4 ms·

I think the only question here is not if the EU can secure "enough gas", which I doubt it can even if the article is so sure, but at what price? And can the Ger

I think the only question here is not if the EU can secure "enough gas", which I doubt it can even if the article is so sure, but at what price? And can the German industry stay competitive with those energy prices? In case it can't, what will be the EU's future without Germany as the economic motor?

petrut_m 4y ago
Germany has never rebuilt it's economy and never switched the energy source powering it. The rest of EU will just sit idly by and watch as the trend continues downward without taking any action. /s
- someweirdperson 4y ago
  We're stuck in between "don't want" an "can't", hoping that the problem will disappear on its own. Instead of going all-in on local sources or renewables (even power2gas would be cheaper than current import prices), with only 272 wind turbines built so far this year and the goal still being a lowly 2% land covered in turbines, we're replacing one external unreliable source with another, which includes more complicated means of transportation (ship vs. pipe). Politics and media are discussion short-term topics like continuing to run the remaining 3 nuke plants, and running a bit more on coal for electricity. Instead, short term actions should just be done, and the time for discussion used to get to some long term consensus on some viable future concepts.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    We already have consensus on the viable long term concepts. Some people have just been trying really hard to ignore and delay the acceptance of that reality. Talking up the "chaos" and refusing to do basic things to help people when "disaster capitalists" would rather leverage the problem to funnel money to their backers is just another chapter in that fight. As is the weird focus on land coverage. No one sensible is talking about that. It has never been a problem to worry about, and it certainly isn't a metric to aim for.
xwolfi 4y ago
Maybe France can take over, at a lower productive level certainly. We have less ideology in energy sourcing (I d say many of us may even be proud of nuclear power and I had enough insanely aggressive debate with our German friends to know there s someth wrong there in how they represent it), we can find a way to change our work culture to target profitability a bit more and we can take as many german refugees as we need to fill our skill gaps. Germany is the most profitable most efficient economic engine in the EU, by far probably, but if it falters, we'll find another way, as we always have, and maybe end up with less millionaires. One thing we wont do is allow Russia to start land grabbing unopposed in the hope they ll be nice and stop at Ukraine. We ve seen it before, many times, we've even done it ourselves, we know how it ends.
- fabian2k 4y ago
  The French nuclear power plants are one of the problems right now. I'm not convinced that France has an advantage here as they also don't seem to be able to build new reactors for a reasonable price in a reasonable timeframe. Having a lot of old reactors that need to be shut down a lot due to temperatures and maintenance it not really helping things.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > I'm not convinced that France has an advantage here as they also don't seem to be able to build new reactors for a reasonable price in a reasonable timeframe. Of course the first reactors of an entirely new design will have problems, delays and be over budget. It's something extremely complex that needs to be extremely secure. As with before, lessons will be learned, and future reactors of the same design will come along for cheaper and faster.
- DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
  If you want to be a bit paranoid, but not entirely unrealistic, you might see a connection between Germany's aversion to nuclear power and our reliance on Russian gas. I wouldn't go as far as to believe that Russia has infiltrated our whole politics to the point where they can dictate what energy sources we use, but they may well have taken some degree of influence over public perception of nuclear power as inherently "dangerous". Either way, even if it is for the "wrong" reasons, I do think that the nuclear power aversion isn't necessarily a bad thing; the technology is old, requires massive investments before it can be used and still requires its own type of fuel to run. Most renewable sources, meanwhile, can be built up more gradually, and every finished wind turbine, solar panel, etc. starts producing energy right away. Acquiring know-how in these fields could also prove very valuable whenever the rest of the world decides to rely more heavily on these technologies (assuming cold fusion doesn't become viable before then)
throwaway473825 4y ago
Germany has never had competitive gas prices compared to the US or China. Germany competed despite the energy prices (electricity is even more expensive). Since Germany mostly sells premium products, they will probably be fine.
the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
The assumption here is also that gas prices stay high. They might very well be, they might be higher, but they might also go down. At the moment it's very hard to tell where this is going. If the Gas prices stay high for an extended period of time, the EU's smallest problem is probably going to be Germany.
waterfallr 4y ago
The profit margin’s of the energy companies are more important than the economy. Take UK with only 8% Russian imports, but prices have somehow doubled. Same story in the EU
- zenmaster10665 4y ago
  They doubled as the UK is part of the wider market, so subject to market forces due to the way it is structured... In this situation, green energy producers are also getting a significant boost as their energy is very low marginal cost of production and commands the same rate as fossil fuels. Hopefully that is at least some silver lining... Maybe we could tax the fossil fuel companies and support the UK taxpayers rather than laying down more debt in the form of taxpayer loans.

