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But that's the whole point: make prices as high as possible politically to make transition faster. It will have to be done in any case. When it happens now is a

But that's the whole point: make prices as high as possible politically to make transition faster. It will have to be done in any case. When it happens now is a lot better situation than 2022 one because back then, political threshold was quite low: it was possible to just surrender to Putin to "fix" things. Now, there's no one to surrender to, it can't work anymore, or not at the time scale necessary. So possible price level became a lot higher -> transition a lot faster. As for imports/exports: EU is a major net exporter and has always been, but it doesn't really help (or harm) things much.

leonidasrup 7mo ago
By making energy prices high you are sabotaging European industry and economy in the international competition. High energy costs make EU net importer as can be seen here: https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/balance-of-trade https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/balance-of-trade https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas By "transition", you mean transition to renewables? It's quite possible that by increasing share of solar and wind renewables (there is not much potential for hydropower expansion if Europe) we just: 1. don't decrease electricity price in the long term. Backup power plants, big expansion of grids to transport renewable electricity over long distances are quite expensive (remember the $400bn price tag for Desertec). To encourage decarbonisation we need much, much cheaper electricity cost - we are competing with cheap Chinese coal. 2. become even more dependent on China. 95% of PV is produced in China. China is strongly pushing for export of Chinese wind turbines. Politically, I don't see much differences between governments in Russia and China. https://ecfr.eu/publication/last-gasp-securing-europes-wind-industry-from-dependence-on-china/ https://ecfr.eu/publication/last-gasp-securing-europes-wind-... 3. don't decrease consumption of fossil fuels. Renewables need reliable backup, that's mostly provided by fossil fuels. Uncompetive energy prices will cause European industry to move to other regions and Europe will become a mix of agricultural and service economy. That's already happening now: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/basf-touts-bumper-china-projects-long-term-payoff-2026-03-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/basf-touts-bumper-china-... Decarbonisation is world wide problem and has to be solved world wide. For example if country A, B, C each decrease CO2 emissions by 2 millions tons of CO2 and country D increases CO2 emissions by 6 millions tons nothing is gained for the atmosphere (or maybe the voters in countries A,B,C will feel better, because they personally are doing something).
leonidasrup 7mo ago
Instead of making energy prices high as possible, we should make the price for emitting CO2 as high as possible. These are two very different things. And it has to be done world wide, because CO2 reduction in one country doesn't help if the industry (the source of emissions) just moves to another country.

leonidasrup 7mo ago

By making energy prices high you are sabotaging European industry and economy in the international competition. High energy costs make EU net importer as can be seen here: https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/balance-of-trade https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/balance-of-trade https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas By "transition", you mean transition to renewables? It's quite possible that by increasing share of solar and wind renewables (there is not much potential for hydropower expansion if Europe) we just: 1. don't decrease electricity price in the long term. Backup power plants, big expansion of grids to transport renewable electricity over long distances are quite expensive (remember the $400bn price tag for Desertec). To encourage decarbonisation we need much, much cheaper electricity cost - we are competing with cheap Chinese coal. 2. become even more dependent on China. 95% of PV is produced in China. China is strongly pushing for export of Chinese wind turbines. Politically, I don't see much differences between governments in Russia and China. https://ecfr.eu/publication/last-gasp-securing-europes-wind-industry-from-dependence-on-china/ https://ecfr.eu/publication/last-gasp-securing-europes-wind-... 3. don't decrease consumption of fossil fuels. Renewables need reliable backup, that's mostly provided by fossil fuels. Uncompetive energy prices will cause European industry to move to other regions and Europe will become a mix of agricultural and service economy. That's already happening now: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/basf-touts-bumper-china-projects-long-term-payoff-2026-03-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/basf-touts-bumper-china-... Decarbonisation is world wide problem and has to be solved world wide. For example if country A, B, C each decrease CO2 emissions by 2 millions tons of CO2 and country D increases CO2 emissions by 6 millions tons nothing is gained for the atmosphere (or maybe the voters in countries A,B,C will feel better, because they personally are doing something).

leonidasrup 7mo ago

Instead of making energy prices high as possible, we should make the price for emitting CO2 as high as possible. These are two very different things. And it has to be done world wide, because CO2 reduction in one country doesn't help if the industry (the source of emissions) just moves to another country.