21 ms·

How Bad Europe’s Energy Crisis Is

120 points by Laaas 4y ago

Laaas 4y ago
https://archive.ph/sP0QV https://archive.ph/sP0QV
aurizon 4y ago
Europe has shot off many feet. Look at how they have demonised nuclear power in some areas. Had they not done this, they would not now be at Russia's mercy(Varies across member states). Similar to gene changed food - unwise denialism.
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  Currently Germany is exporting lots and lots of energy to France because the French nuclear plants are in large part not working (repairs, corrosion damage, lack of water for cooling). Given that nuclear is demonstrably not working well for France what makes you so certain things would work better in other countries?
  - enqk 4y ago
    Even in France there has been strong political opposition to support nuclear plants, their renovations and new development, so the situation in France is not indicative of a well run program. In particular no new development in a while meant that a lot of local expertise has gone away
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Reading about the Superphoenix reactor makes me furious. They could have 10 of those babies running by now. But no, was killed by the Left and then not revived. And what are they planning to build now, more PWRs. Fucking incredibly how the world can just not move on to next generation nuclear.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        It's fun to imagine an alternate history where the left were more pro-nuclear power. Like if they'd just built the best power stations rather than the ones that had military crossover. I mean, if the fossil fuel powered right wing can demonise Elon Musk and Tesla as subsidy junkies, and wind turbines can be accused of giving you ear cancer, can you just imagine what they'd say about nuclear? What, you think we should building nuclear power like the commies and the French and worse the Democrats? Are you one of those vegetarians? We've got cheap fracked American gas and clean coal, why would we waste taxes on nuclear? Climate change? But CO2 is good, it's plant food for God sake. If anything we want it warmer, so we can get more gas in the artic circle, drill baby drill. Nuclear doesn't have a high enough ERoEI to sustain civilization, you're trying to intentionally destroy capitalism.
        kergonath 4y ago
        > It's fun to imagine an alternate history where the left were more pro-nuclear power. The thing is, nuclear is not incompatible with “the left”. After all, nuclear programmes make sense only with a lot of public investment and control, and work best in nationalised producers, in which case it provides cheap electricity for the people and revenues for the state. Both the socialists and the communists are in general pro-nuclear. It’s horse trading to keep the greens in the “gauche plurielle” coalition that closed Superphénix. It’s the same kind of compromises that lead to the arbitrary policy that “we should not have more than 50% of nuclear electricity” and the closing of Fessenheim. Even now, the leftist alliance NUPES cannot really discuss this because the demagogues and greens are against but the other half is pro.
        panick21_ 4y ago
        Nuclear inherently should be something the left love. However the problem is that nuclear power is strongly associated with the cold war and nuclear weapons. It was seen as a way to subsidize nuclear weapons. That never was really true at all. Also the early environmental movement had a strong 'naturalist' wing (and still does) and nuclear is seen as 'unnatural'. This strongly influenced leftists politics in general. I would love to learn more about Superphenix and its design, history and the politcs around it but I wasn't able to find much. My French despite 12 years of getting forced to learn it, still sucks. From a Swiss perspective, its crazy to think a Swiss green politician went and shot the reactor with an RPG.
    - pookha 4y ago
      Wow this is depressing. France had the worlds greatest fleet of standardized nuclear reactors. They mastered Nuclear Power... I'm assuming energy companies spent vast amounts of money to propagandize the French public to only support wind and solar (like in the US) but maybe that's not the case?
      - aurizon 4y ago
        The Germans were unwise many years ago = now they pay the Russian piper - as we are seeing. The anti nuclear people were probably funded by Russia?? as they specialise at strategic plans of this type under Putin's helm = anything to weaken us = good. Wind/solar makes steady gains and will get even better as the use of newer junction geometries get better and approach the S-Q barriers.
  - Zealotux 4y ago
    Nuclear is "not working well" for us because ideologues have been systematically undermining our nuclear industry for decades now, and it'll take a few more decades to heal the damage done by said ideologues, with the hope no one ever listen to their propaganda ever again. Starve the beast, kick it when it's down, and blame it for not saving the day.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Given that nuclear is demonstrably not working well for France what makes you so certain things would work better in other countries? French reactors are largely offline for overdue maintenance [1]. This bunched up because scheduled maintenance was delayed. A larger European fleet of reactors would be more resilient. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/france-braces-uncertain-winter-nuclear-power-shortage-looms-2022-08-30/ https://www.reuters.com/world/france-braces-uncertain-winter...
    - kergonath 4y ago
      Yeah. Do not delay maintenance because then it bites you in the rear. Also, it’s still better to do it in the summer: next winter will be terrible enough and we’ll need every generator we can get.
  - izacus 4y ago
    What do you mean "not working well"? At this point, right now, French NPPs are producing 24000MW of power (57% of all french output). Yes, it's down from the usual ~70% due to maintenance issues, but calling this "not working" is outright dishonest. It's this type of exaggerated misinformation from German greens that brought their country into this mess.
    - diffeomorphism 4y ago
      https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-france-germany-global-trade-44e1b8bf0875a3aeaa63d9a63966fc1c https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-france-germany-glo... The linked article is pretty matter of fact and I am quite disappointed that replies in this thread go off on weird tangents about "misinformation from the German greens" or "owning the nuke people". You might very well be correct in your argument, but the level of discussion is much lower than I would expect from HN.
      - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
        The ever present German greens which apparently have the country of Germany in an iron grip even though they have less than 15% of the vote. Let's not get started on the French greens, whose representation on the assemblies is marginal at best, but apparently are the reason France does not have "tens of Superphenix reactors" by now (the large cost overruns and literal swiss terrorist attacks notwithstanding).
        izacus 4y ago
        "greens" (no capital letter) in my post does not imply just green party, but a group of germans that always comes out of the woodwork blastnig dishonest arguments about why we need to get rid of our critically needed power source. While it's not just Germans that are always coming out of the woodwork (Austrians are even more extreme), the anti-nuclear movement was always extremely loud in Germany.
  - linksnapzz 4y ago
    According to publicly-available info, nuclear was doing quite well for France (80% of load) in 2021. Whatever problems they might be having at this very moment, what makes you think this is intrinsic to nuclear power or EDF in particular? Also, the electricity that the germans are exporting very likely might come from coal plants burning filthy north rhine lignite. Great way to own the nuke ppl.
    - causi 4y ago
      Also, the electricity that the germans are exporting very likely might come from coal plants burning filthy north rhine lignite. Great way to own the nuke ppl. Don't forget they spin up coal plants for peak demand and then just cut them out of the grid to avoid counting their still-running emissions.
    - diffeomorphism 4y ago
      > Great way to own the nuke ppl. (eye roll) yeah, because that is obviously the point. > What makes you think that.... It might not be, but currently the quality of this thread is quite disappointing.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Nuclear is working in France. People taking a very current issue and blowing it out of proportion. Nuclear has provide CO2 free clean energy to people in France for 40 years. While Germany blew incredibly dirty stuff into the air in addition to CO2. And France has more often been exporting clean nuclear power rather then exporting coal power like Germany. And CO2 saved in 1980 is far more important then CO2 saved now. The world should be thankful for French nuclear. And French citizens should be thankful that the worst pollution from coal is coal ash that wind is bringing over from Germany. Now lets get to the current issues. The issues with French nuclear is the same reason for many issues with nuclear in other places. Nuclear has been under political attack, and laws past in the last couple years are responsible for some of the issues they have now. The deferred maintenance because the trend at the time was that these reactors are legacy, and renewables would take over. They wanted to reduce the energy share of nuclear for the same dumb reasons. The water issue is actually a problem, but temporary one. Also, France had amazing next generation reactors, like Superphoenix, that were killed by the Left and Greens in the past. Had they spend the last 20 years build those reactors rather then trying to kill nuclear and build the same old PWRs, they would be in a amazing position now. And nuclear is working just fine in a number of European countries. In fact, most countries with very clean grids have a large nuclear component.
    - srrr 4y ago
      Some data: Per capita CO2 emissions in France are half than in Germany: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany?country=DEU~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany?country=DEU~F... (ps: I am an opponent of nuclear energy. But facts are facts.)
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        Germany is a bigger manufacturer. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?locations=DE-FR-GB-US&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?locat... Once you adjust for GDP they're both doing well and Germany has caught up with France (added UK and US for context).
  - heavenlyblue 4y ago
    At the moment it's exporting exactly 4.7% from Germany.
  - rr888 4y ago
    This shows exports/imports from today. Yes Germany is exporting to France, but importing similar amounts from the Netherlands so seems like a wash. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
  - Nodraak 4y ago
