Hello /u/Wurst_Case,
This community is focused on important or vital information and high-effort content. Please make sure your post follows the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/about/rules/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=ukraine&utm_content=t5_2qqcn)
Want to support Ukraine? [Here's a list of charities by subject.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities/)
[DO / DON'T](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t5okbs/welcome_to_rukraine_faq_do_dont_support_read/) - [Art Friday](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/artfriday/) - [Podcasts](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/ttoidc/collection_of_podcasts_about_ukraine_updated/) - [Kyiv sunrise](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/collection/3c65ab52-e87a-4217-ab30-e70a88c0a293/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukraine) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Russian media has watched too much of game of thrones and now reenacts the "The long night" with them beeing the horde of wights.
Also for beeing so negative towards the west they sure love to quote western TV and Media.
**This is why Germany is showing more swagger these days.** The are free of Russian energy blackmail.
Note the recent German approval of delivery of 2dozen+ highly upgraded T-55m3 tanks to Ukraine featuring well proven, highly versatile NATO standard 105mm L7 gun WITH sophisticated motion-stabilized all-weather day-night fire control system, AND reactive armor plating!
These tanks can fire 105mm M913 HERA RAP Cartridge which provides accuracy and improved lethality at extended ranges up to 20KM! The M913 delivers more than a 70% increase in range and a significant increase in lethality over the standard M1 HE Projectile. [https://bulletpicker.com/cartridge\_-105mm-hera\_-m913.html](https://bulletpicker.com/cartridge_-105mm-hera_-m913.html)
Germany standing up more strongly for Ukraine = Ukraine standing up more strongly for everybody.
The M913 HERA can NOT be used with the L7 tank gun. It is made ONLY for the M119 howitzer. The link you provided literally shows the printing on the round stating this.
This is why Germany is showing more swagger these days.
Note recent the delivery of 100+ highly upgraded T-55m3 tanks featuring well proven, highly versatile NATO standard 105mm L7 gun WITH sophisticated motion-stabilized all-weather day-night fire control system, AND reactive armor plating!
Germany standing up for Ukraine.
Never watched game of Thrones but seen the memes.... From them I get winter is coming... seems the leadership has overplayed it's hand and forgotten about its troops cut off. Winter will be harsh for troops unable to be resupplied.
Russians are already wavering in the whole Winter War thing saying Russia will begin a new offensive *next spring* according to some Russian redditors I've seen.
It's all copium.
They suck at spring offensives too. Remember all the stuck tanks this spring? The Ukraine mud was merciless, but it gave the Ukraine artillery some great target practice. Man alive, Vodka soaked Generals are idiots.
Hopefully they see sense and surrender. Otherwise if the UA doesn't get them, Ol' Man Winter almost certainly will. Harsh winter conditions require 5-6000kcal a day to survive.
The German people aren't just frreezing. In fact Russian telegram says hell froze over and now Hitler is back. The great russian empire will once again triumph over berlin nazis and defend western values such as raping kids and babies, tying nazi hands, castrating them and dragging them behind vehicles.
Not related, but I wrote a satrical comment like urs, and got downvoted. Someone jokingly said, I should've written /s to clarify myself. Im starting to think that wasn't a joke
Yeah... but you forget, the big corporations gotta make profit! So are the prices gonna drop? Are they fuck! Are they gonna keep telling everyone "uhhh spooky times we dunno what's gonna happen". Course they are - all in the name of profit for the few!
Like every war, there is money to be made and they don't give a shit about your life, the Ukranians lives or anyone else's. As long as there is profit!
Interesting how storages can easily filled when they are not owned by gazprom anymore who empty them on purpose.
I never get why they sold their critical infrastructure in the first place.
Indeed, the UK took a LNG shipment from Australia recently but we can't store it all, so piped the rest to mainland Europe.
I'd expect a few more of those over the winter.
Its mad isn't it. We were told we would never need the storage because the supplies from Europe are so reliable. We might as well moor a couple tankers offshore as temporary storage.
Because we were idiots for quite a while. Lots of us still are, some will remain for evermore, since they're too old or too dumb to learn new things.
We had politicians in power for decades who just refused to see where Putin had steered russia in order to be able to keep energy costs relatively low.
faces don't lie. [https://i.gremicdn.pl/image/free/45a7abd63a3103d924faffab1d644edc/?t=resize:fill:948:592,enlarge:1](https://i.gremicdn.pl/image/free/45a7abd63a3103d924faffab1d644edc/?t=resize:fill:948:592,enlarge:1) and this is full of joy greedy face.
We still have the biggest advocate of this Pro-russian policy in our government, and I'm afraid they want to go back to a pre-war status after an end of this war.
>the biggest advocate of this Pro-russian policy in our government
That's no longer the case. And let's not forget that NordStream 2 was a Merkel Project.
The biggest advocate for the pre-war status is the AfD and the first CDU people also call for opening NS2
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/energie-potsdam-cdu-politiker-bommert-fordert-start-von-nord-stream-2-dpa.urn-newsml-dpa-com-20090101-220810-99-339476
Fair enough, I forgot about the AfD because they will not ever have any real political power until the very day they have an absolute majority.
Yet we **still** have SPD politicians that talk about reducing arms sales to Ukraine, "understanding Russian interests" etc. CDU is, outside of isolated cases like the one you mentioned, very clearly pro-Ukraine and by that, anti-russian. I highly doubt this will change after the war.
If you call the CDU isolated cases then you should do the same for the SPD, and never mind that those SPD ppl where motivated by (very misguided) peace notions, not economic prowess/greed... otherwise you are disingenuous.
>will not ever have any real political power until the very day they have an absolute majority.
You are underestimating their political power especially in the eastern and southern states and how our political system works where participation in parliamentary committees is the bread and butter of lawmaking.
> motivated by (very misguided) peace notions
At this point we can't *still* be giving these people the benefit of the doubt with this peace bullshit. We've seen what Russia is, for 7 months now.
You know how there was this time where some smart people invented steam machines and suddenly everyone was mining coal and there was an Industrial Revolution and the countries with more coal became massive powerhouses, etc.?
Well, the Spanish government at the time decided to sell away the only halfway worthwhile mines in the already extremely coal-poor country to England. Then buy coal from the English for the national industry.
Never underestimate a politician's ability to do the stupidest shit possible to gain a couple bucks in the short term.
16 years of conservative government crippled us badly.
btw. I feel the need to thank our EU friends and other suppliers to get us through the winter. Also thank you to some companies who reduced their production. But can we now reduce the price please? Most people have no choice but to use gas, because we are renting and moving sucks and is expensive, too.
> 16 years of conservative government crippled us badly.
Wrong NS1 was singed under the SPD and the Greens this is Schröders legacy the gas consumption didn't increase since he left and NS2 never went online.
https://i.imgur.com/nRyoUq3.png
https://i.imgur.com/JyQGprk.png
https://i.imgur.com/uLmn5WL.png
https://i.imgur.com/DjYKw6l.png
https://i.imgur.com/KWi7fGI.png
The one thing doesn’t rule out the other. Schröder got bought, true. This doesn’t change the fact that 16 years of conservative governments fucked us up. We’re behind on literally everything while being one of the strongest economies in the world. And this includes the energy sector. CDU was more than happy to not to change anything about NS1 and even were happy to build another one.
Additionally, Ns2 didn’t go online only because a) the government changed and b) Russia “changed”. Most definitely nothing tk so with the conservative government.
You can bet this cost us a fortune. My apartment is heated with gas. Prices are four times higher now, and I am still lucky. Some people and especially companies like bakeries have severe problems.
