REPower initiative to speed up investments in alternatives; the problem that they have is that no one wants to build more LNG infrastructure because that's a 20+yr commitment to gas that has some environmental impact and want to go full renewable but this is quite slow to do (and of course is hugely dependent on China which controls the processed critical mineral market). Also, German environmentalists especially do not want to build nuclear facilities, so the options for the government to respond with are limited. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_3131 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_...

excieve 4y ago

As a Ukrainian, I sincerely thank you for writing this. It is often disheartening to see how many people of HN don't realise what is happening (and, frankly, has been happening for 8 years) and then read cold opinions devoid of empathy. What is the compromise when the other side's goal is extermination?

baisq 4y ago
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  And it's not just Ukraine - what about Sri Lanka which is collapsing by the minute? I do care about the people, but if I am completely honest, I could care less about the government. If the current government can fend off Russia, great, but maybe (I don't know for sure) it would be better for the people for some sort of diplomatic solution to be created (perhaps surrender a part of Ukraine but allow anyone interested to leave the new Russia peacefully), that might be better for people on the ground than an endless war. Surrender for now for the sake of stability, but regroup and don't allow such a thing to ever happen again and take some lessons learned from this.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Sri Lanka hasn't spent the last decade invading multiple nations. Ukraine's not facing internal strife, they're facing an external threat.
    - gjsman-1000 4y ago
      But are the people of Sri Lanka not going to suffer immensely in a different way and thus also need our aid, assistance, and attention?
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        Yes, and when the famine (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/we-are-going-die-sri-lanka-warns-food-shortages-2022-05-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/we-are-going-die-...) hits in a few months, we should - and probably will - assist. We're just not likely to intervene with the protests going on right now.

kmlx 4y ago

not sure if my bills are too low or yours are too high. i live in a large flat in London with my partner. fully electric, no gas, but the building was awarded for being ultra efficient. i used to pay £60/month for the electricity in summer and £100/month in winter. now it’s £80 during summer. winter heating involves shorts and tshirt. usual amenities: large oled, dishwasher every day, washing machine every other day etc etc > There is no alternative anyway - Russia is a fascist totalitarian state that declared war against Europe and is using gas a weapon. sure, but inflation reached historical highs before the war even started: https://www.ft.com/content/088d3368-bb8b-4ff3-9df7-a7680d4d81b2 https://www.ft.com/content/088d3368-bb8b-4ff3-9df7-a7680d4d8... luckily for the today’s politicians, Russia invaded Ukraine, so now they can point to Putin instead of analysing what they did wrong (spoiler: we actually know what they did wrong).

nisa 4y ago
Took the wrong number it's more like 700€/year. And we heated quite a bit in 2021 due to homeoffice and other causes. Sorry for the mishap.
TuringNYC 4y ago
I've found a lot of bills are driven by how well insulated apartments are. Some leak heat left and right. Another factor is how many open surface areas they have and the size of windows. I had an apartment that I rarely heated in the winter because it was wrapped on 5 of 6 sides by other apartments and the only exposed surface was a wall. Other apartments had multiple outside-facing walls/roofs.
Scarblac 4y ago
Remember that Russia started delivering less gas than contracted last autumn. That was the moment from which energy prices started to spike. In hindsight it was an obvious preparation for the war, making sure that Europe had lower gas reserves so that installing sanctions on Russia would hurt more.

antisthenes 4y ago

> just a small 2 person flat in a small town > 1600€/year Something really doesn't add up here. If your bill is so high, why haven't you done anything to mitigate it? Can you add insulation? What's the temperature kept at in the heating months? How much would lowering it lower the costs? Is there a possibility of putting solar collectors on the rooftop and heating with hot water? Even in winter they can get water up to 35-40 Celsius, which is considerably higher than comfort temperature.

nisa 4y ago
You are correct. Just took a brief look in the calculation for the whole house and it's more like near 700€ - sorry for that. I've corrected it.

klpons 4y ago

There is an obvious alternative: The West must stop doubling down every 2 months and seek a diplomatic solution. The U.S is relatively fine. Europe is being screwed over by the virtue-signaling policies. Europe canceled cheap long term Gazprom contracts and is now buying expensive gas (including from Russia!) on the spot market. Europe buys expensive liquid gas form the U.S. Meanwhile, China is laughing and buys cheap Russian commodities using RMB instead of Dollars or Euros. India resells Russian oil. The policies are a disaster, and Europe suffers from not standing up to Nuland, Lindsay Graham et al. Luhansk/Donetsk are lost. Europe needs to deal with that and ensure that it stops there (don't give me that nonsense about Peter the Great or other propaganda).