    > nuclear is demonstrably not working well You are jumping to this conclusion way to fast. First, you are cherry picking: you should look at the yearly load factor, not a random day and time of the year when it supports your argument. And you will find that nuclear has the highest load factor of all, 80-90%, while solar/PV will never be above 30-40% (because of physics, you can not change that). Second, and since I just demonstrated that on a yearly timeframe nuclear works very well, the right question to ask is: why are there so many nuclear plants offline right now? The answer is quite simple, and is due to one of the advantage of nuclear: you can choose when to switch it on or off, for ex to perform maintenance. So, when is the best time to perform maintenance? Answer: just before the peak load, which happens in winter (Mondays around 8 AM in January, to be more precise), so you switch nuclear off in autumn, ie now. It's actually a good news that the load factor of nuclear is so low right now, it means that nuclear will be ready and will work well in a couple of months when we will need it the most. > Currently Germany is exporting lots and lots of energy Again, cherry picking, show me the yearly stat. But actually the only comment I will make here is about the criteria you are using: is exporting a lot of energy a good thing? I would say it depends. High variability is bad, it makes the grid unstable. I would rather have low and steady import/export rather than big swings. Exercise for the reader: what allows you to have steady production of electricity (nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, ...)? --- We need more nuclear. Simply because that's the only low carbon, controllable option that currently exists (hydro needs mountains, fossils are high carbon, solar/wind are intermittent)
    - selimthegrim 4y ago
      Shockley-Queisser limit is not absolute.
      - aurizon 4y ago
        Yes, it has many end runs that lead to the high 60's in multiple junction systems. Add $$ = works in orbit. A good outline is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley%E2%80%93Queisser_limit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley%E2%80%93Queisser_limi...
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > lack of water for cooling That is largely a myth. They stop when the water level decreases for regulatory reasons, not physical ones.
    - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
      What is the practical difference? These "regulations" are put for a reason. You just can't leave the river dry or the water boiling and call it a day.
      - kergonath 4y ago
        Well there is no difference in practice, as the reactors are closed anyway. But they are not closed because the physics don’t work, or because they are functionally unable to work in the current situation (the “nuclear cannot work when it’s hot” line you see in some newspapers). Nobody has done a serious assessment when the limits were decided, more based on guesswork than anything else. The reactors are at ~300°C. It does not matter one bit if the input water is at 40°C or 20°C. As for the output, if temperatures keep increasing it just means they will have to build pools to let the water cool down some more before going back to the river or recycled through the external cooling loops. If the water level is the problem, the quantities involved are negligible compared to the throughput of a large river or what we spray on maize fields.
  - glogla 4y ago
    Nuclear is not working in France right now because France uses lot less electricity in summer than in winter (they have a lot of electric heating and not a lot of air conditioning), so they are doing all the maintenance and refueling in summer. I am pretty tired of this particular misinformation.
  - aurizon 4y ago
    Low river levels + very warm water levels have forced selective shutdowns in France - a reliance on water that the drought sent away. River water is often a 'once through' system, compared to cooling towers which can be water conserving closed systems that tale more space or tiered evaporators. I expect that France is using the shutdowns for maintenance of various corrosion points. It is cheaper to use cheap pipe and replace it when it corrodes versus stainless steel or other alloys. I think France has been very well served by it's nuclear power plants as it leads the world in that arena. As for doctrinaire opposition of nuclear = I have none, build it well, maintain it well, and it will serve you well. I would like France to be in the lead for implementing a thorium cycle. Thorium has been neglected due to the difficulty of making nuclear weapons as off-products of the reactors - as we have seen Uranium was driven to the head of the nuke queue by the relative ease of making fissionable material that suited bombs. I feel you have stuck an inappropriate 'pin' in France on this. Had all Europe/world followed France, we would be miles ahead in global warming reduction! Even more so with Thorium! Works proceeds on Thorium - it's day will come.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nprateem 4y ago
  So many gas boilers and central heating in the UK, abundant electricity wouldn't help many this winter anyway.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Germany: gas for heating and industry, nuckear for electricity. Primary energy =|= secondary energy. If the pro-nuclear crowd could just get the basics right, it would make so much more sense to engage in reasonable discussions.
jmoak3 4y ago
Someone else posted this a few weeks ago, but it truly blew my mind. Watch a few minutes of this, starting from the given timestamp: https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=1746 https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=1746 Europe is in more trouble than I imagined.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  This guy says exactly what (certain) Americans want to hear, so he's very popular. But, like his audience, he's swimming in a ocean of misinformation.
  - djbusby 4y ago
    Where can I go for more factual information?
    - npc54321 4y ago
      Of course: CNN, Fox News, New York Times, White House's press secretary (but only when the president is a democrat).
      - Grim-444 4y ago
        It's hilarious that I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
        unethical_ban 4y ago
        The account is a troll.
      - kergonath 4y ago
        The NYT is… not great in its European coverage. Often pushing a narrative along the lines of “look how much it sucks compared to here”. I don’t follow CNN or Fox News, and definitely not the White House’s press releases. If you want decent coverage in English, the BBC and the Guardian are better, though not without blind spots.
hyperman1 4y ago
Europeans, what are you doing for preparation? In my street, I see some people buying wood, while others claim nothing will happen and no preparation is needed.
- tomjen3 4y ago
  I have nothing i can do as i live in an apartment that is rented. On the other hand I will also be using a lot less energy to heat.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  In Switzerland we should be mostly fine with nuclear and hydro. I don't drive a car and I can afford some amount of raises in price. So I not really doing anything. Switzerland made the brain dead choice to stop all nuclear research and eventually remove all nuclear plants. I just hope to god that we can reverse that absurdly tragic choice and start planning for a next generation reactor. I would love if Switzerland could plan for a GenIV reactor to replace its aging fleet. We really don't have any other decent option. Importing coal power from Germany seems to be an alternative. Maybe the single worst popular vote in my lifetime. Except maybe some of the immigration votes.
  - kaon123 4y ago
    Actually Switzerland released a Study today that they can cover the entire electricity demand in the country by building 3000 additional windmills. So maybe the nuclear power plants aren't needed after all. But of course, what will actually happen is that the power plants will be closed while the windmills are on the bureaucratic drawing table.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Yeah sure, but I much rather have 1 nuclear plant then 3000 additional windmills. Nuclear is more reliable, cleaner, less deadly and much better to look at.
      - 4y ago
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I still feel like I don't after reading the article. Somewhat tragic that energy conservation, in the age of climate change, requires Russia stopping supplies in the middle of a gas shortage to be politically viable.
- codyb 4y ago
  Europe's been very good about energy conservation and has already reduced 1990 levels by a third. I can't find the graph's I've seen but this is representative. https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/blog_co2_emissions_world_1990_2016.gif https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/blog_co2_emis... If you go there, every barge is covered in solar panels (at least in Germany, Belgium where I was recently). Lots of wind farms, great public transportation and train systems. Etc etc.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Europe is doing well compared with Russia or red american states, but they got seriously swerved off course for about a decade there due to populist pro-fossil fuel movements and are now trying to course correct, like more solar manufacturing, EV and batteries. Again, they're relatively doing well but not up to their previous own high standards.
renewedrebecca 4y ago
Anyone know how much this affects Spain & Portugal?
- amelius 4y ago
  There are discussions about a gas pipeline going from Portugal/Spain to the rest of the EU. https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/12/portugal-and-spain-welcome-scholzs-call-for-gas-pipeline-from-iberia-to-central-europe https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/12/portugal-and-spain-welco...
- pcrh 4y ago
  Spain and Portugal import most of their gas from Algeria.
  - nivenkos 4y ago
    Algeria hasn't been very stable either though: https://elpais.com/economia/2021-10-31/argelia-cierra-el-gasoducto-que-transportaba-gas-a-espana-a-traves-de-marruecos.html https://elpais.com/economia/2021-10-31/argelia-cierra-el-gas... https://www.france24.com/es/europa/20220428-amenazas-corte-suministro-espana-gas-argelia-marruecos https://www.france24.com/es/europa/20220428-amenazas-corte-s...
thro388 4y ago
Trains in Czechia still do not have contract for electricity for next year. It is not question of price, nobody is simply offering. Yet goverments are still pushing green agenda. No coal, no nuclear, no heating... ICE cars will be banned soon... We do not have enough electricity for trains already, yet somehow we will quadruple our electricity consumption, without building any infrastructure!
- inb4_cancelled 4y ago
  What's the "green agenda" that you're referring to? How are ICE cars being "banned" soon? How will the consumption quadruple and why do you think that increased consumption won't be accompanied by infrastructure upgrades?
  - thro388 4y ago
    EU recently passed ban on selling cars from 2035, plus taxation etc.. So every car should be electric eventually. It takes decades (30 years) to build new new power plants, power lines etc.. So to make this plan realistic, there should be 50 (maybe 100) power plants under construction or in planning phase right now. Instead we are closing down power plants and reducing electric grid capacity!
    - benj111 4y ago