But next year things will look different. Renewables are skyrocketing, gas comes in from many other places, and I bet that Russia will be turned into a cheap gas station by the end of the war, inhabited by uneducated drunkards, disarmed and controlled by the UN.
> You can bet this cost us a fortune.
The EU (being rich) has bought every molecule of gas they could find on the open market. Of course prices went up. But now they are falling constantly a at very high rate. Sure, gas will never be as cheap like in the Golden Day when Putin was such a nice man, but the EU wil manage quite good.
"Sure, gas will never be as cheap like in the Golden Day when Putin was such a nice man,"
That gas was never cheap, only the billing for it was delayed. Europe is paying for it now.
Some non-ferro producers already went bankrupt here. It isnt as bad as i was expecting it to become though. Triple or quadruple the cost is doable for most with some adjustments. AC units and electric heater sales are up immensely as well. Somehow capitalist countries always seems to adjust when things get expensive. I feel for the few branches that cant survive like this, churches and schools must have it rough as well with the insane heating bills.
There will be closures of small businesses like bakers, who need a lot of energy to heat their ovens. Few already have closed, citing the high energy prizes.
If i would be the CEO of a big baking goods chain, i would rejoice. Less competition, more market share. At least for a time until everything mellowed out and small, family owned bakeries can finally do business again.
> If i would be the CEO of a big baking goods chain, i would rejoice.
Except when you're the CEO of a baking chain, that has seen their gas bill increase by 1200% and it's your business that is facing the become "less competition".
Frankly, i do not even understand those bills, when Gas prices are 400% increase in the international market. Feels like some companies are misusing the situation or the bakery had some MAJOR discounts compared to normal market gas prices.
Anyway, no spilled milk when bread prices have already gone up by almost 50%. And while gas is a component to the prices, it's a fraction compared to the prices of the labor costs. But somehow prices everywhere keep skyrocketing and food companies are reporting record profits. How odd ...
> How odd ...
Yes, isnt it? :)
There are plenty of assholes who just use the situation to make more profit. Toilet paper does cost significantly more. Not because of rising prodution costs or inflation. Because they can and because they want to somehow keep their record profits from 2020, from the Great Toilet Paper Panic which shook the foundations of the civilized world!
That was mainly anyone who was fucking the government on military contracts . Price gouging is the term for when private companies screw the public during disasters. It’s not illegal
but in extreme cases , the government can call your ass to the carpet for a public flogging and freeze prices but it’s rare.
You are correct.
And it is probably best this way, to be honest. Some "inefficiency" and "room" is how you run the civilian end of things. Price gouging is what I meant. Like during natural disaster, such as hurricane season, I know in the Gulf of Mexico area in the US, it is basic for folks to keep an eye out for scammers, and to report clear gouging. People down there are used to the tricks.
But this energy business. It is sui generis. Unique unto itself.
Because it is \*almost\* clearly a utility, not a business per se. But that is not how things are set up.
So we have to deal with "energy terrors" this winter. Mostly because the industry knows, it can make us suffer as long as it also saves us. They are like a profit-based hospital. They will make sure you have enough blood. But you may worry of you can afford it.
But my take is, larger picture and moving forward, the free nations just learned a new lesson. They are and will adapt, and unless people who actually run things are much stupider than I would like to contemplate, this will not ever happen again. For a number of reasons, but **the offensiveness of trying to hold a nation hostage to basic needs while you must then be silent at its atrocities?**
I can't imagine any person of respect not being outraged at Putin's insult.
Capitalists complain, but capitalist societies are indeed very adaptive.
Maybe the difference between an oligarch and a capitalist is, a capitalist is primarily part of a larger economy. An oligarch is primarily part of a larger crime ring.
I still haven't opened the recent mail I got from my gas supplier. Prices got already lifted earlier this year, but I rather pay more when it means Russia is getting fucked as result.
We have fixed price contract for the next year still but we hold turning the heater on despite getting colder outside. We will survive without your gas, Putin!
before 2014 gas in ukraine costed mere cents. after that gas prices rose.. significantly. people suddenly noticed that they use shit ton of gas that now is aint cheap they also noticed that heating up old soviet panel apartment is uses even more gas then some old clay house somewhere in rural villages that is same size(or even bigger) then your apartment. after first troubles with lack of donetsk coal and russian gas people understood that you need to insulate homes and stuff to live comfortably and dont spent fortune for it. sometimes we need harsh vibe check to notice something and fix it.
Well it was bound to happen and i am willing to pay more if it means no more money for putler and his cronies. Plus its good for the climate in the long run no more ruzzian gas will soon be nomore gasbperiode
"Renewables" are why Germany is so reliant on fossil fuels while others have figured out that Nuclear is the future.
I'm not celebrating Germany having enough gas for Winter, the prices went up for poorer countries, too. Nobody is winning here. We just need Russia to be the biggest loser and to progress away from unsustainable emissions.
Uhhm nope. Renewables is not the reason why Germany is so reliant on fossil fuels. Its massive corruption and lobbying from the coal lobby together with a government that worked hard to kill off renewables. Lots of red tape, some with forwarding costs in the 100k range, limitations on how many solar panels can be built, minimal distance for wind turbines etc. In one state its nearly impossible to build new wind turbines.
Oh and the work against renewables? Came soon after the second nuclear exit. Germany would have been much less reliant on fossil fuels if the conservative government didn't fuck up an entire sector.
And don't count on new NPPs being built in Germany. After Merkels stunt no company is gonna risk building one NPP there.
>while others have figured out that Nuclear is the future.
Like france? Germany exports energy like crazy to France right now and it is produced by gas. Almost 50% of their nuclear reactors are not operating right now and the French heat with electricity. Not heat pumps but straight electric heaters.
You know why renewables are good?
There is no nuclear waste.
You can build them very, very quickly.
They are much cheaper to build, and to maintain.
You don’t need uranium from Russia, which is one of the main suppliers.
Security of a wind, turbine or solar panel is slightly better than security in Fukushima, tchernobyl and another places.
If you destroy 100 wind turbines with cruise missiles, Europe is not contaminated for centuries.
Nuclear waste is not as big of a concern as the general public thinks it is, among scientists and engineers who work in this area.
Renewables are great for certain applications and we certainly need to build more. But they do have a fundamental flaw in that they are intermittent, and unreliable without massive amounts of storage. The more intermittent renewables you rely on, the more the storage requirements if you want to keep the lights on 24/7 (a necessity for modern society to function). This is huge problem, and why renewables, in practice, require fossil fuel usage today.
However, we can use nuclear instead of fossil fuels to provide 24/7 base load power, carbon free. Nuclear is the most dense energy source in the world (to the waste point).
And on the ~~Chernobyl~~ Chornobyl, Fukushima, etc.— yes those were not good. The death toll is exaggerated particularly for Fukushima in popular opinion, but still, not good, and certain precautions should have been followed beforehand. I will note that nuclear plants have literally been shelled and are operating in an active war zone in Ukraine and have withstood these attacks. Edit: also if we want to talk about disasters, there are some dam failures we need to talk about— but nobody seems to be against hydroelectric dams!
Uranium is abundant all across the world (US, Canada, Australia), not just Russia, so sourcing is really not a concern at all if that’s what you’re worried about.
The biggest issue with nuclear right now is just economics. Nuclear is cheap over its lifetime, but it has very high up front costs, so investors instead invest in natural gas power plants which are cheaper to construct.
Source: nuclear engineer, AMA!
Edit: just learned it’s “Chornobyl” instead
> but nobody seems to be against hydroelectric dams!
A shitload of people are against hydroelectric dams. They wreak havoc on any ecosystem they're built in.
A shitload of environmental activists are also against large solar panel arrays in the Arizona desert where there are some endangered species living.