Scarblac 4y ago
If Europe gives in now, then it is certain that it _won't_ stop there. It would mean Russia can do whatever it wants, and will. It's war. We have to win it. Yes that is expensive, but Russia commits genocide in the areas they occupy, so there is no alternative.
leoedin 4y ago
Living in the UK, US policy on Ukraine barely registers. It's surprised me how strong most people's feelings are that we need to do everything we can to cut out Russia. This isn't an economic question any more, it's emotional. War in Europe is suddenly a reality, and it doesn't feel very far away, even in London. The UK may have left the EU, but we still have millions of Eastern Europeans living here. Whether this sentiment stays when winter comes and energy prices really start to bite is another question - but right now our attitude towards Russia is driven by our own emotions - nothing to do with American virtue signalling.
btilly 4y ago
No. Absolutely not. You can't understand anything Russia does until you understand that it has a bully's mindset. Anything you negotiate with them just emboldens them to do more to you later. When confronted, they escalate but there is a lot less muscle behind that than it seems. Therefore any negotiation of the kind that you describe will embolden them to reach for more as soon as they think they can. Appeasing Russia will no more prevent further aggression than giving Czechoslovakia to Hitler avoided WW 2. Also you completely misunderstand the war situation. The current phase has been a war of attrition with a slow retreat. The Ukrainian counteroffensive will come in August or September, once Russia's ability to wage war has been exhausted. From projects that I've seen, it is an even bet whether there will be a COMPLETE Russian collapse before the end of the year. (Yes, they won't even get to keep Crimea.) If you want to understand the military situation in detail, I recommend https://www.understandingwar.org/publications https://www.understandingwar.org/publications. You don't have to follow it in detail. For example if you'd read https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-28 https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens... a couple of months ago, you'd understand everything you need to understand to realize that Russia won't be able to hold the territory that they have taken.

danans 4y ago

> Still me and all of my friends are still fine with this. There is no alternative anyway There is an alternative: heat pumps. The problem is the upfront cost, which needs to be lowered through economies of scale.

skrause 4y ago
Heat pumps are not an alternative in the next few years because there are not enough available on the market. I know someone who wanted to buy one for his house in Germany and the waiting list is more than 1-2 years right now.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Presumably this means that every available heat pump and heat pump installer is booked for the next two years, in which case they are an alternative and will make a difference.
- belorn 4y ago
  Couldn't German industry produce more of them? Heat pumps seems like a technology which isn't import dependent in the way that natural gas is, especially if the government were there to help with funding.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    It takes a while to spin up production. It also takes a while to find and train a sufficient number of people to can install them. It also takes a while to increase the supply of electricity so that we have enough power for tens of millions of heat pumps running all winter.
    - danans 4y ago
      > It also takes a while to increase the supply of electricity so that we have enough power for tens of millions of heat pumps running all winter. The same therm of natural gas that would have been burned in a domestic gas boiler, if burned in a modern combined cycle gas electricity plant, can provide 2-3X the amount of domestic heat via heat pumps even in the coldest conditions. In shoulder seasons it's more like 3-4X. The load we need to expand electricity production for is EVs, which use a ton of it comparatively.

DeWilde 4y ago

I share the sentiment regarding Russia's fascist regime but it seems much more realistic that the EU will just silently walk back on the embargoes. After all, if the populace gets too uneasy with higher energy bills the politicians won't have any issues dealing business with Russia. And with the support for energy embargoes already falling to 32% in Germany[0] in mid July this seems like the most likely outcome. Question is will Russia then attempt to hurt Europe by blocking gas deliveries like it is doing now with Nord Stream 1. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-germany-gas-idAFL1N2YU232 https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-germany-gas-i...