petrut_m 4y ago

Germany has never rebuilt it's economy and never switched the energy source powering it. The rest of EU will just sit idly by and watch as the trend continues downward without taking any action. /s

someweirdperson 4y ago
We're stuck in between "don't want" an "can't", hoping that the problem will disappear on its own. Instead of going all-in on local sources or renewables (even power2gas would be cheaper than current import prices), with only 272 wind turbines built so far this year and the goal still being a lowly 2% land covered in turbines, we're replacing one external unreliable source with another, which includes more complicated means of transportation (ship vs. pipe). Politics and media are discussion short-term topics like continuing to run the remaining 3 nuke plants, and running a bit more on coal for electricity. Instead, short term actions should just be done, and the time for discussion used to get to some long term consensus on some viable future concepts.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  We already have consensus on the viable long term concepts. Some people have just been trying really hard to ignore and delay the acceptance of that reality. Talking up the "chaos" and refusing to do basic things to help people when "disaster capitalists" would rather leverage the problem to funnel money to their backers is just another chapter in that fight. As is the weird focus on land coverage. No one sensible is talking about that. It has never been a problem to worry about, and it certainly isn't a metric to aim for.

xwolfi 4y ago

Maybe France can take over, at a lower productive level certainly. We have less ideology in energy sourcing (I d say many of us may even be proud of nuclear power and I had enough insanely aggressive debate with our German friends to know there s someth wrong there in how they represent it), we can find a way to change our work culture to target profitability a bit more and we can take as many german refugees as we need to fill our skill gaps. Germany is the most profitable most efficient economic engine in the EU, by far probably, but if it falters, we'll find another way, as we always have, and maybe end up with less millionaires. One thing we wont do is allow Russia to start land grabbing unopposed in the hope they ll be nice and stop at Ukraine. We ve seen it before, many times, we've even done it ourselves, we know how it ends.

fabian2k 4y ago
The French nuclear power plants are one of the problems right now. I'm not convinced that France has an advantage here as they also don't seem to be able to build new reactors for a reasonable price in a reasonable timeframe. Having a lot of old reactors that need to be shut down a lot due to temperatures and maintenance it not really helping things.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > I'm not convinced that France has an advantage here as they also don't seem to be able to build new reactors for a reasonable price in a reasonable timeframe. Of course the first reactors of an entirely new design will have problems, delays and be over budget. It's something extremely complex that needs to be extremely secure. As with before, lessons will be learned, and future reactors of the same design will come along for cheaper and faster.
DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
If you want to be a bit paranoid, but not entirely unrealistic, you might see a connection between Germany's aversion to nuclear power and our reliance on Russian gas. I wouldn't go as far as to believe that Russia has infiltrated our whole politics to the point where they can dictate what energy sources we use, but they may well have taken some degree of influence over public perception of nuclear power as inherently "dangerous". Either way, even if it is for the "wrong" reasons, I do think that the nuclear power aversion isn't necessarily a bad thing; the technology is old, requires massive investments before it can be used and still requires its own type of fuel to run. Most renewable sources, meanwhile, can be built up more gradually, and every finished wind turbine, solar panel, etc. starts producing energy right away. Acquiring know-how in these fields could also prove very valuable whenever the rest of the world decides to rely more heavily on these technologies (assuming cold fusion doesn't become viable before then)

throwaway473825 4y ago

Germany has never had competitive gas prices compared to the US or China. Germany competed despite the energy prices (electricity is even more expensive). Since Germany mostly sells premium products, they will probably be fine.

the_mitsuhiko 4y ago

The assumption here is also that gas prices stay high. They might very well be, they might be higher, but they might also go down. At the moment it's very hard to tell where this is going. If the Gas prices stay high for an extended period of time, the EU's smallest problem is probably going to be Germany.

waterfallr 4y ago

The profit margin’s of the energy companies are more important than the economy. Take UK with only 8% Russian imports, but prices have somehow doubled. Same story in the EU

zenmaster10665 4y ago
They doubled as the UK is part of the wider market, so subject to market forces due to the way it is structured... In this situation, green energy producers are also getting a significant boost as their energy is very low marginal cost of production and commands the same rate as fossil fuels. Hopefully that is at least some silver lining... Maybe we could tax the fossil fuel companies and support the UK taxpayers rather than laying down more debt in the form of taxpayer loans.