6 ms·

A little bit of a feeling of the lamps going out all over Europe in this one very big, very unusual lamp's dimming.

by wcarss 4y ago

mschuster91 4y ago
Europe is under an absurd, unprecedented energy crunch at the moment: The worst problem is that the French nuclear reactors have massive issues - over half their capacity is currently offline because of massive defects or barely producing due to a lack of cooling water [1]. That same drought also impacted Swiss nuclear plants [2] and Italian hydro power [3]. On top of that, the German gas peaker plants that used to be relatively cheap are now, thanks to the Russian invasion, extremely expensive - but since the French don't have an alternative, they pay absurd amounts of essentially government-funded money [4] on the spot markets, enough to make even the expensive gas peakers worth it, which in turn drives up the price for anyone else on the shared European electricity grid. And to make the situation even worse than it already is, this is not just a spot market crisis. There is no indication at all that the situation in France will clear up any time soon - to the contrary, it will get exponentially worse in winter, as the majority of France uses electric heating - and the drought induced hydro crunch will need many months of constant rainfall to refill all the natural reservoirs before the plants can act at capacity again. This makes long-term electricity futures absurdly expensive as well, and the price hike of these futures hasn't even begun to reach electricity consumers yet. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 [2] https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/akw-beznau-muss-wegen-hitze-produktion-drosseln-100.html https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/a... [3] https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-scorching-summer-heatwave-hydropower-plant/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-scorching-summer-heat... [4] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2022/07/28/energy-price-caps-push-french-power-giant-edf-into-record-loss_5991713_98.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2022/07/28/energy...
- giantg2 4y ago
  You would think the countries with nuclear carriers would park them at home and figure a way to hook them into the grid.
  - cdot2 4y ago
    I dont think the reactors on ships are really designed to output like that
    - giantg2 4y ago
      It's not huge, but it helps. I've heard it was done after the sunami a decade or so ago.
  - ApolloFortyNine 4y ago
    The entirety of Europe has 1.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    That can be done with diesel locomotives [1], but with nuclear carriers? Not sure. For one, only the French and the US have nuclear carriers, with the British additionally running a nuclear submarine fleet. Besides, even the largest US carriers of the Nimitz class barely reaches 200 MW of power (and the majority of it goes directly to the propellers via steam turbines, not via intermediate electrical systems). Your typical actual power plant however goes into the ~1000 MW/1GW and above region. [1] https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-diesel-train-and-d-1846307148 https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-die... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz-class_aircraft_carrier#Propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz-class_aircraft_carrier#...
    - giantg2 4y ago
      I heard they did it after the sunami, so it should be feasible. Yeah, it's not much, but it's something.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > countries with nuclear carriers So France, with a single one.. and I'm sure it has better things to do Unless you want them to surface their super stealthy and secret nuclear submarines that are in charge of nuclear dissuasion
- fallingknife 4y ago
  France is planning on having all reactors back online by winter. I guess the market isn't buying that, though.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    Even if it was, CERN aren't going to suck up power and thus raise prices while there's still going to be a supply crunch elsewhere. A huge amount of gas usage for direct heating needs to be displaced with electric in the near term, so it's a good look for CERN to do their part and a good use of government money to not compete with the citizenry.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- misja111 4y ago
  That's all true, but there is a little bit of hope: One major cause for the current extreme gas prices is the fact that many EU countries are filling up their gas buffers now for the winter. So on top of the gas scarcity, there is also extreme demand at the moment. Some countries have reported that they are (almost) done. This will decrease demand and prices will go down. At least until the winter begins ..
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    The current gas prices haven't even reflected yet that the Russians have shut down North Stream 1 for good. Anyone still thinking that this will ever reverse until the country is called Eastern Ukraine instead of Russia is in for a very rude awakening. There will be no more gas from Russia and the import capacity for other sources is already booked out. To make it worse: when the winter is over, the crunch to refill the storage will begin again, and this time with no Russian capacity at all and to make it worse likely without (or with significantly reduced output from) the Dutch gas field in Groningen [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/01/natural-gas-europe-ukraine-earthquakes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/01/natural-gas-...
    - cpursley 4y ago
      It will reverse as soon as the EU removes the sanctions and opens Nord Stream 2. Right now, the sanctions are pushing up prices, making the Russian government fabulously wealthy. Price caps are even going to make things worse. Ethics don't trump economics 101 nor do they keep grandma from freezing to death, unfortunately.
      - misja111 4y ago
        This is so naïve. What makes you think that the Russians will keep North Stream 2 open, given the fact that they are closing North Stream 1 for the EU now? If they will keep it open at all, it will be only after some heavy concessions on the EU side.
        4y ago
- jabiko 4y ago
  I'm wondering why OP is accumulating down votes. As far as I understand the situation the posting is correct.
  - glogla 4y ago
    OP is rabid anti-nuclear person with an axe to grind. It gets boring after a while, especially with rabid anti-nuclear people being partially responsible for the current crisis. If it wasn't for them, Europe would be much less dependent on Russia.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    HN tends to be fairly pro-nuclear, which is not surprising given that the majority of its users are in the US which doesn't have a lot of the problems Europe has with nuclear - they have more than enough space to build nuclear plants safely away from population centers, earthquake-prone areas or flood-prone coasts or to store the waste.
    - lapinot 4y ago
      For pro-nuclear HN people that want to read about themselves, here's a pretty honest analysis: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2022/08/ROBIN/64951 https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2022/08/ROBIN/64951 (in french)
    - jabiko 4y ago
      It seems like the situation has resolved itself, at least the posting is not grey anymore. I think that being pro-nuclear actually can make sense until there is enough renewable capacity installed. Its IMHO better than firing coal and generating more CO2. Also we already have nuclear waste, so we are already in a unfavorable situation and producing some more is probably the better tradeoff than ruining our climate. In my opinion, the safety of these power plants is, however, the biggest pain point that is not solved and will likely never be. We still should work towards renewables so nuclear power can become a thing of the past.
