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Thread: Europe Energy

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    Europe Energy

    How bad are things in Europe right now? I keep hearing people
    There wont be able to afford heating their houses during this winter. Scary stuff.

    Was it worth getting involved in a conflict between two other countries?

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    In the UK, it's expensive at the moment here. We've just had a new government, we will see what they come up with, rumours they will freeze the prices.

    Mind you, we didn't get our gas from Russia - came from Norway or our own gas fields in the North Sea, and unlike other countries we actually had LNG terminals to import from outside Europe - but because we're tied into the European price market prices have gone up here because other countries decided it was a good idea because it was cheap and "well we will change Russias views on things if we buy there gas and they will become a democracy" (Yes. Really.). That and UK producers are price gouging.

    Was it worth getting involved in a conflict between two other countries?
    Yes, because this will not end with Ukraine if Russia wins, Russia is already making sounds of we would like to invade other parts of the continent (and already, has had a little bit of Moldova called Transnistria for decades now). Appeasement never works, we learnt this lesson years ago. Regardless of that, they - and vassal state Belarus - have been causing enough problems on the continent prior to this with all the chemical weapons used to poison people, flying over people from Iraqi Kurdistan so they can cross illegally into Europe, and hijacking planes so they can arrest people they disagree with.

    The energy costs will calm down before long. On the plus side, energy independence is seriously being talked about here now, such as building storage facilities for gas and building nuclear power plants.

    I'm probably not the best person to ask though, I fixed my unit costs before this all began, so I've not really been hit by it so much.
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    Quote Otherside View Post
    In the UK, it's expensive at the moment here. We've just had a new government, we will see what they come up with, rumours they will freeze the prices.

    Mind you, we didn't get our gas from Russia - came from Norway or our own gas fields in the North Sea, and unlike other countries we actually had LNG terminals to import from outside Europe - but because we're tied into the European price market prices have gone up here because other countries decided it was a good idea because it was cheap and "well we will change Russias views on things if we buy there gas and they will become a democracy" (Yes. Really.). That and UK producers are price gouging.



    Yes, because this will not end with Ukraine if Russia wins, Russia is already making sounds of we would like to invade other parts of the continent (and already, has had a little bit of Moldova called Transnistria for decades now). Appeasement never works, we learnt this lesson years ago. Regardless of that, they - and vassal state Belarus - have been causing enough problems on the continent prior to this with all the chemical weapons used to poison people, flying over people from Iraqi Kurdistan so they can cross illegally into Europe, and hijacking planes so they can arrest people they disagree with.

    The energy costs will calm down before long. On the plus side, energy independence is seriously being talked about here now, such as building storage facilities for gas and building nuclear power plants.

    I'm probably not the best person to ask though, I fixed my unit costs before this all began, so I've not really been hit by it so much.
    I dont buy that the EU was in danger to Russia for the most part. Anyone in NATO will be safe as no one wants to face the might of the US military.
    During the height of the Soviet Union they were too afraid to face NATO so why would they do it now when they are weaker and we are even stronger.

    I will be praying for you this winter. I hope things aren’t going to get as bad as what I’ve read.

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    Quote CloudMaker View Post
    I dont buy that the EU was in danger to Russia for the most part. Anyone in NATO will be safe as no one wants to face the might of the US military.
    During the height of the Soviet Union they were too afraid to face NATO so why would they do it now when they are weaker and we are even stronger.

    I will be praying for you this winter. I hope things aren’t going to get as bad as what I’ve read.
    At the moment, I don't think they would. But I think in the future, they could be. Never thought they would be stupid enough to do the whole outright Ukraine war in all Ukraine to be honest, thought it would remain limited to Crimea and Donbas. But here we are.

    Though I do agree, we definatley overestimated Russia and given there failures in Ukraine, they would not last against NATO Europe, and there is a reason NATO Europe has been left alone for now. Had they actually invested mind, not had the corruption they have over there (apparently they don't even know if the nukes work, whether the money intended to maintain the nukes even went towards that and isn't just in someones pocket who said they did it but didn't) - they have the numbers, built up one of the worlds biggest dollar reserves from gas money before it was frozen - they probably could have done.

