4 ms·

The article does not support the title; gas is only one slice of the whole energy consumption pie. Would have been interesting to see at least some analysis of

by zokier 4y ago

The article does not support the title; gas is only one slice of the whole energy consumption pie. Would have been interesting to see at least some analysis of total energy consumption so that we could have seen how much of this was now actual reductions vs shifting to other forms of energy

Scoundreller 4y ago
You’d have to amplify the effects since nat gas is usually where your marginal capacity comes from. For electricity, it’s the last to get turned on and first to turn off. And I don’t imagine a quick change to non-natgas building heating except for those that have existing dual-fuel (e.g. using the wood stove for once). Unsure if oil heat became cheaper than natgas but that’s unusual. But the whole equation is even more complicated. Did Europe import more ammonium fertilizer instead of making it itself? Then that’s just pushing the energy consumption elsewhere. Same for glassmaking, aluminum smelting, etc.
ExoticPearTree 4y ago
> The article does not support the title; gas is only one slice of the whole energy consumption pie. In Europe most homes are heated by natural gas for one. Secondly, there are a lot of combined cycles gas turbines that supply a large part of actual energy demand. And then there's the advantage that is way more cleaner than coal and provides more power per unit. And this is not counting the gas usage in the industry that powers a lot of other things. If you put everything that relies on gas together you will be surprised about how much we actually rely on gas for.
- zokier 4y ago
  There is lot of country-to-country variation here; while some countries like Netherlands are completely dependent on gas, others like Sweden barely use it at all. On aggregate level gas is biggest source, but that is driven by few big consumers like Germany and Italy while in most EU countries gas is actually a minority energy source for heating.

by zokier 4y ago

Scoundreller 4y ago

You’d have to amplify the effects since nat gas is usually where your marginal capacity comes from. For electricity, it’s the last to get turned on and first to turn off. And I don’t imagine a quick change to non-natgas building heating except for those that have existing dual-fuel (e.g. using the wood stove for once). Unsure if oil heat became cheaper than natgas but that’s unusual. But the whole equation is even more complicated. Did Europe import more ammonium fertilizer instead of making it itself? Then that’s just pushing the energy consumption elsewhere. Same for glassmaking, aluminum smelting, etc.

ExoticPearTree 4y ago

> The article does not support the title; gas is only one slice of the whole energy consumption pie. In Europe most homes are heated by natural gas for one. Secondly, there are a lot of combined cycles gas turbines that supply a large part of actual energy demand. And then there's the advantage that is way more cleaner than coal and provides more power per unit. And this is not counting the gas usage in the industry that powers a lot of other things. If you put everything that relies on gas together you will be surprised about how much we actually rely on gas for.

zokier 4y ago
There is lot of country-to-country variation here; while some countries like Netherlands are completely dependent on gas, others like Sweden barely use it at all. On aggregate level gas is biggest source, but that is driven by few big consumers like Germany and Italy while in most EU countries gas is actually a minority energy source for heating.