- delroth 4y ago
  > French nuclear reactors [...] offline because of massive defects There's no "massive defects" involved, it's a combination of 1. regular refueling maintenance which happens every summer; 2. some maintenance being delayed due to COVID-19 that was finally able to be scheduled this year; 3. a minor corrosion issue [1] being found with the welds in one of the newer plants, leading the power plant operator to stop all similar plants for safety reasons to be manually inspected. > barely producing due to a lack of cooling water There's plenty of cooling water, it's just warmer than usual upstream of some of the plants, and the plants have rules about not rejecting water above a certain temperature to the river in order to protect wildlife. These rules can be waived and in fact have been waived several times this summer and previous summers to continue producing at higher load -- it sucks for the fishes that get +1°C, but we're basically making a choice between warming up the rivers or warming up the planet with more CO2 emissions. This is indeed the same situation as in Beznau (CH, the article you linked), but absolutely not comparable to the problems with hydro in Italy that are actually due to lack of water. You can't waive a lack of water. > no indication at all that the situation in France will clear up any time soon (1) and (2) are absolutely going to clear up by winter. https://nuclear-monitor.fr/ https://nuclear-monitor.fr/ shows the planned maintenance end dates. Just by the end of the month EDF is planning to have 11-12GW back online [2] (though their maintenance end dates tend to slip up by a few days in general). That leaves the 12 reactors (out of 56) impacted by (3). I suspect that if it actually comes to blackouts, (3) might also clear out, if we decide that the minor safety risk of the welding issues is less bad than the people actually dying due to lack of power. Unfortunately anything involving nuclear safety makes people freak out and require 100% reliability, even when it's absolutely irrational to do so and causes more human deaths. [1] https://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Pages/20211216_NI-Detection-fissures-tuyauteries-RIS-reacteurs-1-2-Civaux.aspx https://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Pages/20... [2] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FbeQue0XkAAraJu?format=png&name=240x240 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FbeQue0XkAAraJu?format=png&name=...
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > 3. a minor corrosion issue [1] being found with the welds in one of the newer plants, leading the power plant operator to stop all similar plants for safety reasons to be manually inspected. Minor? Your link is outdated. EDF was forced to prolong the shutdowns recently [1]. > (1) and (2) are absolutely going to clear up by winter. It will, but the drought is likely to reappear next summer, which is why not just the spot electricity market is bananas but also the futures market. Additionally, there is the very real potential of further issues cropping up - the French plants are almost all extremely old [2] > Unfortunately anything involving nuclear safety makes people freak out and require 100% reliability, even when it's absolutely irrational to do so and causes more human deaths. Well, the problem with nuclear is that even a tiny fuck up has the potential to irradiate a large region for decades. We still can't eat game or shrooms in Bavaria without checking them for radiation levels, and that over 35 years after Chernobyl. [1] https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-shutdown-of-nuclear-reactors-over-corrosion-amid-rising-energy-prices https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Fran...
- Nodraak 4y ago
  > because of massive defects or barely producing due to a lack of cooling water This is false, and not the reason for the (currently) low load factor of nuclear. Most reactors are off for maintenance, like they are each year in autumn, in order to be ready for the peak demand that winter is. This year might be slightly worse, but it's not unusual at all. There is also no lack of cooling water. There is only a law that was set many years ago that can be changed without any impact on the safety of the reactors, and this law is limiting only for a few reactors a few days each year. Very anecdotal.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    - saiya-jin 4y ago
      Frying few fish (proof?) whose population can be replenished easily and are anyway artificially managed by humans for decades already vs disaster to whole countries during winter? Ask anybody affected, they wont care less for those fish. Its the least horrible choice out of horrible choices. Also not sure what you mean by frying, rivers get super cold during winter, increasing temperature a bit wont kill anything if I apply common logic.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        > Also not sure what you mean by frying, rivers get super cold during winter, increasing temperature a bit wont kill anything if I apply common logic. Freshwater fish and other aquatic beings are extremely sensitive to water temperature and other conditions. Just look at the Oder disaster - it was caused by pollution that, in combination with low water levels and warm water, led to an exponential bloom of toxic algae [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/rare-toxic-algae-behind-fish-deaths-river-oder-say-researchers-2022-08-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/rare-toxic-algae-behind...
        ziddoap 4y ago
stuaxo 4y ago
It would be great if the UK would do this, but our new prime minister used to work for Shell, later on she was responsible for the UK shutting down it's gas storage facility in the north sea. So; while we do nothing to reduce energy usage (including turning lamps off), UK energy companies are making some of the biggest profits ever.
- Bostonian 4y ago
  UK power prices have risen a lot -- that will cause consumers and businesses to reduce energy usage.
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    The prices are just forcing some companies out of business not to reduce their energy usage. While some may invest in reducing their energy usage the reality is, many small businesses literally won't be able to afford to reduce their energy bill as the changes will require an up front investment. Larger companies most likely will just pass the cost on to consumers and keep on going. The average home owner probably won't be able to afford a changing their fridge, their washing machine, their tv, etc. It'll be a case of turn off the heating during winter.
  - makomk 4y ago
    Our government has come up with a solution though - they'll cap consumer energy prices at the current below-market rate and subsidise businesses, and pay for the cost of doing it by running up a debt repaid over the next decade or two. Basically, we can continue using energy as before and will pay for it later - yay! The unfortunate thing is that it was basically politically untenable for them not to do this. In the run up to the announcement (basically a u-turn) there was a steady drumbeat of news headlines and articles telling us that they were driving everyone into poverty by not capping energy rates, that it was destroying businesses and no-one could afford it, that the rest of Europe was doing this and only our incompetent leaders were failing to do so because they wanted us to freeze, and so on.