      When you say power plants, do you mean wind turbines and solar panels?
      - thro388 4y ago
        No, I mean a few GWs of stable power generators!
        benj111 4y ago
        But we're trying to move away from fossil fuels, so what's the point in building power generators again?
paganel 4y ago
We most certainly do, I mean, some of us that live in Europe. Politicians and technocrats almost surely know, also, but they’re still acting like everything is just a-ok.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
00s_enthusiast 4y ago
JacobThreeThree 4y ago
Ironically, Europe is now becoming dependent on Chinese LNG imports, much of which comes from Russia. The sanctions are not working. >The more desperate Europe becomes about its energy supplies, the more China’s policy decisions will have the power to affect the bloc. As Europe attempts to wrestle out of its dependence on Russia for energy, the irony is that it is becoming more dependent on China. https://www.ft.com/content/1e20467a-5b53-42b7-ad89-49808f7e1780 https://www.ft.com/content/1e20467a-5b53-42b7-ad89-49808f7e1... https://archive.ph/APcGS https://archive.ph/APcGS
- pcrh 4y ago
  More accurately, Europe is diversifying its energy sources at a very rapid pace. It imports a lot of LNG from the US for example. FTA: >Through these emergency measures, Europe looks to weather the coming winter, even if pipeline flows are 80 per cent lower than at normal times.
- Brometheus 4y ago
  For the moment. There's a strong urge in Germany to switch over to heatpumps and more renewables now. The gas is not coming back. The ministry of economy instructed city energy utilities to "stop investing" into their gas infrastructure...
  - scottLobster 4y ago
    Germany is neither sunny nor windy, and is maintaining an anti-nuclear stance for the moment. I'm sure it will try a renewable play, waste tons of money for marginal results, and end up burning its local coal deposits instead. That or concede to Russian demands.
    - Brometheus 4y ago
      40% of our electricity comes from renewables already. And it would be much higher, if the Energiewende ("energy turn (to renewables)") hadn't been sabotaged by the same parties that wanted to use coal and gas (namely CDU and SPD).
dwheeler 4y ago
Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources. Here's an article about the discussion while Reagan was president: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/climate/europe-russia-gas-reagan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/climate/europe-russia-gas... In contrast, the US has invested staggering amounts of money into work on energy independence (triggered by the OPEC embargo in the 70s). This led to research in solar, wind, and fracking, which eventually led to significant improvements. The result is that while things aren't perfect: 1. The US is a net energy exporter: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/imports-and-exports.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/imports-... 2. The energy jugular vein of parts of Europe is exposed to those who are happy to hurt Europe. I think France is mostly okay due to nuclear power (yes some are down for delayed maintenance, but they still have a lot being generated). Yes, yes, it's all more complicated than any simple summary can make it. But lack of energy for a country can quickly lead to a lot of dead people. A country is unwise if it ignores the issue. In contrast, I think it's quite reasonable to take steps to ensure that any necessary energy will be available in the future.
- latchkey 4y ago
  > Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources. 2018, even Trump... https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241 https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Thankfully the fact checkers were there to save us. "Germany only imports a fraction of it's energy from Russia" with the smug faces, silly music and everything.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      What I remember is that fact checkers mostly focusing on Trump’s frequent conflation of natural gas and all energy. He would often, either carelessly or deliberately misleadingly, say things like “60% of Germany’s energy comes from Russia” when it was actually 60% of Germany’s natural gas, and natural gas accounts for only around 20% of Germany’s total energy. That seems like a reasonable distinction for fact-checkers to highlight.
Layvier 4y ago
Meh, it's not gonna be the end of the world. Prices for consumers will increase (maybe around 3x), but if the poorest are helped accordingly it's not so bad and will actual push people to be more responsible. This whole crisis actually mostly show how absurd our energy grid is, and the poor strategic choices made in the previous decades. It also pushes for much needed reforms and investments (300 billions in renewables announced a few days ago).
- kaon123 4y ago
  YES! Jesus christ it shows how shortsighted parlementary democracies are. And many individuals: Becoming semi-powerindependent has been possible and cheaper for a long time with Solar Panels. It doesn't heat your house though. But really, who needs to heat so much anyway? Just heat one room, wear a jumper, and visit your friends or the pub instead. But no, instead of calling for behavioral change, what do the politicians say now? Subsidize! Thank god I live in Switzerland. The most democratic country in the world, and Europe's least dependent on Russian Gas.
  - fsloth 4y ago
    ”who needs to heat so much anyway?” When outside temperature is -30 C pretty much anyone who does not want to freeze to death…
  - soco 4y ago
    Almost half of the Swiss gas imports are from Russia, and let's add to that a part of the EU imports - which probably more than half originate from Russia as well. But making extraordinary claims was always at the heart of Swissness, right? https://gazenergie.ch/de/wissen/detail/knowledge-topic/3-herkunft/ https://gazenergie.ch/de/wissen/detail/knowledge-topic/3-her...
    - origin_path 4y ago
      I think kaon123 was being sarcastic.
  - peteradio 4y ago
mym1990 4y ago
I kind had the theory from the beginning of the war that the only real reason that Putin would commit so hard is to create economic chaos and destabilize the world so that he could maybe have a shot at greater world domination. Russia has a pretty good history of using scorched earth tactics to "save" itself, but I have not seen it used in this way before. (Also I am no historian).
seydor 4y ago
This is not discussing the reason that prices are so way up, which is largely the wholesale market with its uniform pricing. Electricity production cost has not gone up as much as markets are suggesting, and e.g. solar producers are making huge profits in the middle of this. EU has said they will step in to cap prices, but it's not like they 're in a hurry, they will "discuss it" in sept. 9, even though they had been warned about this months ago. Then the EU is also giving fines to anyone who uses coal/lignite (of which germany has a lot) to produce electricity. It also does not show an interest in its own gas fields, like the netherlands and the untapped ones in the mediterranean. Given the nonchalant attitude of the EU vs this crisis, and the attempt to share the burden (e.g. making southern countries reduce their gas by 15% even though they use very little), it seems like a remake of the covid-vaccine procurement fiasco is looming. The EU has set CO2 targets for itself that have become a weapon in the hands of Putin. And the EU does not even talk about changing the policy to nullify this weapon. It's no wonder then that Putin finds it easy to blackmail the EU, like other dictators did (e.g. erdogan with immigrants). And on the sides of all these, the EU keeps warming up relations with the worse dictatorships around (e.g. azerbaijan, saudi). Or it's importing repackaged LNG from china. I have an idea how bad this crisis could (not) be but i can't help than shake my head at the gridlocked attitudes of EU institutions.
- benj111 4y ago
  How long does it take to bring a gas field online? If you're going all out to get off russian gas, you may aswell move to something clean, and that can probably start generating sooner.
  - seydor 4y ago
    A finite amount of time. We will always need gas though, unless we plan to connect to renewables in australia. This war will last a long time, and even then , why would the EU go back to business with russia?
    - benj111 4y ago
      Will we always need gas?
jeffrallen 4y ago
In Switzerland this year a 20 kg tank of cooking gas went from 45 to 59 francs. Thank God I heat with pellets.
- malauxyeux 4y ago
  Pellets for furnaces are getting hard to come by here in France apparently.
  - Kon-Peki 4y ago
    Well, you can probably guess... "EU demand for pellets has significantly outpaced domestic production for the past ten years, and it has resulted in increased imports from mainly Russia, the United States, Belarus, and Ukraine." https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=EU%20Wood%20Pellet%20Annual_The%20Hague_European%20Union_E42022-0049.pdf https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadRepo...
origin_path 4y ago
The framing of these stories is so misleading. "The gas problem is largely due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has disrupted exports of Russian gas to Europe and raised prices everywhere else." Europe/Germany's refusal to actually pay for the gas is what's caused the flows to stop. There is a whole gas pipeline that doesn't go anywhere near Ukraine ready and waiting to go (Nord Stream 2), but Germany refuses to license it. Instead they continue to only allow the aging Nord Stream 1 pipeline that has had several turbines offline for repairs, such that they begged the Canadians to let Siemens violate their own Canadian sanctions to return a turbine they'd seized back to the Russians after repairing it. But that wasn't the only turbine with problems which is why (the Kremlin claims) the flow is currently reduced (and indeed Putin was talking about multiple turbines being offline due to technical problems since before the maintenance in the summer so this isn't something newly made up). Want to figure out who's lying right now? Turn on Nord Stream 2 and call the Russian's bluff. They claim they're willing to sell gas to Europe, but are limited by the pipeline problems. Right now we can't tell if that's true or not because there's so much obfuscation on the European side. Issue a license for Nord Stream 2 - all brand new equipment - and see what happens. Germany's government won't do this of course, because with the media's help they are currently successfully pushing the line that the need for repairs is fake and it's all a great game by Russia, who for some reason are OK with pumping some gas, but not all of it, whilst simultaneously lying about the reasons why. This blew up in the media's faces earlier in the year when the pipeline went down for annual maintenance and they ran tons of stories claiming it wouldn't come back, which it then did - not what you'd expect if Russia was sanctioning Europe rather than the other way around. --- https://news.yahoo.com/putin-warns-eu-gas-supplies-221428003.html https://news.yahoo.com/putin-warns-eu-gas-supplies-221428003... "Russia's Gazprom state-controlled natural gas giant reduced gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany by 60% last month, citing technical