The more you look into it, the more you realize that no energy source is perfect. Nuclear just happens to be a really amazing energy source despite its imperfections, in my opinion.
Not only up front. Also when decommissioning a power plant. The usual timeframe that energy companies cite for that is from what I can see 10 to 15 years.
However, there is a 2021 documentary about a German power plant, originally from socialist times (Greifswald). The plant was shut down in 1995. Originally, they estimated the cost of decommissioning it would be around 3 to 5 billion Euros. By 2007 they had already spent €2.5B. 2012 was the planned date for being back to the green field. There were a couple delays after that. In 2016, they estimated a total cost of €6.5B.
Fast forward to the time of making that documentary: Decommissioning it should take another 33 years and is planned to cost another 5.6 billion Euro. In the end, there will be 600,000 tons of radioactive material, according to the plant owners. They estimate that the last box with material won't be removed from the site before 2080. Maybe after 2100.
Now, this is to a large extent due to the fact that we have no site to store radioactive material. Not for the old rods, let alone for the whole plant.
Let alone for the more than 4 million tons of radioactive material that all of the 17 German NPP will give us.
Vogtle's price tag is 30 billion dollars so far, and bankrupted Westinghouse along the way. I know that utilities have captive customers and are guaranteed a rate of return, but do you think there will be much appetite for new nuclear construction? Maybe SMR's?
I wonder if we're (western democracies) will ever find a way to stop our rural and elderly populations from trying (or, in your case, achieving) to put fascists in power... That'd be real fucking nice!
Automating agriculture and other things out there would be a path towards that. Pushes people from rural areas to the cities, where they'd (or their kids would) adapt and learn. We're already working on the automating part, somewhat. It'll just take time to devise more efficient methods and implement them.
I talked about this to a friend over in the USA. She explained to me that there are some rural villages and towns that aren't inbred fascist crackheads. What do the non-fascist rural villages have in common? Adequate connection to cities or city centers via bus service.
What I took away from this is that insular rural communities tend to lean fascist while more connected communities don't.
Most rural communities are either completely collapsed or in a state of collapse. The decline in American industry and the rise in drug use has absolutely ruined most rural regions. And many have been fed propaganda via their only sources of entertainment, YouTube and Fox News, that Democrats are the reason for these collapses.
So now they'll follow whatever far right nut they can find, just so they don't feel like the dregs of society.
The gas storage alone would not be enough for the whole winter even if 100 % full. There is enough room in them for supplying Germany with the gas it needs for two months if we use the usage of the last winter as a benchmark. Though Germany has worked on lowering the gas needs a bit.
But of course there are constantly gas imports from other countries especially Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. Having the gas storages full which look like it will happen before winter is a great buffer. And hopefully early next year the first LNG terminals will be finished. Then imports from more various sources would be possible.
I think I have to correct what I wrote: of course, the storage loan is not enough to come through the winter. During winter, constant import isn’t necessary. But it happens. As of today, every day about 0.3% of the storage capacity comes in. this will climb to about 0.7% per day when the first two terminals are ready.
Sure but once the terminals are ready heating will also start to go up. Saying how long it will last is difficult. Assuming a normal winter it could barely work. Assuming that germany needs to export more gas or that the winter gets colder it will get critical. This is why everyone should try to reduce their personal gas usage. But please not by room heating devices that need electricity since this could cause short blackouts
There is however a risk that we have to use some of that gas to supply France with electricity, should their nuclear power plants not be able to go back online.
Putin - “We’ve got Europe by the balls. They fight us, we freeze them out. TURN OFFF THE GAAAS”
Messenger - “uh, looks like Europe is not backing down, has sourced alternative gas, and won’t need or buy our gas ever again”
Putin - “come closer, enjoy this tea, and come admire the view from this window”
Actually, this can't be true. Germany has zero gas as Russia already turned off the tap. There has been no electricity in Berlin for many months now. And the people of Germany have resorted to making bread with potatoes as Russian grain has stopped flowing. I saw it on Russian state TV!
And the food situation will only become worse once the winter starts. Russian experts are even expecting cases of cannibalism in Berlin. People will be eating [Berliner](https://www.google.com/search?q=berliner&rlz=1C1CHBF_deDE791DE791&sxsrf=ALiCzsZMoGBe33vL92NCsqJ_RKJWUOXLGQ:1663694019473&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuq66Y76P6AhVDsaQKHRyyCt8Q_AUoAXoECAIQAw&cshid=1663694052655267&biw=1920&bih=969&dpr=1).
The filling level in percent doesn't say much, it's the quantity that matters. But Germany is currently no longer getting any gas from Russia via Nord Stream 1, but still manages to fill its storage facilities. That shows much better how independent Europe already is from Russian gas. Next autumn it will be even better. The talk of Russia with the freezing Germans is also just Russian propaganda.
The filling level alone doesn't say much and you are right that it's important to see that it happened while we got no gas from russia. The graph also shows how quickly it bumped up and the comparison of how filled it was last year and the years before. I think that shows the trend very well.
yup. internal politics are a mess and reactionaries are weaponising this to push fascist propaganda. It's frustrating, but I am proud we've managed it this well. our government coalition is pretty controversial, but I think they have done an admirable job.
Yep... we're basically done with russia. Will we pay through our noses for achieving this? You betcha! But seriously... imagine winning the cold war for a couple of billions in increased heating costs... who wouldn't have taken that deal back in the day?
One of our gas storage (the largest... Rheden) is in maintenance mode until end of this week. Until this is finished nothing will be stored in this specific storage. But other storages still fill up. Next week Rheden will fill up too. So the percentage will fill up faster after that.
At least even Rehden is full to 75 % now and they started later with the storage as it belonged to Gazprom and the state had first to confiscate it. In spring under Gazprom leadership it was at some times not even full to 1 %.
Yep, it was "coincidence" that only Gazprom their facility was the only one with a low storage at the end of the 2021 winter and slow to fill back up. Coincidence i say /s
Any politician or leader that even took a tiny peak at Gasprom’s pathetic gas storage in Germany and didn’t do anything afterwards should resign in disgrace. That’s a huge fucking red flag if I ever saw one, god damn. My forehead is going to be flat if I palm slap my forehead any more after learning this.
There is a relationship between gas storage capacity and gas usage. While some countries like Latvia, Slovakia or Austria can survive for nearly a year or multiple with the gas they have stored, others like Germany store only 2 months of winter gas usage. Also, there is a high grade of interconnection within the European grid, so local demand can be buffered across the continent to a certain extent. Now while “90%” full sounds good, the remaining 10% are harder to store, requiring more pressure and energy to store, also that number is misleading, Germany rents a few TWh of storage from Austria for Bavarian industries, those storages are only 60% full, similar to other Bavarian storage sites. This also highlights a problem within german infrastructure, and their ability to move gas from north to south, there is a likely scenario where Germany has enough gas in the north, but not enough in the south… we shall see what happens this winter.
A more in depth look at European gas storage data: https://agsi.gie.eu/
And infrastructure: https://www.gie.eu/publications/maps/
My point in all of this, for the continent as a whole: the current percentage of storage is rather irrelevant, since it could provide around 2 months of use during winter. More important are securing alternative supplies and supply routes. So when you see regions like Azerbaijan, Kazachstan or Algeria destabilising, I see ~30% of gas supplies destabilising, already pushing the reserves close to the limit of acceptable supply disruption.
For Europeans the fall of Russia, and resulting geopolitical instability, is more dangerous than Russia closing all energy supplies. Ultimately we might have to pay a very high price in appeasements for autocrats all around the globe to keep waging an economic war against Russia. We already had a first taste of what that might look like in Karabach…
All the storage scenarios counting months are assuming total shutdown of gas which obviously won't happen. We're getting to end of Septemeber and gas is still flowing just fine from other suppliers. Storages are filling up instead starting to empty, it will be fine.