A little bit of a feeling of the lamps going out all over Europe in this one very big, very unusual lamp's dimming.

by wcarss 4y ago

A little bit of a feeling of the lamps going out all over Europe in this one very big, very unusual lamp's dimming.

Europe is under an absurd, unprecedented energy crunch at the moment: The worst problem is that the French nuclear reactors have massive issues - over half their capacity is currently offline because of massive defects or barely producing due to a lack of cooling water [1]. That same drought also impacted Swiss nuclear plants [2] and Italian hydro power [3]. On top of that, the German gas peaker plants that used to be relatively cheap are now, thanks to the Russian invasion, extremely expensive - but since the French don't have an alternative, they pay absurd amounts of essentially government-funded money [4] on the spot markets, enough to make even the expensive gas peakers worth it, which in turn drives up the price for anyone else on the shared European electricity grid. And to make the situation even worse than it already is, this is not just a spot market crisis. There is no indication at all that the situation in France will clear up any time soon - to the contrary, it will get exponentially worse in winter, as the majority of France uses electric heating - and the drought induced hydro crunch will need many months of constant rainfall to refill all the natural reservoirs before the plants can act at capacity again. This makes long-term electricity futures absurdly expensive as well, and the price hike of these futures hasn't even begun to reach electricity consumers yet. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32605337 [2] https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/akw-beznau-muss-wegen-hitze-produktion-drosseln-100.html https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/a... [3] https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-scorching-summer-heatwave-hydropower-plant/ https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-scorching-summer-heat... [4] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2022/07/28/energy-price-caps-push-french-power-giant-edf-into-record-loss_5991713_98.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2022/07/28/energy...

