Cold war 2.0

[yeghor]

Ukraine In The Membrane: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

 

[yeghor]

Looks like energy prices in Germany are coming down from all time high. Why did it rise in the first place and why is it falling now?

Maybe someone's manipulating the market to capitalize on this volatility.

The price used to be 50 Euro's per Mwatthour in 2020, it went up to 1000 Euros per Mwh, and now fallen down to 550 Euro per Mwh, still 11 times what it was back in 2020.

The only long term solution to lower the prices would be opening up more nuclear power plants.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1565253134649278464

 

[Red Herring]

Looks like energy prices in Germany are coming down from all time high. Why did it rise in the first place and why is it falling now?

Maybe someone's manipulating the market to capitalize on this volatility.

The price used to be 50 Euro's per Mwatthour in 2020, it went up to 1000 Euros per Mwh, and now fallen down to 550 Euro per Mwh, still 11 times what it was back in 2020.

The only long term solution to lower the prices would be opening up more nuclear power plants.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1565253134649278464

View attachment 27056

View attachment 27057

These are spot market prices. Consumer prices are usually longterm contracts that are made up of a) the energy price + b) the network and administration costs + c) taxes and levies. In Germany about half of the consumer price is attributable to government levies (which the government can do something about).

The sport market prices are also this high because about 40% of energy in Germany is generated from coal and gas. There are CO2-certificates you have to pay to be allowed to burn fossile fuels. If you have to burn more coal you need to buy more CO2-certificates and the market price for those certificates increases accordingly. So not only gas becomes rarer and more expensive, the alternative fossiles also become more expensive (coal is dirtier than gas).

There are two main political debates right now in Germany concerning this issue:
1. Should the government interfere with energy prices and cap them? Or should it hand out money to low income households to help them pay their bills? The most sencible solution that seems to gain in popularity is to help pay for a minimum consumption but not for excessive consumption because there is no way around saving energy anyway (both for practical reasons and because of climate change. Consumption has alreyd dropped considerably compared to the average over the last few years, so that's looking good. Our family household actually got a considerable return recently pay because we had consumed less over the last year than would have been expected.

2. The second debate concerns nuclear power. Personally I am in favor of letting old plants run on for a little longer than planned, but would very much prefer a serious investment in renewables instead of new plants (you also don't just construct those over night and decomissioning them takes years). There is still so much potential for renewables. In the conservative state of Bavaria, for example, there is hardly any wind energy used because the local law makes it near impossible to construct turbines (you have to build them so far away from settlements that hardly anywhere in Bavaria is an option). That's just plain stupid. You also have to pay VAT on the energy you produce on your own roof if you have solar panels installed which makes them much less rewarding (financially speaking) than it should be. All that could easily be remedied with enough political will.

Right now between 40 and 50% of all energy in Germany is generated from renewables but that share is increasing quickly (and it's more than twice as much as in the US).

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

The problem with renewables is that Europe is neither a particularly sunny nor windy place globally.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

"Exorbitant Rise In Energy Prices" Forces Europe's Top Steelmaker To Close Plants

 

[SD45T-2]

"Exorbitant Rise In Energy Prices" Forces Europe's Top Steelmaker To Close Plants

I know ArcelorMittal is a global company, so I wonder how the energy costs in Europe compare to their operations in the Americas and Africa.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Putin in a speech just buttfucked Europe.

 

[typologyenthusiast]

If raised to me, I wouldn't answer the question: Who is the good guy and who is the bad guy in Russia -Ukraine armed conflict. I would firstly raise more specific question to the question poser i.e Bad in what? good in what? as a response to it.

 

[yeghor]

If raised to me, I wouldn't answer the question: Who is the good guy and who is the bad guy in Russia -Ukraine armed conflict. I would firstly raise more specific question to the question poser i.e Bad in what? good in what? as a response to it.

I would say 40% US, 30%Ukraine and 30%Russia.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Russia switches off Europe’s main gas pipeline until sanctions are lifted

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Europe Sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!

Europe Reaping: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

 

[Red Herring]

Since energy security has been mentioned repeatedly:

Nord Stream 1 is down again (according to Russia because of technical problems, which according to Siemens is bullshit) and the German minister of the economy says he assumes it will remain so indefinitely.

Right now gas is mainly sourced from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. Storage supplies are 86% full, which is considerable ahead of the official schedule for the winter, and consumption has been down for a while now - currently 24% less than the longterm average. The official message is that there likely won't be any serious energy shortages but that two of the remaining three nuclear power plans that were meant the be shut down by the end of the year will be kept on stand-by as emergency backup just in case.

Prices are still pretty high and the government coalition has recently decided another relief package, amounting to 65 billion Euros, that will cap energy prices to some degree and includeds lump sum handouts to lower income households, pensioners and students as well as a child benefit raise.

The main message is that there will be help, measures are being taken and the next winter after this one will be quite different because by then the whole supply system will have changed completely.

tl/dr: Germany will quickly get over this (even if things might get mildly uncomfortable in the winter) and Russia seems to have permanently lost an important source of income.

 

[Red Herring]

Another explanatory footnote on energy prices:

Germany has something called the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). According to this law the most expensive power plant in the country dictates the price at the EEX market. That might sound absurd and is a considerable part of the reason why short term energy prices have gone up like crazy these last few months. The longterm reasoning behind it is to encourage investments in renewables, assuming that market mechanisms will lead to more efficient suppliers replacing more expensive ones and thus market prices dropping in the long run. However so far that has not really worked out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act

 

[yeghor]

The Ukraine Proxy War Has Been A Propaganda Win For Interventionists - by Caitlin Johnstone

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

 

[The Cat]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

The cost of capital is going to going to quadruple in the US. And will 6 - 8 times in Europe.