problems after a turbine that Siemens sent to Canada for overhaul couldn’t be returned because of sanctions. Canada and Germany made a deal to return the turbine, but Putin said Tuesday that Gazprom still hasn't received the relevant documents. The Russian leader said that Gazprom was to shut another turbine for repairs in late July, and if the one that was sent to Canada isn't returned by that time the flow of gas will ebb even more. He also pointed out at Ukraine closing a branch of a transit pipeline carrying the Russian gas to the West that comes via the territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists as another reason behind the dwindling Russian gas flow to Europe." --- Back to the article: "But it’s not just the war: Alternative supplies of gas are expensive, climate change has drained rivers so much that many of Europe’s nuclear plants are offline" French nuclear is offline due to a mix of (again) broken equipment and the fact that the rivers were warm, such that heating them more from the nuclear plants would make the rivers too warm for some wildlife. So environmental protection but not climate change, not because the rivers have literally dried up. I think some were given exemptions and came back online. But this whole line is not really "allowed" anyway because you aren't meant to assign specific weather events to climate change. Climate change is all about long term averages. You can't say it was hot this summer so it's climate change, or it was rainy and cold last summer so that's also climate change. You can only talk about the climate changing if you're talking about long term trends. All climate change so far is only meant to be about 1 degree C over the past 100 years, which isn't anywhere near enough to shut down nuclear reactors.
trention 4y ago
Let's not beat around the bush. Those directly responsible are mostly pretty much everyone who has "smelled" power in CDU and SPD in the last 2 decades. Second place goes to those responsible for nuclear mismanagement in France. It takes a lot of negative talent to have more than half of your nuclear reactors have corrosion problems at the same time.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Yeah, bad management that corrosion in reactors of roughly equal age happens at roughly the equal time.
  - trention 4y ago
    I am pretty sure no "prophylactic" to stagger the effect was possible at all. Who has ever heard of replacing parts prior to them hitting their "shelf life"?
typeofhuman 4y ago
China is literally reselling Russian LNG to the Eurozone. Incredible. Trump was right when he warned them about being dependent on Russia. They laughed and dismissed it.
- timbit42 4y ago
  It's more likely Trump's advisors were right.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Germany got Soviet gas reliably for 50+ years. Trump eanted to sell US LNG, nothong else to see here. And any news of Europes death in a blacked out winter are overstated.
  - dageshi 4y ago
    A diversity of options for gas would still have been good as we now learn.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Nice hindsight is 20/20 comment...
      - dageshi 4y ago
        For something as significant as keeping your population warm in winter I don't think this is "hindsight". This is one of those things that a government should pay core attention to because of the consequences of it going wrong.
        hef19898 4y ago
        Since winter in Europe has yet to come, there is no way to say whether or not it will be a problem. Somehow this discussion reminds of the first months of Covid. A lot of complaining and crying about water under the bridgebfrom the benefit of hindsight. Without thinking about timelines, costs of alternatives and past experiences. All from the sidelines of course, brcause in the end we are all better football coaches tgan the actual coaches, aren't we?
nivenkos 4y ago
As a European, we know - we've already lost ~25% of the value of our savings and purchasing power between double-digit inflation and the Euro crashing >20% in less than a year. But our governments are so committed to this path, there's no way back. Personally I don't care whether it's Ukrainian or Russian oligarchs charging the gas transit fees, I just want peace and stability. Then we can invest heavily in nuclear fission and fusion and renewable energy sources.
- yardie 4y ago
  Peace and stability is how we are in this mess. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Western Europe did nothing, to keep the peace. Russia was emboldened to continue the campaign to annex the rest of Ukraine because they knew no one was going to stop them. And outside of monetary and weapons aid they were mostly right, the Ukrainians are in this fight by themselves. Everyone else is making excuses about keeping the peace and not letting the price of gas get too high.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    When Russia annexed Ukraine nobody anything, including the US. Besides, of course, working with Ukraine behind the scenes to prepare for a potential similar event. And that oreparation worked, didn't it? I like how HN ignores the historical context when it comes to Russia, gas and Europe. This history goes much further back than 2014...
    - TMWNN 4y ago
      >When Russia annexed Ukraine nobody anything, including the US. The US began under Obama an intensive program to retrain the Ukrainian armed forces away from the Soviet-era tactics that had failed miserably against Russia in the east, and provide equipment. Trump and Biden continued this. Without this, Russia's gambit of seizing Kiev and defeating Ukraine in 72 hours in the February war might have succeeded.
- seydor 4y ago
  Si vis pacem ...
avmich 4y ago
Price for natural gas is 10 times the ordinary. Can this increase in price allow for shipment of gas e.g. in liquid form from USA? Or from other sources? Can this difference allow rapid transition towards electric uses?
- pie420 4y ago
  if only european leaders invested in LNG terminals and capacity to import non-russian oil and natural gas. Lithuania and Poland did, the rest of europe did not.
  - kcartlidge 4y ago
    > The rest of europe did not The UK has three existing LNG terminals and one under construction.
  - sam_lowry_ 4y ago
    So many comments and none talked yet about the Groningen gas field. Europe has plenty of gas there, but instead of exploiting it, we gave in to NIMBYsm. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field
    - singularity2001 4y ago
      How long would it take to (re)activate pumps?
incomingpain 4y ago
Europe has been warned constantly by internal and external folks. It's rather public knowledge how bad a situation they are in. The best decision would be to get all the renewables done asap. Solar, wind, grid scale batteries. But they've had months and done what so far? They need north american oil/gas right away. Luckily Trudeau/Biden have worked together to make sure that doesn't happen. Keystone XL, energy east. All cancelled. Anyone monitoring the atlantic ocean for leaks and spills? They are boating that energy over. Those european politicians are going to be paying the piper soon.
photochemsyn 4y ago
This article from Jan 2022 seems quite prescient: https://www.vortexa.com/insights/products/reality-check-on-russian-oil-and-gas-sanctions/ https://www.vortexa.com/insights/products/reality-check-on-r... "Geopolitical tensions around the Ukraine conflict between Russia and a not truly consistent US/European conglomerate are straining and the word “sanctions” is being touted with rising frequency. But by analysing flows it’s clear that any material sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports are unlikely to materialise. If this were to happen, Europe would have much more to lose than Russia. In this insight we’ll explore why." Basically, Russia depended on Europe for about half of its fossil fuel export market in 2020, a steep drop from 2010 when Europe made up about 80% of the exports. Unfortunately the geopolitical prediction was a bit off: > "Given just how huge the ramifications would be for Europe, as well as how toothless flow sanctions would be without blocking Russian exports, which in turn would put the entire world into a different place, we deem it most likely that current tensions will be solved diplomatically."
mdavis6890 4y ago
The issues with these articles is that they focus on money, and the price of energy, which leads people to believe either consciously or not that something can be helped with money. It can't. There is a fundamental supply constraint that has nothing to do with money. People will consume less, either because prices rise and they choose not to pay them, or by rationing, or by random blackouts (gas-outs?).
_nalply 4y ago
It's more a world energy crisis. See: https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-scoops-up-lng-choking-off-power-supplies-in-poorer-nations-11657212688 https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-scoops-up-lng-choking-of... > “Because of the Ukraine war, every single molecule that was available in our region has been purchased by Europe, because they’re trying to reduce their dependence on Russia,” said Pakistan’s Petroleum Minister, Musadik Malik.
dav_Oz 4y ago
Both the pandemic (health crisis) in 2020 and the energy crisis 2022 in Europe cannot be understood without looking at the whole picture of cui bono on all sides. When Trump warned Germany about the dependence on Russian gas he had first and foremost US interests in his mind. Continental Europe (effectively Germany and France) failed to formulate and establish a distinctive stance regarding its foreign policy towards Russia with whom they share a continent. Exactly this lack of own assertiveness is now leading to the self-inflicted energy crisis. The Russian and US interests where clear from the start way back in at least 2014 when irreversible actions (on boh sides) where made. The US interests: when push comes to shove they don't mind the pawn sacrifices in Eurasia by defending its hegemony against - ultimatley - China. After the fall of the Soviet Union Europe's interests were scattered (e.g. Balkanization, Brexit, North vs South etc.) and today are basically aligned with US interests even if they seem at odds purely from a strategic pov. I once asked a friend of mine who grew up partly in China (who was always very cautious not to be drawn into political arguments) provocatively who his favourite (European) politician was, he answered: Charles de Gaulle. At the time I thought what a weird answer that was, why such an old and partly forgotten statesman but after some years I came to realize that he probably admired his very demanding independent stance after WWII not shying away to challenge his uber-powerful ally overseas when his own national interests where at the line. I can clearly identify the national interests of the US, Russia, China, India, South Africa, Turkey, Poland and even Hungary ... in the Ukraine war but I have a hard time understanding that of Germany or France from a self-perserving perspective. Quoting from Bertold Brecht's "Dreigroschenoper"[0]: Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral. [Food is the first thing, morals follow on]. [0]https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=44&v=xbUW0ZfnZbs&feature=emb_title https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=44&v=xbUW0ZfnZbs&f...

