Very bad news

[cyrano]

Energy Prices in Europe Hit Records After Wind Stops Blowing

Best one yet...

Where do they get this kind of nonsense?

Energy prices are still lower than they were before COVID. In general. Some go up, like natural gas, others went down, like diesel for central heating.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The idea of seeding/altering weather with the use of chemicals dispersed from planes isnt new at all . The shutdown of aviation in the USA after Sept 11 2001 revealed a lot of data . Covid lockdown part 1 revealed even more , but our heads were too far up our asses to take account.

I expect COVID is a much more pressing concern than climate change.

A quick search found one reference that covid reduced activity warmed the planet because of less aerosols blocking sunlight. Kind of like my jet engine soot idea to cool the planet.

Powering satelites with plutonieum based fuel has also been tried , worked great until it crashed back into the atmos ,disintegrated and peppered the entire planet with radiation , it hampers our abillity to use radio carbon dating , which lets face it is an incredibly usefull branch of science .

I didn't say it was a great idea but suspect they are still doing it. Solar energy may work for in and around our solar system but deep space travel might need more robust power.

The energy used to take a bunch of 'naughts upto the moon could probably feed clothe house and medicate all the poor people in the USA for years . Maybe that was what Kennedy was hinting at.

huh? The poor people ( a relative concept) keep getting wealthier but that is an inconvenient truth for politicians.

I agree also with those who call fraud/foul on the so called green revolution illusion , if you'd kept that 1982 Ford fiesta garaged, so it didnt rot all to hell, learned to service it yourself , the lack of effiency compared to modern cars would have been eclipsed many times over in the costs of production . We as a species are not getting any smarter in our use of resources , were more led by marketing and keeping up with the jones' than ever before .

Free markets are the only way to allocate scarce resources.

I hope we are collectively getting smarter, but many are not getting wiser.

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

It was brought up this morning (UK) on R4 Today along with various problems with the European gas market/supply.

There has also been a fire in the electric cable link from France to the UK.

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

There has also been a fire in the electric cable link from France to the UK.

Cheers

Ian

Yup, that fire was mentioned in the "wind watch" link I posted, along with other power generation news.

JR

 

[cyrano]

Seems the source of the story is this Bloomberg article:

https://archive.is/rVYLF
And as you can read, it has a lot more nuance. Lots of "could be" and "if". Also, it's about the UK. As far as I can remember, the UK is no longer part of the EU...

Someone inventing problems? Yep. These ones:

https://business.facebook.com/senecaantiwind/
Windwatch.org seems a little bit biased, as they have quoted Seneca Anti Wind a lot. And it's easy to see where the wind is blowing from:

The Seneca Anti-Wind Union recently backed a controversial Ohio bill to bail out coal and nuclear power plants, as well as roll back the state's clean energy standards.

From: VP Pence signs Seneca Anti-Wind Union t-shirts, lends support to anti-wind groups during Ohio stop

Want some REAL science?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629621003170

 

[ruffrecords]

Seems the source of the story is this Bloomberg article:

https://archive.is/rVYLF

Seems mostly speculation to me. Here on the ground in the UK the wind is blowing just as much as usual for this time of year. What has happened though is that the price of gas at the source has doubled. Domestic customers are shielded from this rise in the short term by the industry regulator but in the long term prices will rise. Commercial operations however are not shielded and they are literally paying the price of the gas price rise. In some cases this means they have become uneconomic and have or may shortly shut down. The main cause is the reduced gas demand during the pandemic. Nothing really to do with increasing the amount of green energy.

Cheers

Ian

 

[cyrano]

Lemme see...

Reduced demand leads to lower prices. I think. No?

And, as you stated, nothing to do with green energy at all. A lot to do with oil price and an effort to keep nuclear reactors open and even build new ones.

How much of this is about the pipeline across Europe that brings Russian natural gas to the rest of Europe.

Big oil must be getting pretty desperate, with prices halved and ever more new oil fields outside of OPEC control. What else is found in Saudi Arabia?

Yeah, right. SA is preparing to start mining uranium. With few buyers, that could be a problem.

Of course, we blame politicians. And sometimes they are in the pockets of Big Oil. Let's give a chance to the few who haven't been bought, shall we?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Lemme see...

Reduced demand leads to lower prices. I think. No?

In a free market

And, as you stated, nothing to do with green energy at all.

The light wind was a weather event. The heavy reliance on wind/solar requires JIC back up energy sources because people like their electricity. These back up energy sources are typically less green, because they are the old plants that were displaced by wind/solar.

A lot to do with oil price

oil prices seem to be rebounding after weakness caused by Covid shutdowns and reduced transportation demand, wanes.

and an effort to keep nuclear reactors open and even build new ones.

I wish... IMO nuclear energy is still underutilized. This should be top of the list for decarbonizing energy supply.

How much of this is about the pipeline across Europe that brings Russian natural gas to the rest of Europe.

Good luck, this NG pipeline gives Putin more influence over western Europe and harms Ukraine economy.

Big oil must be getting pretty desperate, with prices halved and ever more new oil fields outside of OPEC control. What else is found in Saudi Arabia?

oil history chart This is an interesting oil history chart. It shows the price jump after the oil embargo in the 70s broke government attempts at price controls to keep oil low. Now the Opec+ cartel regulates supply to keep prices high. The US was briefly a net exporter under the last administration, but that has shifted again due to a combination of more restrictive drilling policy and desire for public companies to appear more green, to make their stocks more attractive. Oil companies seem less optimistic about future oil prices so are making less investments in drilling new wells

Yeah, right. SA is preparing to start mining uranium. With few buyers, that could be a problem.

SA? South America, South Africa, Southern Australia? Uranium is thinly traded with most utilities using long term purchase contracts. The short term price swings appear to be possible market manipulation by traders.

I wish they were building more nuclear plants. Me and my fellow utility customers will be paying higher electricity bills for a white elephant "clean coal" power plant that has been burning NG for years. Of course not as high rates as Germany.

Of course, we blame politicians. And sometimes they are in the pockets of Big Oil. Let's give a chance to the few who haven't been bought, shall we?

H. L. Mencken - The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Climate change is just one of several hobgoblins used by modern politicians to scare and manipulate the voters. The climate is changing, as it always has, the existential threat is IMO political hyperbole.

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

There is now talk of supermarket shelves being empty of meat. The reasoning is the doubling of gas prices means fertilizer manufacturers may stop production. An important by product of this is CO2 which is used to operate the stun guns used to slaughter cattle and sheep. So no CO2 means no meat. That should please the vegans.

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

I wonder how rumors like that get spread?

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

I wonder how rumors like that get spread?

JR

Er, internet groups?

Cheers

Ian

 

[boji]

Had some recent work at a large waste management company. HQ was hollowed out. Dispatch was a ghost town. I had to ask, how had covid hit their business so hard? The short answer given was that 75% of trash is commercial, mostly from food and service sectors.
It follows that food & service industries energy consumption must be significantly reduced, which in turn reduces energy consumption of waste management. This being only two relationships among all the impacted supply chains...