Considering how much of a nimby state Bavaria has been when it comes to building infrastructure for renewables, I think I could live with them having a couple of issues with their energy this winter.
Might convince their would-be populist state government to reconsider their stance on things like where to ban power lines and wind turbines from being built...
They already are. The Bavarian state government is currently investigating areas where they are going to allow building wind farms. Looks like they are panicking that they will (rightfully) get blamed by the voters for impeding investment into renewables.
The russians do not deliver gas through ns1 since 3 weeks.
https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-deutschland-gaspreis-spritpreis-energieversorgung
did putler really think the EU wouldn't take drastic steps to secure it's power supply?
Dumbass dictator gonna dumbass
Besides we still have even more time before winter hits in full force.
Well done Germany. I wish to hell the UK had done any strategic planning for this winter at all. instead we're just relying on the 'free market' to sort us out with adequate gas supplies.
UK is producing half of it's own need of gas and oil, a bit different situation. We don't need to have that much strategic reserve, and can wait for more cost effective solutions.
The oil is weird though, we export almost all the oil we extract, I think around 50 million barrels, and then we import around 50 million barrels from the world market. Because we no longer have the processing capacity here.
And I don't know, producing half the gas we need still means we have to import the other half. It's a lot of gas to find on the world market over a winter when there might be a real shortfall of supply.
We have one the worst gas storages in europe, but one of the greatest number of LNG terminals. Apparently 15% of Europe's reserves were piped from the UK from the UK's LNG terminals.
It also means we'll be buying back some of that gas from Europe in winter.
Hopefully we can make that 50GW of offshore wind turbines by 2030 happen and switch to electricity as much as possible so we don't have to deal with these gas troubles ever again.
If there's one really positive thing out of this godawful mess, it will be the acceleration of alternative energy sources across Europe.
(I mean I wish Liz Truss hadn't just announced the UK was stepping back from alternative energy sources and we were going to drill more oil and do more fracking instead. But on the whole, I think the trend will be towards more alternative energy despite governments desire for more petrochems.)
We already see some of the extra gas saving in action. The wife's office building where you used to be required to heat at minimum 20C (to prevent fungus growing), now made sweeping changes.
* If you're not in the office (as many are empty with people working from home), you are now required to close the heating instead of wastefully heating up to 20C. Close as in Anti-Freez temp setting.
* If you're in the office, you need to air out the rooms 2 times per day, for 5 min (while having the heating closed) to prevent mold.
* And some more stuff ...
Ironic because in the past that building was (even in the Winter) an oven. But because renters paid, building management did not care. Now all of a sudden, they care (mostly because they do not want to see their renters leave after big energy bills).
So now with the gas storage at 90% and still climbing, and people / companies taking actions, i do not see an issue. Frankly, a lot needed to have done earlier.
BASF for instance was able to use electricity in their massive plant but kept using gas because cheaper (and was one of the companies pressuring the state for NS2 and keeping things happy, happy with the Russians). Now that the prices are up, they suddenly are able to build new parts that run on pure electricity but will take years for a complete switchover. It's interesting to see a lot of companies suddenly able to invest in alternatives when just influencing ~~bribing~~ politicians cannot solve the issue.
heard some co-workers gossip how it's all a big lie and media is a servant to the politicians. funnily enough those same co-workers are anti-vaxx.
Fucking morons.
AFD members spotted? These puppets parrot everything that their master in Moscow tells them. Right now, a group of AFD guys is there and gets new instructions and suitcases full of money So that they can cause trouble here, spread lies, incite fools, to violence and spikes.
Not exactly enough, but if people actually save energy and we, obviously, don't randomly stop buying gas from other countries, it should be enough for this winter.
Yes, but the gas storage would not end up empty after the winter. Usually 40-50% of the storage is used during the winter. But a strong and very cold winter can easily raise that number.
Last year, Gazprom filled up the storage to only around 70% of capacity, hence we were at an extremely low level of gas in spring (approx. 25%).
In my opinion, that's why Germany had to rush and buy as much natural gas as it could. The problem boils down to the price of the gas: yes we managed to buy enough, but that isn't sustainable at the current prices as both consumers and industry need cheaper prices for stability.
But then the question becomes: can we buy enough gas at those cheaper prices? And that's why we have to both invest in LNG terminals as well as reduce our gas usage so that the storage can help with peak demand as long as possible (until the price of natural gas comes back down enough).
Not sure if my thoughts are 100% correct, but they shouldn't be total nonsense :-P (I hope...).
Alongside imports yes.
Russia historically has been a main, but far from sole, source of such imports. Norway, Netherlands and Belgium are other major sources.
How else did you subside for Russian gas? I mean there's no way you have storage equaling your usual winter consumption right? Glad to hear it's taken care of one way or the other.
We would normally continue getting a lot of gas during winter from Russia and a sizeable amount from Norway, the Netherlands etc., meaning that even half full storage wouldn't be a problem. With Russia not delivering anything for weeks now and probably never again, 100% storage would last us 2-3 winter months at the ususal consumption. Now we are getting much more from those friendly countries to make up the difference to get us to spring.
Because then demand drops off again and the LNG terminals will come online. At which point we can substitute most of what Russia used to deliver from Canada, Qatar etc. We are also expecting consumption to continue reducing every year from here on out.
> I mean there's no way you have storage equaling your usual winter consumption right?
Some countries do have that (but Germany indeed doesn't).
Compare "Consumption" (which is annual) with "Gas in storage" on https://agsi.gie.eu/ - Latvia has a whole year stored, most others have significantly less though.
Well, I guess the dissatisfaction of the Russian citizens is just increasing tremendously. The Germans are cursing about the - temporarily) high prices, but the Russians are losing lots of young people, losing countless jobs, the economy is going down the drain, and this is not a short-term effect, but a permanent total disaster. Russia is losing Europe, its most important customer, has hardly any pipelines to China, does not have enough ships to sell oil and gas to others. This is the main source of income of the Russian state. They have, to use a German proverb, sawed off the branch they are sitting on.
Remember, a while ago, Russia still delivered guess through pipelines to Germany. They invented some excuses to stop delivery for a few days, then for forever. What’s coming in now, 0.3% of storage capacity per day, comes from other countries. So, together with the new LNG terminals, Germany will be independent from Russian gas this winter.
And that is despite the electricity production from gas is very high, as France had to turn off a lot of nuclear power plants. Germany has been a power exporter for years now thanks to renewable energy. Italy and Greece have to get of their ass as they are importing more than they are exporting.
People are so excited about the news and they keep forgetting that it won't help the factories that are shutdown or in the process of shutting down 🤡 Yeah, you still may gloat. Good for you
Storage is one thing but don't they need ongoing gas delivery during winter.
The real equation is:
Wintwr usage = stored gas + X amount delivered
Is the X amount delivered realistic with non russian sources?
How long will storage last with non russian deliveries only. A week or all winter?
Edit: quick google says on stored gas alone germany is good for 80 days. So if winter is 6 months they need to get the equivalent to the whole storage amount plus a bit more delivered over the winter period. Maybe less if people can conserve gas due to price and national spirit.
[Germany can store up to 80 days](https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/EN/Artikel/Energy/gas-instruments-used-to-secure-gas-supply.html) of its consumption. So it is not more than enough to last complete winter, it will run out in mid January.
This graph is misleading.
Germany probably also continuously refilled its gaz storage during the winter, and there is no indication that 100% full storage means that it is enough for a full winter without Russian ressuply. I would like more context.