120 points by Laaas 4y ago

https://archive.ph/sP0QV https://archive.ph/sP0QV

Europe has shot off many feet. Look at how they have demonised nuclear power in some areas. Had they not done this, they would not now be at Russia's mercy(Varies across member states). Similar to gene changed food - unwise denialism.

diffeomorphism 4y ago
Currently Germany is exporting lots and lots of energy to France because the French nuclear plants are in large part not working (repairs, corrosion damage, lack of water for cooling). Given that nuclear is demonstrably not working well for France what makes you so certain things would work better in other countries?
- enqk 4y ago
  Even in France there has been strong political opposition to support nuclear plants, their renovations and new development, so the situation in France is not indicative of a well run program. In particular no new development in a while meant that a lot of local expertise has gone away
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Reading about the Superphoenix reactor makes me furious. They could have 10 of those babies running by now. But no, was killed by the Left and then not revived. And what are they planning to build now, more PWRs. Fucking incredibly how the world can just not move on to next generation nuclear.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      It's fun to imagine an alternate history where the left were more pro-nuclear power. Like if they'd just built the best power stations rather than the ones that had military crossover. I mean, if the fossil fuel powered right wing can demonise Elon Musk and Tesla as subsidy junkies, and wind turbines can be accused of giving you ear cancer, can you just imagine what they'd say about nuclear? What, you think we should building nuclear power like the commies and the French and worse the Democrats? Are you one of those vegetarians? We've got cheap fracked American gas and clean coal, why would we waste taxes on nuclear? Climate change? But CO2 is good, it's plant food for God sake. If anything we want it warmer, so we can get more gas in the artic circle, drill baby drill. Nuclear doesn't have a high enough ERoEI to sustain civilization, you're trying to intentionally destroy capitalism.
      - kergonath 4y ago
        > It's fun to imagine an alternate history where the left were more pro-nuclear power. The thing is, nuclear is not incompatible with “the left”. After all, nuclear programmes make sense only with a lot of public investment and control, and work best in nationalised producers, in which case it provides cheap electricity for the people and revenues for the state. Both the socialists and the communists are in general pro-nuclear. It’s horse trading to keep the greens in the “gauche plurielle” coalition that closed Superphénix. It’s the same kind of compromises that lead to the arbitrary policy that “we should not have more than 50% of nuclear electricity” and the closing of Fessenheim. Even now, the leftist alliance NUPES cannot really discuss this because the demagogues and greens are against but the other half is pro.
        panick21_ 4y ago
        Nuclear inherently should be something the left love. However the problem is that nuclear power is strongly associated with the cold war and nuclear weapons. It was seen as a way to subsidize nuclear weapons. That never was really true at all. Also the early environmental movement had a strong 'naturalist' wing (and still does) and nuclear is seen as 'unnatural'. This strongly influenced leftists politics in general. I would love to learn more about Superphenix and its design, history and the politcs around it but I wasn't able to find much. My French despite 12 years of getting forced to learn it, still sucks. From a Swiss perspective, its crazy to think a Swiss green politician went and shot the reactor with an RPG.
  - pookha 4y ago
    Wow this is depressing. France had the worlds greatest fleet of standardized nuclear reactors. They mastered Nuclear Power... I'm assuming energy companies spent vast amounts of money to propagandize the French public to only support wind and solar (like in the US) but maybe that's not the case?
    - aurizon 4y ago
      The Germans were unwise many years ago = now they pay the Russian piper - as we are seeing. The anti nuclear people were probably funded by Russia?? as they specialise at strategic plans of this type under Putin's helm = anything to weaken us = good. Wind/solar makes steady gains and will get even better as the use of newer junction geometries get better and approach the S-Q barriers.
- Zealotux 4y ago
  Nuclear is "not working well" for us because ideologues have been systematically undermining our nuclear industry for decades now, and it'll take a few more decades to heal the damage done by said ideologues, with the hope no one ever listen to their propaganda ever again. Starve the beast, kick it when it's down, and blame it for not saving the day.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Given that nuclear is demonstrably not working well for France what makes you so certain things would work better in other countries? French reactors are largely offline for overdue maintenance [1]. This bunched up because scheduled maintenance was delayed. A larger European fleet of reactors would be more resilient. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/france-braces-uncertain-winter-nuclear-power-shortage-looms-2022-08-30/ https://www.reuters.com/world/france-braces-uncertain-winter...
  - kergonath 4y ago
    Yeah. Do not delay maintenance because then it bites you in the rear. Also, it’s still better to do it in the summer: next winter will be terrible enough and we’ll need every generator we can get.
- izacus 4y ago
  What do you mean "not working well"? At this point, right now, French NPPs are producing 24000MW of power (57% of all french output). Yes, it's down from the usual ~70% due to maintenance issues, but calling this "not working" is outright dishonest. It's this type of exaggerated misinformation from German greens that brought their country into this mess.
  - diffeomorphism 4y ago
    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-france-germany-global-trade-44e1b8bf0875a3aeaa63d9a63966fc1c https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-france-germany-glo... The linked article is pretty matter of fact and I am quite disappointed that replies in this thread go off on weird tangents about "misinformation from the German greens" or "owning the nuke people". You might very well be correct in your argument, but the level of discussion is much lower than I would expect from HN.
    - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
      The ever present German greens which apparently have the country of Germany in an iron grip even though they have less than 15% of the vote. Let's not get started on the French greens, whose representation on the assemblies is marginal at best, but apparently are the reason France does not have "tens of Superphenix reactors" by now (the large cost overruns and literal swiss terrorist attacks notwithstanding).
      - izacus 4y ago
        "greens" (no capital letter) in my post does not imply just green party, but a group of germans that always comes out of the woodwork blastnig dishonest arguments about why we need to get rid of our critically needed power source. While it's not just Germans that are always coming out of the woodwork (Austrians are even more extreme), the anti-nuclear movement was always extremely loud in Germany.
- linksnapzz 4y ago
  According to publicly-available info, nuclear was doing quite well for France (80% of load) in 2021. Whatever problems they might be having at this very moment, what makes you think this is intrinsic to nuclear power or EDF in particular? Also, the electricity that the germans are exporting very likely might come from coal plants burning filthy north rhine lignite. Great way to own the nuke ppl.
  - causi 4y ago
    Also, the electricity that the germans are exporting very likely might come from coal plants burning filthy north rhine lignite. Great way to own the nuke ppl. Don't forget they spin up coal plants for peak demand and then just cut them out of the grid to avoid counting their still-running emissions.
  - diffeomorphism 4y ago
    > Great way to own the nuke ppl. (eye roll) yeah, because that is obviously the point. > What makes you think that.... It might not be, but currently the quality of this thread is quite disappointing.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Nuclear is working in France. People taking a very current issue and blowing it out of proportion. Nuclear has provide CO2 free clean energy to people in France for 40 years. While Germany blew incredibly dirty stuff into the air in addition to CO2. And France has more often been exporting clean nuclear power rather then exporting coal power like Germany. And CO2 saved in 1980 is far more important then CO2 saved now. The world should be thankful for French nuclear. And French citizens should be thankful that the worst pollution from coal is coal ash that wind is bringing over from Germany. Now lets get to the current issues. The issues with French nuclear is the same reason for many issues with nuclear in other places. Nuclear has been under political attack, and laws past in the last couple years are responsible for some of the issues they have now. The deferred maintenance because the trend at the time was that these reactors are legacy, and renewables would take over. They wanted to reduce the energy share of nuclear for the same dumb reasons. The water issue is actually a problem, but temporary one. Also, France had amazing next generation reactors, like Superphoenix, that were killed by the Left and Greens in the past. Had they spend the last 20 years build those reactors rather then trying to kill nuclear and build the same old PWRs, they would be in a amazing position now. And nuclear is working just fine in a number of European countries. In fact, most countries with very clean grids have a large nuclear component.
  - srrr 4y ago
    Some data: Per capita CO2 emissions in France are half than in Germany: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany?country=DEU~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany?country=DEU~F... (ps: I am an opponent of nuclear energy. But facts are facts.)
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Germany is a bigger manufacturer. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?locations=DE-FR-GB-US&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD?locat... Once you adjust for GDP they're both doing well and Germany has caught up with France (added UK and US for context).
- heavenlyblue 4y ago
  At the moment it's exporting exactly 4.7% from Germany.
- rr888 4y ago
  This shows exports/imports from today. Yes Germany is exporting to France, but importing similar amounts from the Netherlands so seems like a wash. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
- Nodraak 4y ago
  > nuclear is demonstrably not working well You are jumping to this conclusion way to fast. First, you are cherry picking: you should look at the yearly load factor, not a random day and time of the year when it supports your argument. And you will find that nuclear has the highest load factor of all, 80-90%, while solar/PV will never be above 30-40% (because of physics, you can not change that). Second, and since I just demonstrated that on a yearly timeframe nuclear works very well, the right question to ask is: why are there so many nuclear plants offline right now? The answer is quite simple, and is due to one of the advantage of nuclear: you can choose when to switch it on or off, for ex to perform maintenance. So, when is the best time to perform maintenance? Answer: just before the peak load, which happens in winter (Mondays around 8 AM in January, to be more precise), so you switch nuclear off in autumn, ie now. It's actually a good news that the load factor of nuclear is so low right now, it means that nuclear will be ready and will work well in a couple of months when we will need it the most. > Currently Germany is exporting lots and lots of energy Again, cherry picking, show me the yearly stat. But actually the only comment I will make here is about the criteria you are using: is exporting a lot of energy a good thing? I would say it depends. High variability is bad, it makes the grid unstable. I would rather have low and steady import/export rather than big swings. Exercise for the reader: what allows you to have steady production of electricity (nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, ...)? --- We need more nuclear. Simply because that's the only low carbon, controllable option that currently exists (hydro needs mountains, fossils are high carbon, solar/wind are intermittent)
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    Shockley-Queisser limit is not absolute.
    - aurizon 4y ago
      Yes, it has many end runs that lead to the high 60's in multiple junction systems. Add $$ = works in orbit. A good outline is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley%E2%80%93Queisser_limit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley%E2%80%93Queisser_limi...
- kergonath 4y ago
  > lack of water for cooling That is largely a myth. They stop when the water level decreases for regulatory reasons, not physical ones.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    What is the practical difference? These "regulations" are put for a reason. You just can't leave the river dry or the water boiling and call it a day.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      Well there is no difference in practice, as the reactors are closed anyway. But they are not closed because the physics don’t work, or because they are functionally unable to work in the current situation (the “nuclear cannot work when it’s hot” line you see in some newspapers). Nobody has done a serious assessment when the limits were decided, more based on guesswork than anything else. The reactors are at ~300°C. It does not matter one bit if the input water is at 40°C or 20°C. As for the output, if temperatures keep increasing it just means they will have to build pools to let the water cool down some more before going back to the river or recycled through the external cooling loops. If the water level is the problem, the quantities involved are negligible compared to the throughput of a large river or what we spray on maize fields.
- glogla 4y ago
  Nuclear is not working in France right now because France uses lot less electricity in summer than in winter (they have a lot of electric heating and not a lot of air conditioning), so they are doing all the maintenance and refueling in summer. I am pretty tired of this particular misinformation.
- aurizon 4y ago
  Low river levels + very warm water levels have forced selective shutdowns in France - a reliance on water that the drought sent away. River water is often a 'once through' system, compared to cooling towers which can be water conserving closed systems that tale more space or tiered evaporators. I expect that France is using the shutdowns for maintenance of various corrosion points. It is cheaper to use cheap pipe and replace it when it corrodes versus stainless steel or other alloys. I think France has been very well served by it's nuclear power plants as it leads the world in that arena. As for doctrinaire opposition of nuclear = I have none, build it well, maintain it well, and it will serve you well. I would like France to be in the lead for implementing a thorium cycle. Thorium has been neglected due to the difficulty of making nuclear weapons as off-products of the reactors - as we have seen Uranium was driven to the head of the nuke queue by the relative ease of making fissionable material that suited bombs. I feel you have stuck an inappropriate 'pin' in France on this. Had all Europe/world followed France, we would be miles ahead in global warming reduction! Even more so with Thorium! Works proceeds on Thorium - it's day will come.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nprateem 4y ago
So many gas boilers and central heating in the UK, abundant electricity wouldn't help many this winter anyway.
hef19898 4y ago
Germany: gas for heating and industry, nuckear for electricity. Primary energy =|= secondary energy. If the pro-nuclear crowd could just get the basics right, it would make so much more sense to engage in reasonable discussions.