    I think it needs to happen. These European countries were warned by Eastern Europe "Don't make yourself entirely dependant on Russian gas, it won't make Russia a democracy and they will just reduce the supply and turn it off when they don't get what they want." Now look. Russia were doing this pre-war even, when a pipeline wasn't being opened up fast enough for them. Idiots. Not as though there wasn't other suppliers for them.

    It will be the continent that is hit the worst, I think. Have the risks of actual shortages. Being told to cut down on usage to save energy because Russia cut off the case. Not so much of an issue here. Have not had anyone here tell us to cut down. Just "price will be high." But is likely the prices will be frozen here now I think. Has been circulating in the news over and over as a possibility, which usually means its a leak and likely to be policy.
    I'M GONNA FIGHT 'EM ALL
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    Prices have skyrocketed. Last time I checked we're second to the UK. People with lower incomes get compensation here. I'm alone, so I'll most likely manage, but low income families are getting in trouble. It's not like people are starving or getting evicted or stuff like that. More people have to rely on our equivalent of food stamps, including people in the lower middle class.

    With regards to geopolitics I think a better question to ask is if it was a good idea to build so much around one autocrat's gas supply. Even if he was a reliable supplier thus far, that just isn't smart. Putin even openly stated that the gas deals were part of his geopolitical agenda. The fact that he is a ruthless psychopath has become clear a very long time ago. Everybody who wanted to know could have easily pieced these two together. Europe just thought it was a bargain and is now paying the real price for Russian gas. I wouldn't be surprised if it's going to get a lot worse, since the urgency of the energy transition is only now beginning to be acknowledged and takes time we don't have.
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    Estonia, Czechia are worse than us, I think, but I think https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ent...b09027179333ec described it very well.

    In short though:

    - Older housing, lot built without insulation, does not keep heat in. You will be spending a lot. Newer homes are better, have all these regulations you have to build to including insulation, double glazing. For some reason, some people decide to moan about that, but it is absolute bliss in the winter, barely had to have my heating on in my newbuild flat.
    - Mass use of gas heating and for boiling water or on hobs for cooking. We're all being told we should replace this with heat pumps, but those are expensive, gas builders are considerably cheaper. People replace old boilers with gas boilers. Heat Pumps are roughly ?5 minimum, a lot of people do not have ?5k they can just put on a heat pump.
    - The poorest pay more for electric here, will often be on a prepay meter where costs are a lot more expensive. They don't really disconnect residential supply here if you don't pay, suppliers will just swap out the regular meter for these prepay ones where you have to pay for your electric in advance, supplier will then set a debt collection amount to take from the prepaid credit each week. This works out well for the supplier who will get repaid, because if you want power, which everyone does, you will buy electric. Supplier will get a court order to replace meter if you refuse. Lot more of that happening lately. Its very difficult to get off of a prepay meter once one has been installed, even when the debt has been repaid. I once moved into a house with a prepay with someone else's debt being collected through it, got the option of a "?150 security deposit" or a passing a credit check in order to get it switched out. Both of those might not be an option for some people.
    - Absolute lack of willingness to solve it until recently, government collapsed, party spent a very long time debating who would end up being leader, so nothing really got done. Given that previous prime minister, and all the contenders who wanted to be PM were in the same party, there was absolutley no reason whatsoever why they could not sit down and come up with a plan to deal with something that will kill people, instead of debating culture war stuff as though that is the mostn importsnt thing, when quite frankly, does not matter at the moment. Now there quire possibly isn't enough time to do so before prices rise again in October.
    I'M GONNA FIGHT 'EM ALL
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    When did they start calling their country "Czechia"? It was the Czech Republic - or the original Hungarian Csehorsz?g.
    Anyway - people are now having to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump was right about Europe being too dependent on Russian oil.
    We would help you over there, but our President came out as a dictator on September 1, 2022 - announcing that anyone who did not vote for him is a threat to the Republic.

    It was eerily reminiscent of Nicolae Ceausescu's December 1989 speech, that ended up being his last before his Communist Government was overthrown.

    I really hope Liz Truss (she's my age!) does something about the energy crisis.

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    Renamed a few years back. Something to do with it fits better on football shirts? Czech name is some is something like Ceska Republika still. Is a lot of that happening. Turkey recently renamed its english name to Turkiye as well, which is good fun when the sound doesn't really exist in the English language, not does one of the letters it uses. Macedonia stuck the word North at the front of its name. France felt it has to change the shade of blue on its flag for some reason.