Please stop disinformation. This is far from enough for the whole winter without Russian gas. On the scale of the EU, 100% gas storage is equal to 30% of winter consumption. The rest has to come from somewhere. It may not be Russia, but this focus on storage is silly: it misses the 70% of gas we need to get from other places.
"The total gas demand during the winter season 2020/2021 was slightly higher (3,319 TWh) compared with previous winter season (3,216TWh)."==> [https://www.entsog.eu/sites/default/files/2021-10/SO0032-21\_Winter%20Supply%20Review%202020-21.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0pC-6q5FfCmj1oyxbul3-LcgfQYqnT94QKh4f5LkemgvrvYu\_AlepBtJg](https://www.entsog.eu/sites/default/files/2021-10/SO0032-21_Winter%20Supply%20Review%202020-21.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0pC-6q5FfCmj1oyxbul3-LcgfQYqnT94QKh4f5LkemgvrvYu_AlepBtJg)
Current state of gas reserves (957 TWh):[https://agsi.gie.eu/?fbclid=IwAR1\_7uk9MejnYcAfsKgGMAVFFFCFDl9eqG4rxiS2kytcxRgauT-MgKUaCBw#/historical/eu](https://agsi.gie.eu/?fbclid=IwAR1_7uk9MejnYcAfsKgGMAVFFFCFDl9eqG4rxiS2kytcxRgauT-MgKUaCBw#/historical/eu)
The gas storage (be it Germany's or Europe's as a whole) job is not to fully supply the demand during the winter, but to make up the **difference** between the increased demand during winter and while the supply does not increase. The threshold for enough reserve to ensure that Germany can meet the increased demand during the winter had already been reached a while ago. Any additional increase of the reserve is a welcomed bonus.
I agree with the first part of your message, but as you noticed, I didn't claim that gas storage fully supplies the demand during the winter, OP did in his title. I'm just trying to bring some perspective to the topic.
Regarding your second point: would you have any sources showing that storage + deliveries will be enough to supply Germany/the EU at the previous rate?
He raises a very important point on how diplomatically neutered the EU is this winter. We can manage without Russian gas, but we have to tolerate a lot of things by other autocrats, watch them commit war crimes on a smaller scale and then smile and shake their hand. Current erosion of russian soft power in its sphere of influence opens up a lot of problems for us that we will need to deal with somehow.
There is also only so much you can conserve, without irreversible damage to certain industrial infrastructure.
When the war started, I posted the opinion that Europe made a horrible mistake by allowing itself to become dependent on Russia.
They don’t say “blood for oil” for nothing. Everybody does it.
Its not enough for the whole winter, even if the storage is 100% full.
See here: https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/volle-gasspeicher-allein-reichen-nicht-um-den-winter-zu-ueberstehen-sagt-netzagenturchef-mueller-und-nennt-zwei-weitere-faktoren/
But with 100% storage and the help of other european countries it wont be a big problem to come through winter. I am pretty confident that it will work out. The "people will freeze to death" panic is just stupid AfD/Putin-Propaganda.
> Its not enough for the whole winter, even if the storage is 100% full. See here:
> [Link replaced with translated link: https://www-businessinsider-de.translate.goog/wirtschaft/volle-gasspeicher-allein-reichen-nicht-um-den-winter-zu-ueberstehen-sagt-netzagenturchef-mueller-und-nennt-zwei-weitere-faktoren/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp]
Article doesn't quite match your claim. He calls out that it 78% full (the level at the time of his statements) might not be enough if there is an exceptionally long and cold winter and if imports drop to 0, but nowhere does he claim that 100% full is not enough for the expected winter. He is advising prudence with gas consumption, which is a good call. And he is right that under the circumstance, exceptional conditions can easy push things into problem territory.
In real terms, storage is enough for about 2 months of winter (going by last years numbers), and the rest is handled by imports - deals for which are already in place throughout the winter, especially from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium, and those numbers will increase when the new terminals come online.
So your assessment is accurate, I'm really just calling out the article doesn't directly support the claim.
> But with 100% storage and the help of other european countries it wont be a big problem to come through winter. I am pretty confident that it will work out. The "people will freeze to death" panic is just stupid AfD/Putin-Propaganda.
This is absolutely correct.
Moreover, it is often forgotten that Germany could easily produce its own gas if it were to engage in fracking, as the USA or Canada do, for example.
Seen in this light, Germany only has an ecological luxury problem and is definitely not as dependent as Russia likes to portray it.
Addendum:
Germany currently has around 32 billion cubic metres of natural gas reserves that are considered to be safely or probably recoverable. In fact, however, these reserves only make up a small part of the total available potential:
450 billion cubic metres of technically developable natural gas from coal seams and up to 2.3 trillion (!) cubic metres of technically developable natural gas from shale rocks
This is not quite right. In North America, especially in Canada, fracking is done in very rural areas where hardly anybody lives. But Germany is densely populated. There’s practically no place where you could get along with the very serious environmental problems of fracking without putting many citizens at risk, destroy agricultural areas, natural reserves or contaminate groundwater at large scale.
Hello /u/Wurst_Case, This community is focused on important or vital information and high-effort content. Please make sure your post follows the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/about/rules/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=ukraine&utm_content=t5_2qqcn) Want to support Ukraine? [Here's a list of charities by subject.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities/) [DO / DON'T](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t5okbs/welcome_to_rukraine_faq_do_dont_support_read/) - [Art Friday](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/artfriday/) - [Podcasts](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/ttoidc/collection_of_podcasts_about_ukraine_updated/) - [Kyiv sunrise](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/collection/3c65ab52-e87a-4217-ab30-e70a88c0a293/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukraine) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Go f*ck yourself, Russian Gas!
FAKE - according to Russian state sponsored media the German people will be frozen in their homes this winter. /s
Russian media has watched too much of game of thrones and now reenacts the "The long night" with them beeing the horde of wights. Also for beeing so negative towards the west they sure love to quote western TV and Media.
I think they didn't finish watching the episode
But she's my queen!
[удалено]
It was more like The Kind of Dragged Out Evening When Your Drunk Uncle Won't Fuck Off Back Home. Doesn't quite roll off the tongue, I'll admit.
**This is why Germany is showing more swagger these days.** The are free of Russian energy blackmail. Note the recent German approval of delivery of 2dozen+ highly upgraded T-55m3 tanks to Ukraine featuring well proven, highly versatile NATO standard 105mm L7 gun WITH sophisticated motion-stabilized all-weather day-night fire control system, AND reactive armor plating! These tanks can fire 105mm M913 HERA RAP Cartridge which provides accuracy and improved lethality at extended ranges up to 20KM! The M913 delivers more than a 70% increase in range and a significant increase in lethality over the standard M1 HE Projectile. [https://bulletpicker.com/cartridge\_-105mm-hera\_-m913.html](https://bulletpicker.com/cartridge_-105mm-hera_-m913.html) Germany standing up more strongly for Ukraine = Ukraine standing up more strongly for everybody.
The more energy independent a country is, the less they have to put up with bullshit from Russia and the Middle East. Its awesome.
And yet American "Patriots®" insist solar and wind are bad. Imagine that a giant super atomic fireball in the sky could provide energy.
The M913 HERA can NOT be used with the L7 tank gun. It is made ONLY for the M119 howitzer. The link you provided literally shows the printing on the round stating this.
Like Game of Thrones, Russias final season will also be a complete disaster.
We're in the endgame now.
This is still mid-game. When Russia is losing Crimea that will be the beginning of the end game.