jmoak3 4y ago

Someone else posted this a few weeks ago, but it truly blew my mind. Watch a few minutes of this, starting from the given timestamp: https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=1746 https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=1746 Europe is in more trouble than I imagined.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
This guy says exactly what (certain) Americans want to hear, so he's very popular. But, like his audience, he's swimming in a ocean of misinformation.
- djbusby 4y ago
  Where can I go for more factual information?
  - npc54321 4y ago
    Of course: CNN, Fox News, New York Times, White House's press secretary (but only when the president is a democrat).
    - Grim-444 4y ago
      It's hilarious that I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
      - unethical_ban 4y ago
        The account is a troll.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      The NYT is… not great in its European coverage. Often pushing a narrative along the lines of “look how much it sucks compared to here”. I don’t follow CNN or Fox News, and definitely not the White House’s press releases. If you want decent coverage in English, the BBC and the Guardian are better, though not without blind spots.

hyperman1 4y ago

Europeans, what are you doing for preparation? In my street, I see some people buying wood, while others claim nothing will happen and no preparation is needed.

tomjen3 4y ago
I have nothing i can do as i live in an apartment that is rented. On the other hand I will also be using a lot less energy to heat.
panick21_ 4y ago
In Switzerland we should be mostly fine with nuclear and hydro. I don't drive a car and I can afford some amount of raises in price. So I not really doing anything. Switzerland made the brain dead choice to stop all nuclear research and eventually remove all nuclear plants. I just hope to god that we can reverse that absurdly tragic choice and start planning for a next generation reactor. I would love if Switzerland could plan for a GenIV reactor to replace its aging fleet. We really don't have any other decent option. Importing coal power from Germany seems to be an alternative. Maybe the single worst popular vote in my lifetime. Except maybe some of the immigration votes.
- kaon123 4y ago
  Actually Switzerland released a Study today that they can cover the entire electricity demand in the country by building 3000 additional windmills. So maybe the nuclear power plants aren't needed after all. But of course, what will actually happen is that the power plants will be closed while the windmills are on the bureaucratic drawing table.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Yeah sure, but I much rather have 1 nuclear plant then 3000 additional windmills. Nuclear is more reliable, cleaner, less deadly and much better to look at.
    - 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I still feel like I don't after reading the article. Somewhat tragic that energy conservation, in the age of climate change, requires Russia stopping supplies in the middle of a gas shortage to be politically viable.

codyb 4y ago
Europe's been very good about energy conservation and has already reduced 1990 levels by a third. I can't find the graph's I've seen but this is representative. https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/blog_co2_emissions_world_1990_2016.gif https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/blog_co2_emis... If you go there, every barge is covered in solar panels (at least in Germany, Belgium where I was recently). Lots of wind farms, great public transportation and train systems. Etc etc.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Europe is doing well compared with Russia or red american states, but they got seriously swerved off course for about a decade there due to populist pro-fossil fuel movements and are now trying to course correct, like more solar manufacturing, EV and batteries. Again, they're relatively doing well but not up to their previous own high standards.

renewedrebecca 4y ago

Anyone know how much this affects Spain & Portugal?

amelius 4y ago
There are discussions about a gas pipeline going from Portugal/Spain to the rest of the EU. https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/12/portugal-and-spain-welcome-scholzs-call-for-gas-pipeline-from-iberia-to-central-europe https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/12/portugal-and-spain-welco...
pcrh 4y ago
Spain and Portugal import most of their gas from Algeria.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  Algeria hasn't been very stable either though: https://elpais.com/economia/2021-10-31/argelia-cierra-el-gasoducto-que-transportaba-gas-a-espana-a-traves-de-marruecos.html https://elpais.com/economia/2021-10-31/argelia-cierra-el-gas... https://www.france24.com/es/europa/20220428-amenazas-corte-suministro-espana-gas-argelia-marruecos https://www.france24.com/es/europa/20220428-amenazas-corte-s...

thro388 4y ago

Trains in Czechia still do not have contract for electricity for next year. It is not question of price, nobody is simply offering. Yet goverments are still pushing green agenda. No coal, no nuclear, no heating... ICE cars will be banned soon... We do not have enough electricity for trains already, yet somehow we will quadruple our electricity consumption, without building any infrastructure!

inb4_cancelled 4y ago
What's the "green agenda" that you're referring to? How are ICE cars being "banned" soon? How will the consumption quadruple and why do you think that increased consumption won't be accompanied by infrastructure upgrades?
- thro388 4y ago
  EU recently passed ban on selling cars from 2035, plus taxation etc.. So every car should be electric eventually. It takes decades (30 years) to build new new power plants, power lines etc.. So to make this plan realistic, there should be 50 (maybe 100) power plants under construction or in planning phase right now. Instead we are closing down power plants and reducing electric grid capacity!
  - benj111 4y ago
    When you say power plants, do you mean wind turbines and solar panels?
    - thro388 4y ago
      No, I mean a few GWs of stable power generators!
      - benj111 4y ago
        But we're trying to move away from fossil fuels, so what's the point in building power generators again?

paganel 4y ago

We most certainly do, I mean, some of us that live in Europe. Politicians and technocrats almost surely know, also, but they’re still acting like everything is just a-ok.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