giantg2 4y ago
You would think the countries with nuclear carriers would park them at home and figure a way to hook them into the grid.
- cdot2 4y ago
  I dont think the reactors on ships are really designed to output like that
  - giantg2 4y ago
    It's not huge, but it helps. I've heard it was done after the sunami a decade or so ago.
- ApolloFortyNine 4y ago
  The entirety of Europe has 1.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  That can be done with diesel locomotives [1], but with nuclear carriers? Not sure. For one, only the French and the US have nuclear carriers, with the British additionally running a nuclear submarine fleet. Besides, even the largest US carriers of the Nimitz class barely reaches 200 MW of power (and the majority of it goes directly to the propellers via steam turbines, not via intermediate electrical systems). Your typical actual power plant however goes into the ~1000 MW/1GW and above region. [1] https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-diesel-train-and-d-1846307148 https://gizmodo.com/that-time-a-canadian-town-derailed-a-die... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz-class_aircraft_carrier#Propulsion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz-class_aircraft_carrier#...
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I heard they did it after the sunami, so it should be feasible. Yeah, it's not much, but it's something.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > countries with nuclear carriers So France, with a single one.. and I'm sure it has better things to do Unless you want them to surface their super stealthy and secret nuclear submarines that are in charge of nuclear dissuasion
fallingknife 4y ago
France is planning on having all reactors back online by winter. I guess the market isn't buying that, though.
- XorNot 4y ago
  Even if it was, CERN aren't going to suck up power and thus raise prices while there's still going to be a supply crunch elsewhere. A huge amount of gas usage for direct heating needs to be displaced with electric in the near term, so it's a good look for CERN to do their part and a good use of government money to not compete with the citizenry.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
misja111 4y ago
That's all true, but there is a little bit of hope: One major cause for the current extreme gas prices is the fact that many EU countries are filling up their gas buffers now for the winter. So on top of the gas scarcity, there is also extreme demand at the moment. Some countries have reported that they are (almost) done. This will decrease demand and prices will go down. At least until the winter begins ..
- mschuster91 4y ago
  The current gas prices haven't even reflected yet that the Russians have shut down North Stream 1 for good. Anyone still thinking that this will ever reverse until the country is called Eastern Ukraine instead of Russia is in for a very rude awakening. There will be no more gas from Russia and the import capacity for other sources is already booked out. To make it worse: when the winter is over, the crunch to refill the storage will begin again, and this time with no Russian capacity at all and to make it worse likely without (or with significantly reduced output from) the Dutch gas field in Groningen [1]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/01/natural-gas-europe-ukraine-earthquakes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/01/natural-gas-...
  - cpursley 4y ago
    It will reverse as soon as the EU removes the sanctions and opens Nord Stream 2. Right now, the sanctions are pushing up prices, making the Russian government fabulously wealthy. Price caps are even going to make things worse. Ethics don't trump economics 101 nor do they keep grandma from freezing to death, unfortunately.
    - misja111 4y ago
      This is so naïve. What makes you think that the Russians will keep North Stream 2 open, given the fact that they are closing North Stream 1 for the EU now? If they will keep it open at all, it will be only after some heavy concessions on the EU side.
      - 4y ago
jabiko 4y ago
I'm wondering why OP is accumulating down votes. As far as I understand the situation the posting is correct.
- glogla 4y ago
  OP is rabid anti-nuclear person with an axe to grind. It gets boring after a while, especially with rabid anti-nuclear people being partially responsible for the current crisis. If it wasn't for them, Europe would be much less dependent on Russia.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  HN tends to be fairly pro-nuclear, which is not surprising given that the majority of its users are in the US which doesn't have a lot of the problems Europe has with nuclear - they have more than enough space to build nuclear plants safely away from population centers, earthquake-prone areas or flood-prone coasts or to store the waste.
  - lapinot 4y ago
    For pro-nuclear HN people that want to read about themselves, here's a pretty honest analysis: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2022/08/ROBIN/64951 https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2022/08/ROBIN/64951 (in french)
  - jabiko 4y ago
    It seems like the situation has resolved itself, at least the posting is not grey anymore. I think that being pro-nuclear actually can make sense until there is enough renewable capacity installed. Its IMHO better than firing coal and generating more CO2. Also we already have nuclear waste, so we are already in a unfavorable situation and producing some more is probably the better tradeoff than ruining our climate. In my opinion, the safety of these power plants is, however, the biggest pain point that is not solved and will likely never be. We still should work towards renewables so nuclear power can become a thing of the past.