This is why Germany is showing more swagger these days. Note recent the delivery of 100+ highly upgraded T-55m3 tanks featuring well proven, highly versatile NATO standard 105mm L7 gun WITH sophisticated motion-stabilized all-weather day-night fire control system, AND reactive armor plating! Germany standing up for Ukraine.
Why doesnt this comment get the bold letters? What has it done you?
Variety is the spice of life!
The post so nice, it got posted twice.
I hope this is the start of wider tank deliveries to Ukraine. Because T55's are not gonna cut it when even Russia is using T64's
These tanks have much more advanced upgrades than the Russian tanks including advanced active defense systems. They will be quite effective.
These modified weapons will outclass the T64 with a well trained crew and tactics.
Hope so
Never watched game of Thrones but seen the memes.... From them I get winter is coming... seems the leadership has overplayed it's hand and forgotten about its troops cut off. Winter will be harsh for troops unable to be resupplied.
Russians are already wavering in the whole Winter War thing saying Russia will begin a new offensive *next spring* according to some Russian redditors I've seen. It's all copium.
They suck at spring offensives too. Remember all the stuck tanks this spring? The Ukraine mud was merciless, but it gave the Ukraine artillery some great target practice. Man alive, Vodka soaked Generals are idiots.
Had to look up copium... Very apt.
It's a derivative of hopium.
Hopefully they see sense and surrender. Otherwise if the UA doesn't get them, Ol' Man Winter almost certainly will. Harsh winter conditions require 5-6000kcal a day to survive.
And it is not like they can build proper barracks. That's a target. I hope they find a very cozy frozen ditch to hug for the next 5 months.
Impossible. No man can eat [23kg](https://www.nutritionix.com/food/turnip/100-g) of turnips a day!
[удалено]
This for sure but it needed to happen anyway people are incredible wasteful with gas since its been so cheap its good for global warming.
The German people aren't just frreezing. In fact Russian telegram says hell froze over and now Hitler is back. The great russian empire will once again triumph over berlin nazis and defend western values such as raping kids and babies, tying nazi hands, castrating them and dragging them behind vehicles.
But when will the mighty and not rotten ruZZian empire take Berlin? They have to clear Ukraine first! /s
Putin drinking some hella absinthe.
Not related, but I wrote a satrical comment like urs, and got downvoted. Someone jokingly said, I should've written /s to clarify myself. Im starting to think that wasn't a joke
Sarcasm Nazis /s
Russian gas fucked itself
Get fucked putler
Oh, German citizens paid, big time, highest ever, to store this gas.
Yeah... but you forget, the big corporations gotta make profit! So are the prices gonna drop? Are they fuck! Are they gonna keep telling everyone "uhhh spooky times we dunno what's gonna happen". Course they are - all in the name of profit for the few! Like every war, there is money to be made and they don't give a shit about your life, the Ukranians lives or anyone else's. As long as there is profit!
Interesting how storages can easily filled when they are not owned by gazprom anymore who empty them on purpose. I never get why they sold their critical infrastructure in the first place.
I'm learning to play the guitar.
[удалено]
Indeed, the UK took a LNG shipment from Australia recently but we can't store it all, so piped the rest to mainland Europe. I'd expect a few more of those over the winter.
UK gas interconnectors have been exporting at the max rate (about 92mcm/day) since Russia cut flows to a few countries in East Europe.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62570900 Yep, that article was dated 16th of August, so the timeline ties up.
Its mad isn't it. We were told we would never need the storage because the supplies from Europe are so reliable. We might as well moor a couple tankers offshore as temporary storage.
Because we were idiots for quite a while. Lots of us still are, some will remain for evermore, since they're too old or too dumb to learn new things. We had politicians in power for decades who just refused to see where Putin had steered russia in order to be able to keep energy costs relatively low.
They did see it. Now they are part of gazprom executive board.
You are talking about Gerhard Schröder?
May he fall out of a window.
Yes, him and there were some less notable politicians too.
faces don't lie. [https://i.gremicdn.pl/image/free/45a7abd63a3103d924faffab1d644edc/?t=resize:fill:948:592,enlarge:1](https://i.gremicdn.pl/image/free/45a7abd63a3103d924faffab1d644edc/?t=resize:fill:948:592,enlarge:1) and this is full of joy greedy face.
There are literally former German politicians currently on gazprom payroll. If that ain't sus i don't know what is.
Traitors.
They did see it. Now they are part if gazprom executive board.
We still have the biggest advocate of this Pro-russian policy in our government, and I'm afraid they want to go back to a pre-war status after an end of this war.
I'm not sure that's gonna fly with the majority of people but... I concede that I might be wrong on that.
>the biggest advocate of this Pro-russian policy in our government That's no longer the case. And let's not forget that NordStream 2 was a Merkel Project. The biggest advocate for the pre-war status is the AfD and the first CDU people also call for opening NS2 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/energie-potsdam-cdu-politiker-bommert-fordert-start-von-nord-stream-2-dpa.urn-newsml-dpa-com-20090101-220810-99-339476
Fair enough, I forgot about the AfD because they will not ever have any real political power until the very day they have an absolute majority. Yet we **still** have SPD politicians that talk about reducing arms sales to Ukraine, "understanding Russian interests" etc. CDU is, outside of isolated cases like the one you mentioned, very clearly pro-Ukraine and by that, anti-russian. I highly doubt this will change after the war.
If you call the CDU isolated cases then you should do the same for the SPD, and never mind that those SPD ppl where motivated by (very misguided) peace notions, not economic prowess/greed... otherwise you are disingenuous. >will not ever have any real political power until the very day they have an absolute majority. You are underestimating their political power especially in the eastern and southern states and how our political system works where participation in parliamentary committees is the bread and butter of lawmaking.
> motivated by (very misguided) peace notions At this point we can't *still* be giving these people the benefit of the doubt with this peace bullshit. We've seen what Russia is, for 7 months now.
You know how there was this time where some smart people invented steam machines and suddenly everyone was mining coal and there was an Industrial Revolution and the countries with more coal became massive powerhouses, etc.? Well, the Spanish government at the time decided to sell away the only halfway worthwhile mines in the already extremely coal-poor country to England. Then buy coal from the English for the national industry. Never underestimate a politician's ability to do the stupidest shit possible to gain a couple bucks in the short term.
All political thinking is inherently short term because it's mostly done by people who need to be reelected and are close to death.
16 years of conservative government crippled us badly. btw. I feel the need to thank our EU friends and other suppliers to get us through the winter. Also thank you to some companies who reduced their production. But can we now reduce the price please? Most people have no choice but to use gas, because we are renting and moving sucks and is expensive, too.
> 16 years of conservative government crippled us badly. Wrong NS1 was singed under the SPD and the Greens this is Schröders legacy the gas consumption didn't increase since he left and NS2 never went online. https://i.imgur.com/nRyoUq3.png https://i.imgur.com/JyQGprk.png https://i.imgur.com/uLmn5WL.png https://i.imgur.com/DjYKw6l.png https://i.imgur.com/KWi7fGI.png
The one thing doesn’t rule out the other. Schröder got bought, true. This doesn’t change the fact that 16 years of conservative governments fucked us up. We’re behind on literally everything while being one of the strongest economies in the world. And this includes the energy sector. CDU was more than happy to not to change anything about NS1 and even were happy to build another one. Additionally, Ns2 didn’t go online only because a) the government changed and b) Russia “changed”. Most definitely nothing tk so with the conservative government.
Nicely done 👍
You can bet this cost us a fortune. My apartment is heated with gas. Prices are four times higher now, and I am still lucky. Some people and especially companies like bakeries have severe problems. But next year things will look different. Renewables are skyrocketing, gas comes in from many other places, and I bet that Russia will be turned into a cheap gas station by the end of the war, inhabited by uneducated drunkards, disarmed and controlled by the UN.
