Are we tho? Everything is as before, just with more expensive gas. No measures to save energy, no one mandates more home office like during covid. We could save so much gas just by staying at home again.
1
Complete-Sort16179 hr ago
+1
Life uh, finds a way.
1
tvtowers8 hr ago
+1
The only people who should oppose working remotely from home are people who own office buildings
1
Heizard8 hr ago
+1
Because for infrastructure it's worse than some virus - we import 80% of our energy and still opened routes can't compensate what we lack to function or ramp up production fast enough. Right now we are burning trough reserves. After 3-4 more weeks when it really hits, then we possibly face Europe blackout.
1
MotherRestaurant6978 hr ago
+1
We wont face blackout but we might burn a lot of coal again.
1
Ghorrit8 hr ago
+1
The article is more than 2 weeks old
1
MootRevolution7 hr ago
+1
Yeah, this is old. Posts linking to articles should really contain a date of publication.
That said, I'm in Europe, and in daily life, there doesn't seem to be any mention about an upcoming energy crisis yet. I wonder if everyone is just collectively putting their heads in the sand, or if the article was fear mongering. Or both. Or neither. I have no idea what is being done for Europe's energy needs and what the current status is.
1
Green-Stranger-39209 hr ago
+1
The part that doesn't get enough attention is the LNG competition. Europe spent years diversifying awayfrom Russian gas by locking in Qatari and American LNG. Now Qatar is offline and Asian buyers are outbidding Europe for US cargos.
So Europe essentially traded one dependency for a market that works fine until everyone needs it at the same time. Which is exactly what's happening now.
1
balooaroos8 hr ago
+1
If only there was another option besides being endlessly dependent on one foreign nation after another for fossil fuels right?
1
ProdoRock8 hr ago
+1
Of course. I’m no expert but it’s not only the physical solar plants, it’s also - crucially - building up massive battery storage and restructuring the grid for it. I would like to learn more though what work the grid needs for that.
1
BasicMatter73398 hr ago
+1
thats not something that can be done quickly though
1
wndtrbn8 hr ago
+1
It's not like people have had decades of time already.
1
BasicMatter73398 hr ago
+1
your insightful hindsight would surely fix everything. Go tell everyone that "well you should have done that decades ago" and see how they will stand up and applaud you, all the wars will stop, all the fossil plants morph into solar plants and you will be paraded across the streets as a true hero of europe!
Sarcasm aside, having decades doesn’t mean europe has had decades under the right conditions.
Most of that time, renewables haven't been c**** enough, and old existing energy infrastructure has locked Europe into fossil fuels.
You cant just turn off a power plant built to last until 2060, that would be economic ruin.
The grid would need to be completely uprooted and replaced with a new one. Replace gas boilers to electric boilers, replace all transport with electric transport, create a shitton of storage because renewables arent consistent etc etc etc.
That was simply not economically nor politically possible in 2010 or 2000.
1
Green-Stranger-39208 hr ago
+1
That's basically the argument, yeah. The transition is happening but storage and grid capacity aren't there yet to absorb a shock at this scale. So in the meantime you're still exposed.
1
schacks8 hr ago
+1
This is gonna be a bad one! We've already had our first interest rate hike and more are soon to follow as the ECB tries to fight Shockflation with the traditional inflation tactics. It will probably stifle investment in the needed energy transition even more and lead to actual recession.
16 Comments