delroth 4y ago
> French nuclear reactors [...] offline because of massive defects There's no "massive defects" involved, it's a combination of 1. regular refueling maintenance which happens every summer; 2. some maintenance being delayed due to COVID-19 that was finally able to be scheduled this year; 3. a minor corrosion issue [1] being found with the welds in one of the newer plants, leading the power plant operator to stop all similar plants for safety reasons to be manually inspected. > barely producing due to a lack of cooling water There's plenty of cooling water, it's just warmer than usual upstream of some of the plants, and the plants have rules about not rejecting water above a certain temperature to the river in order to protect wildlife. These rules can be waived and in fact have been waived several times this summer and previous summers to continue producing at higher load -- it sucks for the fishes that get +1°C, but we're basically making a choice between warming up the rivers or warming up the planet with more CO2 emissions. This is indeed the same situation as in Beznau (CH, the article you linked), but absolutely not comparable to the problems with hydro in Italy that are actually due to lack of water. You can't waive a lack of water. > no indication at all that the situation in France will clear up any time soon (1) and (2) are absolutely going to clear up by winter. https://nuclear-monitor.fr/ https://nuclear-monitor.fr/ shows the planned maintenance end dates. Just by the end of the month EDF is planning to have 11-12GW back online [2] (though their maintenance end dates tend to slip up by a few days in general). That leaves the 12 reactors (out of 56) impacted by (3). I suspect that if it actually comes to blackouts, (3) might also clear out, if we decide that the minor safety risk of the welding issues is less bad than the people actually dying due to lack of power. Unfortunately anything involving nuclear safety makes people freak out and require 100% reliability, even when it's absolutely irrational to do so and causes more human deaths. [1] https://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Pages/20211216_NI-Detection-fissures-tuyauteries-RIS-reacteurs-1-2-Civaux.aspx https://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Pages/20... [2] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FbeQue0XkAAraJu?format=png&name=240x240 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FbeQue0XkAAraJu?format=png&name=...
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > 3. a minor corrosion issue [1] being found with the welds in one of the newer plants, leading the power plant operator to stop all similar plants for safety reasons to be manually inspected. Minor? Your link is outdated. EDF was forced to prolong the shutdowns recently [1]. > (1) and (2) are absolutely going to clear up by winter. It will, but the drought is likely to reappear next summer, which is why not just the spot electricity market is bananas but also the futures market. Additionally, there is the very real potential of further issues cropping up - the French plants are almost all extremely old [2] > Unfortunately anything involving nuclear safety makes people freak out and require 100% reliability, even when it's absolutely irrational to do so and causes more human deaths. Well, the problem with nuclear is that even a tiny fuck up has the potential to irradiate a large region for decades. We still can't eat game or shrooms in Bavaria without checking them for radiation levels, and that over 35 years after Chernobyl. [1] https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-shutdown-of-nuclear-reactors-over-corrosion-amid-rising-energy-prices https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Fran...
Nodraak 4y ago
> because of massive defects or barely producing due to a lack of cooling water This is false, and not the reason for the (currently) low load factor of nuclear. Most reactors are off for maintenance, like they are each year in autumn, in order to be ready for the peak demand that winter is. This year might be slightly worse, but it's not unusual at all. There is also no lack of cooling water. There is only a law that was set many years ago that can be changed without any impact on the safety of the reactors, and this law is limiting only for a few reactors a few days each year. Very anecdotal.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  - saiya-jin 4y ago
    Frying few fish (proof?) whose population can be replenished easily and are anyway artificially managed by humans for decades already vs disaster to whole countries during winter? Ask anybody affected, they wont care less for those fish. Its the least horrible choice out of horrible choices. Also not sure what you mean by frying, rivers get super cold during winter, increasing temperature a bit wont kill anything if I apply common logic.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > Also not sure what you mean by frying, rivers get super cold during winter, increasing temperature a bit wont kill anything if I apply common logic. Freshwater fish and other aquatic beings are extremely sensitive to water temperature and other conditions. Just look at the Oder disaster - it was caused by pollution that, in combination with low water levels and warm water, led to an exponential bloom of toxic algae [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/rare-toxic-algae-behind-fish-deaths-river-oder-say-researchers-2022-08-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/rare-toxic-algae-behind...
      - ziddoap 4y ago