    This always comes up. Why is it my country which didnt go to Russia because it knew this that has to take responsibility? Europe is not one homogenous block, you know. Like asking the US to take responsibility for what goes on in other countries on your continent. We were also warning about it, only to be told "Wandel Dutch Handel" and "stop being so russophobic."

    Doesn't matter if you'd help or not. There's no capacity. These countries don't have LNG terminals because they never thought to build them, so can't import easily. Take years to build. UK has multiple and is the one doing the exporting to Europe at the moment - but those terminals are at capacity. And given that it has been ally France pre war that was threatening to cut off supply to Jersey when it wasn't getting what it wanted with fishing, UK needs to be energy independent, from everyone, so this never happens again. Means nuclear, or franking.

    I think Truss is likely to freeze. More and more in the news now that. Also hearing that will lower inflation. Almost as though stores were raising prices because of high energy bills. Whether they can be done before the price rise in October.
    I'M GONNA FIGHT 'EM ALL
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    Our prices are going to go back up now too. Joe went begging to OPEC for them to produce more oil for July and August. They said they would and Old Joe took a victory lap.
    Guess what?! It's September and OPEC officially cut the extra production out. Prices up 10% instantly with more coming.

    Globalist agenda = "Own nothing and be happy". I'd like to smack that Klaus guy up-side the head!

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    How bad are things in Europe? Pretty bad. It's gonna be a tough winter.
    Was it worth getting involved in Putin's war against Ukraine? Yes, and I would have liked to see more involvement than there has been. I am tempted to approach it from the argument about 'right and wrong', especially as I'm from Eastern Europe myself and came close to losing my father to Russian aggression at one point. However, it's also about the long game - either the buck stops with Ukraine now or Russia will keep doing this to other countries. Like the nazis in WW2, they've shown that appeasement does not work. So both moral and practical reasoning leads to the same conclusion.

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    Quote rabidfoxes View Post
    How bad are things in Europe? Pretty bad. It's gonna be a tough winter.
    Was it worth getting involved in Putin's war against Ukraine? Yes, and I would have liked to see more involvement than there has been. I am tempted to approach it from the argument about 'right and wrong', especially as I'm from Eastern Europe myself and came close to losing my father to Russian aggression at one point. However, it's also about the long game - either the buck stops with Ukraine now or Russia will keep doing this to other countries. Like the nazis in WW2, they've shown that appeasement does not work. So both moral and practical reasoning leads to the same conclusion.
    We are getting hints that it's going to be bad here in the States. Our fool-in-chief isn't lifting a finger. He'll soil his nappy while on another vacation.

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    Quote Ironman View Post
    We are getting hints that it's going to be bad here in the States.
    I guess it's going to suck everywhere this winter. I'm having cold showers hoping to toughen up a bit But it's not a laughing matter for a lot of people, older people are particularly at risk.
    What's it like where you are? Does it get cold?

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    Quote rabidfoxes View Post
    I guess it's going to suck everywhere this winter. I'm having cold showers hoping to toughen up a bit But it's not a laughing matter for a lot of people, older people are particularly at risk.
    What's it like where you are? Does it get cold?
    My parents have said they will not have the heating on this year (though they've fixed, still a costly fix, no idea if fix is above cap or not.)

    They're not quite at very elderly, but am a bit worried to be honest.

    Maybe we should all move to Northern Sweden, disconnected from the European grid there completely, I hear prices are still low there.
    I'M GONNA FIGHT 'EM ALL
    A SEVEN NATION ARMY COULDN'T HOLD ME BACK.......


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    Quote rabidfoxes View Post
    I guess it's going to suck everywhere this winter. I'm having cold showers hoping to toughen up a bit But it's not a laughing matter for a lot of people, older people are particularly at risk.
    What's it like where you are? Does it get cold?
    It can - we can and do get to under -20c (below zero F). I normally keep my house at 68F/20c during the winter.

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    Some Russian is live streaming burning gas 24/7 because of how cheap it is over there to poke fun at Europeans/Americans LOL

    DFFC834F-0638-4929-9A0D-622E4DE0190B.jpeg

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