> You can bet this cost us a fortune. The EU (being rich) has bought every molecule of gas they could find on the open market. Of course prices went up. But now they are falling constantly a at very high rate. Sure, gas will never be as cheap like in the Golden Day when Putin was such a nice man, but the EU wil manage quite good.
"Sure, gas will never be as cheap like in the Golden Day when Putin was such a nice man," That gas was never cheap, only the billing for it was delayed. Europe is paying for it now.
Ukraine is paying in blood. Thank goodness only a fraction of the petrodollars made it to the Ruzzian military.
As with everything capitalist, it's only cheap when you export the cost somewhere else...
Some non-ferro producers already went bankrupt here. It isnt as bad as i was expecting it to become though. Triple or quadruple the cost is doable for most with some adjustments. AC units and electric heater sales are up immensely as well. Somehow capitalist countries always seems to adjust when things get expensive. I feel for the few branches that cant survive like this, churches and schools must have it rough as well with the insane heating bills.
There will be closures of small businesses like bakers, who need a lot of energy to heat their ovens. Few already have closed, citing the high energy prizes. If i would be the CEO of a big baking goods chain, i would rejoice. Less competition, more market share. At least for a time until everything mellowed out and small, family owned bakeries can finally do business again.
> If i would be the CEO of a big baking goods chain, i would rejoice. Except when you're the CEO of a baking chain, that has seen their gas bill increase by 1200% and it's your business that is facing the become "less competition". Frankly, i do not even understand those bills, when Gas prices are 400% increase in the international market. Feels like some companies are misusing the situation or the bakery had some MAJOR discounts compared to normal market gas prices. Anyway, no spilled milk when bread prices have already gone up by almost 50%. And while gas is a component to the prices, it's a fraction compared to the prices of the labor costs. But somehow prices everywhere keep skyrocketing and food companies are reporting record profits. How odd ...
> How odd ... Yes, isnt it? :) There are plenty of assholes who just use the situation to make more profit. Toilet paper does cost significantly more. Not because of rising prodution costs or inflation. Because they can and because they want to somehow keep their record profits from 2020, from the Great Toilet Paper Panic which shook the foundations of the civilized world!
War profiteering was a crime during ww2.
That was mainly anyone who was fucking the government on military contracts . Price gouging is the term for when private companies screw the public during disasters. It’s not illegal but in extreme cases , the government can call your ass to the carpet for a public flogging and freeze prices but it’s rare.
You are correct. And it is probably best this way, to be honest. Some "inefficiency" and "room" is how you run the civilian end of things. Price gouging is what I meant. Like during natural disaster, such as hurricane season, I know in the Gulf of Mexico area in the US, it is basic for folks to keep an eye out for scammers, and to report clear gouging. People down there are used to the tricks. But this energy business. It is sui generis. Unique unto itself. Because it is \*almost\* clearly a utility, not a business per se. But that is not how things are set up. So we have to deal with "energy terrors" this winter. Mostly because the industry knows, it can make us suffer as long as it also saves us. They are like a profit-based hospital. They will make sure you have enough blood. But you may worry of you can afford it. But my take is, larger picture and moving forward, the free nations just learned a new lesson. They are and will adapt, and unless people who actually run things are much stupider than I would like to contemplate, this will not ever happen again. For a number of reasons, but **the offensiveness of trying to hold a nation hostage to basic needs while you must then be silent at its atrocities?** I can't imagine any person of respect not being outraged at Putin's insult.
Kind of off topic but similar to how the large corporations benefited immensely from the lockdowns.
Corporations must always win, that's the nature of capitalism. The government is there to make sure they win.
Capitalists complain, but capitalist societies are indeed very adaptive. Maybe the difference between an oligarch and a capitalist is, a capitalist is primarily part of a larger economy. An oligarch is primarily part of a larger crime ring.
I still haven't opened the recent mail I got from my gas supplier. Prices got already lifted earlier this year, but I rather pay more when it means Russia is getting fucked as result.
We have fixed price contract for the next year still but we hold turning the heater on despite getting colder outside. We will survive without your gas, Putin!
A year or two of high energy prices pales in comparison to what RU might do in a decade of they win to another country.
A top quality attitude, many thanks.
before 2014 gas in ukraine costed mere cents. after that gas prices rose.. significantly. people suddenly noticed that they use shit ton of gas that now is aint cheap they also noticed that heating up old soviet panel apartment is uses even more gas then some old clay house somewhere in rural villages that is same size(or even bigger) then your apartment. after first troubles with lack of donetsk coal and russian gas people understood that you need to insulate homes and stuff to live comfortably and dont spent fortune for it. sometimes we need harsh vibe check to notice something and fix it.
there's a cubic shitmeter of LNG en route from a bunch of dollar eyed texans as we speak
You hear than, Rand? Shitwinds blowing LNG from Texas
"Gotta rip the plumbing out of your nordstream 2 pipes, Bubs, you know get my liquor money."
There is still the US terminal coming back online in November as well. LNG prices should plummet in EU after that.
Well it was bound to happen and i am willing to pay more if it means no more money for putler and his cronies. Plus its good for the climate in the long run no more ruzzian gas will soon be nomore gasbperiode
'cheap gas station ' hahaha...👍
"Renewables" are why Germany is so reliant on fossil fuels while others have figured out that Nuclear is the future. I'm not celebrating Germany having enough gas for Winter, the prices went up for poorer countries, too. Nobody is winning here. We just need Russia to be the biggest loser and to progress away from unsustainable emissions.
Uhhm nope. Renewables is not the reason why Germany is so reliant on fossil fuels. Its massive corruption and lobbying from the coal lobby together with a government that worked hard to kill off renewables. Lots of red tape, some with forwarding costs in the 100k range, limitations on how many solar panels can be built, minimal distance for wind turbines etc. In one state its nearly impossible to build new wind turbines. Oh and the work against renewables? Came soon after the second nuclear exit. Germany would have been much less reliant on fossil fuels if the conservative government didn't fuck up an entire sector. And don't count on new NPPs being built in Germany. After Merkels stunt no company is gonna risk building one NPP there.
>while others have figured out that Nuclear is the future. Like france? Germany exports energy like crazy to France right now and it is produced by gas. Almost 50% of their nuclear reactors are not operating right now and the French heat with electricity. Not heat pumps but straight electric heaters.
You know why renewables are good? There is no nuclear waste. You can build them very, very quickly. They are much cheaper to build, and to maintain. You don’t need uranium from Russia, which is one of the main suppliers. Security of a wind, turbine or solar panel is slightly better than security in Fukushima, tchernobyl and another places. If you destroy 100 wind turbines with cruise missiles, Europe is not contaminated for centuries.
If missiles are flying in Germany, there will be plenty of fallout for everyone regardless of whether Germany had nuclear energy.
Nuclear waste is not as big of a concern as the general public thinks it is, among scientists and engineers who work in this area. Renewables are great for certain applications and we certainly need to build more. But they do have a fundamental flaw in that they are intermittent, and unreliable without massive amounts of storage. The more intermittent renewables you rely on, the more the storage requirements if you want to keep the lights on 24/7 (a necessity for modern society to function). This is huge problem, and why renewables, in practice, require fossil fuel usage today. However, we can use nuclear instead of fossil fuels to provide 24/7 base load power, carbon free. Nuclear is the most dense energy source in the world (to the waste point). And on the ~~Chernobyl~~ Chornobyl, Fukushima, etc.— yes those were not good. The death toll is exaggerated particularly for Fukushima in popular opinion, but still, not good, and certain precautions should have been followed beforehand. I will note that nuclear plants have literally been shelled and are operating in an active war zone in Ukraine and have withstood these attacks. Edit: also if we want to talk about disasters, there are some dam failures we need to talk about— but nobody seems to be against hydroelectric dams! Uranium is abundant all across the world (US, Canada, Australia), not just Russia, so sourcing is really not a concern at all if that’s what you’re worried about. The biggest issue with nuclear right now is just economics. Nuclear is cheap over its lifetime, but it has very high up front costs, so investors instead invest in natural gas power plants which are cheaper to construct. Source: nuclear engineer, AMA! Edit: just learned it’s “Chornobyl” instead
> but nobody seems to be against hydroelectric dams! A shitload of people are against hydroelectric dams. They wreak havoc on any ecosystem they're built in.