00s_enthusiast 4y ago

JacobThreeThree 4y ago

Ironically, Europe is now becoming dependent on Chinese LNG imports, much of which comes from Russia. The sanctions are not working. >The more desperate Europe becomes about its energy supplies, the more China’s policy decisions will have the power to affect the bloc. As Europe attempts to wrestle out of its dependence on Russia for energy, the irony is that it is becoming more dependent on China. https://www.ft.com/content/1e20467a-5b53-42b7-ad89-49808f7e1780 https://www.ft.com/content/1e20467a-5b53-42b7-ad89-49808f7e1... https://archive.ph/APcGS https://archive.ph/APcGS

pcrh 4y ago
More accurately, Europe is diversifying its energy sources at a very rapid pace. It imports a lot of LNG from the US for example. FTA: >Through these emergency measures, Europe looks to weather the coming winter, even if pipeline flows are 80 per cent lower than at normal times.
Brometheus 4y ago
For the moment. There's a strong urge in Germany to switch over to heatpumps and more renewables now. The gas is not coming back. The ministry of economy instructed city energy utilities to "stop investing" into their gas infrastructure...
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Germany is neither sunny nor windy, and is maintaining an anti-nuclear stance for the moment. I'm sure it will try a renewable play, waste tons of money for marginal results, and end up burning its local coal deposits instead. That or concede to Russian demands.
  - Brometheus 4y ago
    40% of our electricity comes from renewables already. And it would be much higher, if the Energiewende ("energy turn (to renewables)") hadn't been sabotaged by the same parties that wanted to use coal and gas (namely CDU and SPD).

dwheeler 4y ago

Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources. Here's an article about the discussion while Reagan was president: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/climate/europe-russia-gas-reagan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/climate/europe-russia-gas... In contrast, the US has invested staggering amounts of money into work on energy independence (triggered by the OPEC embargo in the 70s). This led to research in solar, wind, and fracking, which eventually led to significant improvements. The result is that while things aren't perfect: 1. The US is a net energy exporter: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/imports-and-exports.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/imports-... 2. The energy jugular vein of parts of Europe is exposed to those who are happy to hurt Europe. I think France is mostly okay due to nuclear power (yes some are down for delayed maintenance, but they still have a lot being generated). Yes, yes, it's all more complicated than any simple summary can make it. But lack of energy for a country can quickly lead to a lot of dead people. A country is unwise if it ignores the issue. In contrast, I think it's quite reasonable to take steps to ensure that any necessary energy will be available in the future.

latchkey 4y ago
> Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources. 2018, even Trump... https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241 https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Thankfully the fact checkers were there to save us. "Germany only imports a fraction of it's energy from Russia" with the smug faces, silly music and everything.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    What I remember is that fact checkers mostly focusing on Trump’s frequent conflation of natural gas and all energy. He would often, either carelessly or deliberately misleadingly, say things like “60% of Germany’s energy comes from Russia” when it was actually 60% of Germany’s natural gas, and natural gas accounts for only around 20% of Germany’s total energy. That seems like a reasonable distinction for fact-checkers to highlight.

Layvier 4y ago

Meh, it's not gonna be the end of the world. Prices for consumers will increase (maybe around 3x), but if the poorest are helped accordingly it's not so bad and will actual push people to be more responsible. This whole crisis actually mostly show how absurd our energy grid is, and the poor strategic choices made in the previous decades. It also pushes for much needed reforms and investments (300 billions in renewables announced a few days ago).

kaon123 4y ago
YES! Jesus christ it shows how shortsighted parlementary democracies are. And many individuals: Becoming semi-powerindependent has been possible and cheaper for a long time with Solar Panels. It doesn't heat your house though. But really, who needs to heat so much anyway? Just heat one room, wear a jumper, and visit your friends or the pub instead. But no, instead of calling for behavioral change, what do the politicians say now? Subsidize! Thank god I live in Switzerland. The most democratic country in the world, and Europe's least dependent on Russian Gas.
- fsloth 4y ago
  ”who needs to heat so much anyway?” When outside temperature is -30 C pretty much anyone who does not want to freeze to death…
- soco 4y ago
  Almost half of the Swiss gas imports are from Russia, and let's add to that a part of the EU imports - which probably more than half originate from Russia as well. But making extraordinary claims was always at the heart of Swissness, right? https://gazenergie.ch/de/wissen/detail/knowledge-topic/3-herkunft/ https://gazenergie.ch/de/wissen/detail/knowledge-topic/3-her...
  - origin_path 4y ago
    I think kaon123 was being sarcastic.
- peteradio 4y ago

mym1990 4y ago

I kind had the theory from the beginning of the war that the only real reason that Putin would commit so hard is to create economic chaos and destabilize the world so that he could maybe have a shot at greater world domination. Russia has a pretty good history of using scorched earth tactics to "save" itself, but I have not seen it used in this way before. (Also I am no historian).

seydor 4y ago

This is not discussing the reason that prices are so way up, which is largely the wholesale market with its uniform pricing. Electricity production cost has not gone up as much as markets are suggesting, and e.g. solar producers are making huge profits in the middle of this. EU has said they will step in to cap prices, but it's not like they 're in a hurry, they will "discuss it" in sept. 9, even though they had been warned about this months ago. Then the EU is also giving fines to anyone who uses coal/lignite (of which germany has a lot) to produce electricity. It also does not show an interest in its own gas fields, like the netherlands and the untapped ones in the mediterranean. Given the nonchalant attitude of the EU vs this crisis, and the attempt to share the burden (e.g. making southern countries reduce their gas by 15% even though they use very little), it seems like a remake of the covid-vaccine procurement fiasco is looming. The EU has set CO2 targets for itself that have become a weapon in the hands of Putin. And the EU does not even talk about changing the policy to nullify this weapon. It's no wonder then that Putin finds it easy to blackmail the EU, like other dictators did (e.g. erdogan with immigrants). And on the sides of all these, the EU keeps warming up relations with the worse dictatorships around (e.g. azerbaijan, saudi). Or it's importing repackaged LNG from china. I have an idea how bad this crisis could (not) be but i can't help than shake my head at the gridlocked attitudes of EU institutions.

benj111 4y ago
How long does it take to bring a gas field online? If you're going all out to get off russian gas, you may aswell move to something clean, and that can probably start generating sooner.
- seydor 4y ago
  A finite amount of time. We will always need gas though, unless we plan to connect to renewables in australia. This war will last a long time, and even then , why would the EU go back to business with russia?
  - benj111 4y ago
    Will we always need gas?

jeffrallen 4y ago

In Switzerland this year a 20 kg tank of cooking gas went from 45 to 59 francs. Thank God I heat with pellets.

malauxyeux 4y ago
Pellets for furnaces are getting hard to come by here in France apparently.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago
  Well, you can probably guess... "EU demand for pellets has significantly outpaced domestic production for the past ten years, and it has resulted in increased imports from mainly Russia, the United States, Belarus, and Ukraine." https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=EU%20Wood%20Pellet%20Annual_The%20Hague_European%20Union_E42022-0049.pdf https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadRepo...

origin_path 4y ago

The framing of these stories is so misleading. "The gas problem is largely due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has disrupted exports of Russian gas to Europe and raised prices everywhere else." Europe/Germany's refusal to actually pay for the gas is what's caused the flows to stop. There is a whole gas pipeline that doesn't go anywhere near Ukraine ready and waiting to go (Nord Stream 2), but Germany refuses to license it. Instead they continue to only allow the aging Nord Stream 1 pipeline that has had several turbines offline for repairs, such that they begged the Canadians to let Siemens violate their own Canadian sanctions to return a turbine they'd seized back to the Russians after repairing it. But that wasn't the only turbine with problems which is why (the Kremlin claims) the flow is currently reduced (and indeed Putin was talking about multiple turbines being offline due to technical problems since before the maintenance in the summer so this isn't something newly made up). Want to figure out who's lying right now? Turn on Nord Stream 2 and call the Russian's bluff. They claim they're willing to sell gas to Europe, but are limited by the pipeline problems. Right now we can't tell if that's true or not because there's so much obfuscation on the European side. Issue a license for Nord Stream 2 - all brand new equipment - and see what happens. Germany's government won't do this of course, because with the media's help they are currently successfully pushing the line that the need for repairs is fake and it's all a great game by Russia, who for some reason are OK with pumping some gas, but not all of it, whilst simultaneously lying about the reasons why. This blew up in the media's faces earlier in the year when the pipeline went down for annual maintenance and they ran tons of stories claiming it wouldn't come back, which it then did - not what you'd expect if Russia was sanctioning Europe rather than the other way around. --- https://news.yahoo.com/putin-warns-eu-gas-supplies-221428003.html https://news.yahoo.com/putin-warns-eu-gas-supplies-221428003... "Russia's Gazprom state-controlled natural gas giant reduced gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany by 60% last month, citing technical problems after a turbine that Siemens sent to Canada for overhaul couldn’t be returned because of sanctions. Canada and Germany made a deal to return the turbine, but Putin said Tuesday that Gazprom still hasn't received the relevant documents. The Russian leader said that Gazprom was to shut another turbine for repairs in late July, and if the one that was sent to Canada isn't returned by that time the flow of gas will ebb even more. He also pointed out at Ukraine closing a branch of a transit pipeline carrying the Russian gas to the West that comes via the territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists as another reason behind the dwindling Russian gas flow to Europe." --- Back to the article: "But it’s not just the war: Alternative supplies of gas are expensive, climate change has drained rivers so much that many of Europe’s nuclear plants are offline" French nuclear is offline due to a mix of (again) broken equipment and the fact that the rivers were warm, such that heating them more from the nuclear plants would make the rivers too warm for some wildlife. So environmental protection but not climate change, not because the rivers have literally dried up. I think some were given exemptions and came back online. But this whole line is not really "allowed" anyway because you aren't meant to assign specific weather events to climate change. Climate change is all about long term averages. You can't say it was hot this summer so it's climate change, or it was rainy and cold last summer so that's also climate change. You can only talk about the climate changing if you're talking about long term trends. All climate change so far is only meant to be about 1 degree C over the past 100 years, which isn't anywhere near enough to shut down nuclear reactors.

