25 pointsby asplake12 hours ago12 comments
  • mono44220 minutes ago
    If they stuck with coal for producing electricity, it wouldn't such a huge problem.
  • michieldotvan hour ago
    From speaking with others, I will say that, on average my peers seem not to have learned from the energy crisis following the invasion of Ukraine. It's business as usual. Consequently those learnings have not permeated society up to the political class.

    Since then, I renovated my house, installing a heat pump. That's long term planning when it comes to a household. The same kind of judicious long-term thinking we did not see from our leaders. Yeah, supply chains were shifted quickly and we started importing LNG from the USA and Qatar soon after giving some semblance of stability, but really we are still captives to petrostates.

    Now with LNG prices spiking, exposing the vulnerability of our imports once again, we have our PM De Wever saying that we should aspire for normalised relations with Russia ASAP so that we can tap that cheap gas? That's a hard pass for me.

    Fossil fuels are problematic enough as it stands but, I get it: Saudis draining the Colorado river for cow feed using their oil money, or whatever, that doesn't register very high up in what matters in the here and now. Yet another oil-shock fueled inflation wave though? That stings.

    So perhaps the silver lining here is that at the very least, the geopolitical risk they pose is now truly very palpable. Again. It's out in the open. Again. We should seize the moment and see it as an opportunity to really double down on our efforts in phasing out fossil fuels. Again. The world will be a much better (albeit different) place without them.

  • fhn5 hours ago
    "They prefer to flare the gas than to deliver it" What Russia chooses to do with their resources is none of your business. Her sense of entitlement is astronomical like most of the west.

    "This market is not functioning anymore." so you point fingers at everybody else?

    • temp88303 hours ago
      At least they didn't forget to use the exact phrase "full-scale invasion" everywhere, including what was supposed to be a direct quote. It's really quite funny.

      I think the former chief editor of Pravda now holds a high rank in the EU propaganda apparatus. They famously had to repeat the same cliched phrases ad nauseum to reinforce them.

      • eviks2 hours ago
        They did, 2 of 4 mentions don't have "full-scale". Count before laughing.
  • tl12936 hours ago
    The BBC misrepresents "the Chinese lesson". China does build up renewables, but it does so while still supporting its heavy industry with cheap Russian gas.

    It does not help at all to put aluminum smelters on Qatari ground, claim zero emissions, and then watch those being bombed together with the LNG facilities.

    It also does not help if Russia is the last country on earth that still has natural gas and can dictate fertilizer production. The journalists are all about short term thinking, mindless green agenda religion and no economic knowledge.

  • eqvinox6 hours ago
    I really wouldn't call it sleepwalking when it's the result of a lot of lobbying and deeply ingrained mis-views of politics ("conservatives are good with the economy").
    • 98642478887545 hours ago
      If only the greens who lobbied the shutdown and demolishing of nuclear power plants were in charge everywhere.

      Truly brilliant, and it doesn't affect their voter either, who are on the dole anyway.

      • _Microft3 hours ago
        We should have kept using nuclear? That nuclear of which refinement capacities are over 40% in Russians hands? For conversion it’s even a combined 63% for Russia+China.

        “Russia's Stranglehold On The World's Nuclear Power Cycle”, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-nuclear-power-industry-graphi...

        • menaerus8 minutes ago
          Interesting article. According to it, the missing piece is scaling the conversion facilities from 8% to x%, and then scaling uranium enrichment process from 30% to x%. With that in place heavy dependency to Russia+China would have been solved, no?
      • eqvinox4 hours ago
        ?

        The exit from nuclear power, in Germany at least, was done by conservatives.

        • casey24 hours ago
          I don't know how you could believe that in good faith.

          That doesn't even make sense. Why would a "conservative" want to progress to a Energiewende energy model while getting rid of the infrastructure they are supposed to "conserve"

          Gemany took massive losses to research green energy for decades, was that also done by conservatives? I guess everything is done by conservatives?

          The plan drafted by SPD and Greens was executed by a conservative government, due to shift in public sentiment after massive green-backed horror campaigns after Fukushima. This sentiment shift was only possible due to decades of disinformation pushed by oil-funded greens.

          People joke about Trump being a Russian asset, the SPD & green party are staffed by kremlin loyalists and funded by Gazprom.

          • eqvinox3 hours ago
            I mean… I certainly didn't take a lot of care in wording that, but you need to read it in context of the parent post. Rather than "done", saying "committed and sealed" would've been precise. But it's a response to the parent, which squarely attempted to blame the greens, when it is certainly not solely their achievement.

            > People joke about Trump being a Russian asset, the SPD & green party are staffed by kremlin loyalists and funded by Gazprom.

            Now it's my turn to go I don't know how you could believe that in good faith. (Specifically about the green party. SPD I won't argue about with Gazprom Gerd.)

            I don't know about you but I judge these things by the effect and whom it seems to benefit most. And I don't see the policies of the greens benefitting the kremlin and Gazprom. If they're assets, they're providing pretty shit value ;)

    • bluegatty2 hours ago
      The Green Party of Germany is the most damaging institution of them all.

      They are responsible for the situation by spreading ideological disinformation and fear mongering.

      Otherwise Germany and others would be in the same position as France.

  • ZeroGravitas12 hours ago
    Any money spent on blunting short term spikes in fossil fuels should be added back to fossil fuels over time. And windfall profits should be automatically seized. Otherwise you are just incentivising wars.
  • PearlRiver5 hours ago
    No plan survives an encounter with Donald Trump.
  • nine_zeros6 hours ago
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  • mesk10 hours ago
    Only Europe ? What a fantastic news ! /s
  • aaron6955 hours ago
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