TuringNYC 4y ago
>> Question is will Russia then attempt to hurt Europe by blocking gas deliveries like it is doing now with Nord Stream 1. Sorry for the naive question, but are the Nord Stream gas deliveries: 1. blocked because sanctions dont allow for commerce/transactions, or 2. blocked to hurt the customer (Europe) by not transacting even when transacting is possible?
- DeWilde 4y ago
  Currently NS1 is blocked under the excuse of repairs. Now that could be true, but it could also be a showcase from Russia of what it can inflict. So yeah, option 2 it is.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    The repairs are standard, planned in advance and happen every year. No gas is actually blocked. The articles stressing about the pipeline are all based on pure speculation about whether it won't come back, but there's no actual evidence that will happen. It's just what-if scenarios.
- _ph_ 4y ago
  There are no sanctions against Russian gas and the contractual agreed money is paid as specified in the contracts. The involved Russian banks have been excluded from the sanctions to facilitate that. On the other side, Russia has started to starve Europe of Gas about a year ago, also showing how long planned this war is. The boiling of a frog metaphor applies here and has been executed perfectly by Russia. As shown by how many people don't realize what had happened.

rmbyrro 4y ago

I remember Trump saying that "Germany is a captive of Russia" [1] because of the prospect of weaponized gas supply cuts. I also hate to say, but, at that particular moment, the man was right. This is why political extremism is bad. Nobody in Europe listened to him. Had him be more respectful, polite and balanced in his communication, maybe he could have convinced Germany to anticipate what they're scrambling to do now... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liGZGGQTYQk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liGZGGQTYQk

_ph_ 4y ago
A lot of bad country leaders have been right at times. I am trying to resist to invoke Godwin's law here...
- rmbyrro 4y ago
  No idea why you're bringing up Godwin's law here, to be honest...
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Not? There is no doubt, that even Hitler every now and then did something right. But of course that doesn't excuse him from being the Monster he was and all the crimes he was responsible for.
    - TMWNN 4y ago
      By saying "not wanting to invoke Godwin's Law", and by the above comment, you are saying that Trump = Hitler. It is sad to see a /r/redditmoment on Hacker News. I'll reword rmbyrro's comment in another way. Trump was right, and the German envoys laughing at him on camera (including Heiko Maas, the foreign minister), was wrong, on the biggest German blunder in 80 years. Just in July alone we've had a German minister stating that becoming dependent on Russian gas was a "grievous mistake", and that his country is begging (yes, begging) for turbines from Canada "with a heavy heart" * His government stating that entire industries might "collapse" * Rationing of gas announced * Local municipalities planning warm buildings that those without heat in their homes can visit during the winter Again, this is the greatest German catastrophe in 80 years. It is an existential threat to the German (and, thus, European) economy and nation. It is also 100% self-inflicted. You know this. Instead of acknowledging that Trump was right on this issue, people like you can only resort to some variant of "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" | "Trump = Hitler and even Hitler every now and then did something right" | etc., etc.

slaw 4y ago

So you pay 700€/year for electricity and twenty times more for rent. I think energy is still inexpensive compared to rent prices.

nisa 4y ago
700€/year for heating in a rather modern flat (modernized 15 years ago) add to that 1200€/year for electricity - rent is without heating around 5000€/year here but not a lot of families can stomach a tripling of heating costs and likely growing electricity costs. Consider the price of gas stays at 15ct/kWh that an additional 1500€/year - for most people in Germany a full month of earnings. And my situation is rather in the best-case bucket. Lot's of people live in badly insulated houses or flats that have much higher energy costs. I guess it won't matter that that much for upper middle class families - maybe they postpone their expensive vacation or don't buy another SUV but everyone that is poor or just survives without any chance to buildup reserves this could get nasty.
- slaw 4y ago
  Rent 400Euro/month is very inexpensive. For me electricity including heating is 1/20 price of rent.
  - nisa 4y ago
    yes, small town, no rent raises in 15 years and owned by the municipal housing association. I guess it would double if on the market again and it would still be reasonable.

tim333 4y ago

In terms of fighting Russia we probably get more bang for the buck by sending more rockets rather than cutting the gas. At the moment Russia shows no sign of running out of cash but is having issues with all their ammo stores exploding.