trention 4y ago

Let's not beat around the bush. Those directly responsible are mostly pretty much everyone who has "smelled" power in CDU and SPD in the last 2 decades. Second place goes to those responsible for nuclear mismanagement in France. It takes a lot of negative talent to have more than half of your nuclear reactors have corrosion problems at the same time.

hef19898 4y ago
Yeah, bad management that corrosion in reactors of roughly equal age happens at roughly the equal time.
- trention 4y ago
  I am pretty sure no "prophylactic" to stagger the effect was possible at all. Who has ever heard of replacing parts prior to them hitting their "shelf life"?

typeofhuman 4y ago

China is literally reselling Russian LNG to the Eurozone. Incredible. Trump was right when he warned them about being dependent on Russia. They laughed and dismissed it.

timbit42 4y ago
It's more likely Trump's advisors were right.
hef19898 4y ago
Germany got Soviet gas reliably for 50+ years. Trump eanted to sell US LNG, nothong else to see here. And any news of Europes death in a blacked out winter are overstated.
- dageshi 4y ago
  A diversity of options for gas would still have been good as we now learn.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Nice hindsight is 20/20 comment...
    - dageshi 4y ago
      For something as significant as keeping your population warm in winter I don't think this is "hindsight". This is one of those things that a government should pay core attention to because of the consequences of it going wrong.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Since winter in Europe has yet to come, there is no way to say whether or not it will be a problem. Somehow this discussion reminds of the first months of Covid. A lot of complaining and crying about water under the bridgebfrom the benefit of hindsight. Without thinking about timelines, costs of alternatives and past experiences. All from the sidelines of course, brcause in the end we are all better football coaches tgan the actual coaches, aren't we?

nivenkos 4y ago

As a European, we know - we've already lost ~25% of the value of our savings and purchasing power between double-digit inflation and the Euro crashing >20% in less than a year. But our governments are so committed to this path, there's no way back. Personally I don't care whether it's Ukrainian or Russian oligarchs charging the gas transit fees, I just want peace and stability. Then we can invest heavily in nuclear fission and fusion and renewable energy sources.

yardie 4y ago
Peace and stability is how we are in this mess. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Western Europe did nothing, to keep the peace. Russia was emboldened to continue the campaign to annex the rest of Ukraine because they knew no one was going to stop them. And outside of monetary and weapons aid they were mostly right, the Ukrainians are in this fight by themselves. Everyone else is making excuses about keeping the peace and not letting the price of gas get too high.
- hef19898 4y ago
  When Russia annexed Ukraine nobody anything, including the US. Besides, of course, working with Ukraine behind the scenes to prepare for a potential similar event. And that oreparation worked, didn't it? I like how HN ignores the historical context when it comes to Russia, gas and Europe. This history goes much further back than 2014...
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    >When Russia annexed Ukraine nobody anything, including the US. The US began under Obama an intensive program to retrain the Ukrainian armed forces away from the Soviet-era tactics that had failed miserably against Russia in the east, and provide equipment. Trump and Biden continued this. Without this, Russia's gambit of seizing Kiev and defeating Ukraine in 72 hours in the February war might have succeeded.
seydor 4y ago
Si vis pacem ...

avmich 4y ago

Price for natural gas is 10 times the ordinary. Can this increase in price allow for shipment of gas e.g. in liquid form from USA? Or from other sources? Can this difference allow rapid transition towards electric uses?

pie420 4y ago
if only european leaders invested in LNG terminals and capacity to import non-russian oil and natural gas. Lithuania and Poland did, the rest of europe did not.
- kcartlidge 4y ago
  > The rest of europe did not The UK has three existing LNG terminals and one under construction.
- sam_lowry_ 4y ago
  So many comments and none talked yet about the Groningen gas field. Europe has plenty of gas there, but instead of exploiting it, we gave in to NIMBYsm. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field
  - singularity2001 4y ago
    How long would it take to (re)activate pumps?

incomingpain 4y ago

Europe has been warned constantly by internal and external folks. It's rather public knowledge how bad a situation they are in. The best decision would be to get all the renewables done asap. Solar, wind, grid scale batteries. But they've had months and done what so far? They need north american oil/gas right away. Luckily Trudeau/Biden have worked together to make sure that doesn't happen. Keystone XL, energy east. All cancelled. Anyone monitoring the atlantic ocean for leaks and spills? They are boating that energy over. Those european politicians are going to be paying the piper soon.

photochemsyn 4y ago

This article from Jan 2022 seems quite prescient: https://www.vortexa.com/insights/products/reality-check-on-russian-oil-and-gas-sanctions/ https://www.vortexa.com/insights/products/reality-check-on-r... "Geopolitical tensions around the Ukraine conflict between Russia and a not truly consistent US/European conglomerate are straining and the word “sanctions” is being touted with rising frequency. But by analysing flows it’s clear that any material sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports are unlikely to materialise. If this were to happen, Europe would have much more to lose than Russia. In this insight we’ll explore why." Basically, Russia depended on Europe for about half of its fossil fuel export market in 2020, a steep drop from 2010 when Europe made up about 80% of the exports. Unfortunately the geopolitical prediction was a bit off: > "Given just how huge the ramifications would be for Europe, as well as how toothless flow sanctions would be without blocking Russian exports, which in turn would put the entire world into a different place, we deem it most likely that current tensions will be solved diplomatically."

mdavis6890 4y ago

The issues with these articles is that they focus on money, and the price of energy, which leads people to believe either consciously or not that something can be helped with money. It can't. There is a fundamental supply constraint that has nothing to do with money. People will consume less, either because prices rise and they choose not to pay them, or by rationing, or by random blackouts (gas-outs?).

_nalply 4y ago

It's more a world energy crisis. See: https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-scoops-up-lng-choking-off-power-supplies-in-poorer-nations-11657212688 https://www.wsj.com/articles/europe-scoops-up-lng-choking-of... > “Because of the Ukraine war, every single molecule that was available in our region has been purchased by Europe, because they’re trying to reduce their dependence on Russia,” said Pakistan’s Petroleum Minister, Musadik Malik.

dav_Oz 4y ago

Both the pandemic (health crisis) in 2020 and the energy crisis 2022 in Europe cannot be understood without looking at the whole picture of cui bono on all sides. When Trump warned Germany about the dependence on Russian gas he had first and foremost US interests in his mind. Continental Europe (effectively Germany and France) failed to formulate and establish a distinctive stance regarding its foreign policy towards Russia with whom they share a continent. Exactly this lack of own assertiveness is now leading to the self-inflicted energy crisis. The Russian and US interests where clear from the start way back in at least 2014 when irreversible actions (on boh sides) where made. The US interests: when push comes to shove they don't mind the pawn sacrifices in Eurasia by defending its hegemony against - ultimatley - China. After the fall of the Soviet Union Europe's interests were scattered (e.g. Balkanization, Brexit, North vs South etc.) and today are basically aligned with US interests even if they seem at odds purely from a strategic pov. I once asked a friend of mine who grew up partly in China (who was always very cautious not to be drawn into political arguments) provocatively who his favourite (European) politician was, he answered: Charles de Gaulle. At the time I thought what a weird answer that was, why such an old and partly forgotten statesman but after some years I came to realize that he probably admired his very demanding independent stance after WWII not shying away to challenge his uber-powerful ally overseas when his own national interests where at the line. I can clearly identify the national interests of the US, Russia, China, India, South Africa, Turkey, Poland and even Hungary ... in the Ukraine war but I have a hard time understanding that of Germany or France from a self-perserving perspective. Quoting from Bertold Brecht's "Dreigroschenoper"[0]: Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral. [Food is the first thing, morals follow on]. [0]https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=44&v=xbUW0ZfnZbs&feature=emb_title https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=44&v=xbUW0ZfnZbs&f...