stuaxo 4y ago

It would be great if the UK would do this, but our new prime minister used to work for Shell, later on she was responsible for the UK shutting down it's gas storage facility in the north sea. So; while we do nothing to reduce energy usage (including turning lamps off), UK energy companies are making some of the biggest profits ever.

Bostonian 4y ago
UK power prices have risen a lot -- that will cause consumers and businesses to reduce energy usage.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  The prices are just forcing some companies out of business not to reduce their energy usage. While some may invest in reducing their energy usage the reality is, many small businesses literally won't be able to afford to reduce their energy bill as the changes will require an up front investment. Larger companies most likely will just pass the cost on to consumers and keep on going. The average home owner probably won't be able to afford a changing their fridge, their washing machine, their tv, etc. It'll be a case of turn off the heating during winter.
- makomk 4y ago
  Our government has come up with a solution though - they'll cap consumer energy prices at the current below-market rate and subsidise businesses, and pay for the cost of doing it by running up a debt repaid over the next decade or two. Basically, we can continue using energy as before and will pay for it later - yay! The unfortunate thing is that it was basically politically untenable for them not to do this. In the run up to the announcement (basically a u-turn) there was a steady drumbeat of news headlines and articles telling us that they were driving everyone into poverty by not capping energy rates, that it was destroying businesses and no-one could afford it, that the rest of Europe was doing this and only our incompetent leaders were failing to do so because they wanted us to freeze, and so on.