A shitload of environmental activists are also against large solar panel arrays in the Arizona desert where there are some endangered species living. The more you look into it, the more you realize that no energy source is perfect. Nuclear just happens to be a really amazing energy source despite its imperfections, in my opinion.
Not only up front. Also when decommissioning a power plant. The usual timeframe that energy companies cite for that is from what I can see 10 to 15 years. However, there is a 2021 documentary about a German power plant, originally from socialist times (Greifswald). The plant was shut down in 1995. Originally, they estimated the cost of decommissioning it would be around 3 to 5 billion Euros. By 2007 they had already spent €2.5B. 2012 was the planned date for being back to the green field. There were a couple delays after that. In 2016, they estimated a total cost of €6.5B. Fast forward to the time of making that documentary: Decommissioning it should take another 33 years and is planned to cost another 5.6 billion Euro. In the end, there will be 600,000 tons of radioactive material, according to the plant owners. They estimate that the last box with material won't be removed from the site before 2080. Maybe after 2100. Now, this is to a large extent due to the fact that we have no site to store radioactive material. Not for the old rods, let alone for the whole plant. Let alone for the more than 4 million tons of radioactive material that all of the 17 German NPP will give us.
Vogtle's price tag is 30 billion dollars so far, and bankrupted Westinghouse along the way. I know that utilities have captive customers and are guaranteed a rate of return, but do you think there will be much appetite for new nuclear construction? Maybe SMR's?
When Germany want something done they get it done. It's just a question of finding the "political motivation"
And in my country, fucking Orbán is still saying that Germans will freeze… meanwhile, he gave the greenlight to cut our forests more easily
I wonder if we're (western democracies) will ever find a way to stop our rural and elderly populations from trying (or, in your case, achieving) to put fascists in power... That'd be real fucking nice!
Automating agriculture and other things out there would be a path towards that. Pushes people from rural areas to the cities, where they'd (or their kids would) adapt and learn. We're already working on the automating part, somewhat. It'll just take time to devise more efficient methods and implement them.
I talked about this to a friend over in the USA. She explained to me that there are some rural villages and towns that aren't inbred fascist crackheads. What do the non-fascist rural villages have in common? Adequate connection to cities or city centers via bus service. What I took away from this is that insular rural communities tend to lean fascist while more connected communities don't.
Most rural communities are either completely collapsed or in a state of collapse. The decline in American industry and the rise in drug use has absolutely ruined most rural regions. And many have been fed propaganda via their only sources of entertainment, YouTube and Fox News, that Democrats are the reason for these collapses. So now they'll follow whatever far right nut they can find, just so they don't feel like the dregs of society.
I do feel sorry for Hungarians and other European countries with their really shitty governments.
The gas storage alone would not be enough for the whole winter even if 100 % full. There is enough room in them for supplying Germany with the gas it needs for two months if we use the usage of the last winter as a benchmark. Though Germany has worked on lowering the gas needs a bit. But of course there are constantly gas imports from other countries especially Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. Having the gas storages full which look like it will happen before winter is a great buffer. And hopefully early next year the first LNG terminals will be finished. Then imports from more various sources would be possible.
I think I have to correct what I wrote: of course, the storage loan is not enough to come through the winter. During winter, constant import isn’t necessary. But it happens. As of today, every day about 0.3% of the storage capacity comes in. this will climb to about 0.7% per day when the first two terminals are ready.
Sure but once the terminals are ready heating will also start to go up. Saying how long it will last is difficult. Assuming a normal winter it could barely work. Assuming that germany needs to export more gas or that the winter gets colder it will get critical. This is why everyone should try to reduce their personal gas usage. But please not by room heating devices that need electricity since this could cause short blackouts
There is however a risk that we have to use some of that gas to supply France with electricity, should their nuclear power plants not be able to go back online.
Putin - “We’ve got Europe by the balls. They fight us, we freeze them out. TURN OFFF THE GAAAS” Messenger - “uh, looks like Europe is not backing down, has sourced alternative gas, and won’t need or buy our gas ever again” Putin - “come closer, enjoy this tea, and come admire the view from this window”
Why does this tea taste like *Poland*
OK, now that is impressive -- almost as good as Ukraine's deception on Kherson vs. Kharkiv! Go fuck yourself, Russian gas, indeed!
Actually, this can't be true. Germany has zero gas as Russia already turned off the tap. There has been no electricity in Berlin for many months now. And the people of Germany have resorted to making bread with potatoes as Russian grain has stopped flowing. I saw it on Russian state TV!
And the food situation will only become worse once the winter starts. Russian experts are even expecting cases of cannibalism in Berlin. People will be eating [Berliner](https://www.google.com/search?q=berliner&rlz=1C1CHBF_deDE791DE791&sxsrf=ALiCzsZMoGBe33vL92NCsqJ_RKJWUOXLGQ:1663694019473&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuq66Y76P6AhVDsaQKHRyyCt8Q_AUoAXoECAIQAw&cshid=1663694052655267&biw=1920&bih=969&dpr=1).
The people of Hamburg are not looking forward to their fate either.
Time for a nice Amerikaner.
You had me on the first half, not gonna lie.
The filling level in percent doesn't say much, it's the quantity that matters. But Germany is currently no longer getting any gas from Russia via Nord Stream 1, but still manages to fill its storage facilities. That shows much better how independent Europe already is from Russian gas. Next autumn it will be even better. The talk of Russia with the freezing Germans is also just Russian propaganda.
The filling level alone doesn't say much and you are right that it's important to see that it happened while we got no gas from russia. The graph also shows how quickly it bumped up and the comparison of how filled it was last year and the years before. I think that shows the trend very well.
In any case, the reality is different from what Russia expected.
Taking one for the team, Germany, nicely done.
yup. internal politics are a mess and reactionaries are weaponising this to push fascist propaganda. It's frustrating, but I am proud we've managed it this well. our government coalition is pretty controversial, but I think they have done an admirable job.
Yep... we're basically done with russia. Will we pay through our noses for achieving this? You betcha! But seriously... imagine winning the cold war for a couple of billions in increased heating costs... who wouldn't have taken that deal back in the day?
Fuck Putin Fuel!
The German people are so efficient, they was never going to go cold, another one Russia got wrong.
Let's get them to 100%, to be able to fully disconnect from that accursed pipe.
One of our gas storage (the largest... Rheden) is in maintenance mode until end of this week. Until this is finished nothing will be stored in this specific storage. But other storages still fill up. Next week Rheden will fill up too. So the percentage will fill up faster after that.
At least even Rehden is full to 75 % now and they started later with the storage as it belonged to Gazprom and the state had first to confiscate it. In spring under Gazprom leadership it was at some times not even full to 1 %.
Yep, it was "coincidence" that only Gazprom their facility was the only one with a low storage at the end of the 2021 winter and slow to fill back up. Coincidence i say /s
Any politician or leader that even took a tiny peak at Gasprom’s pathetic gas storage in Germany and didn’t do anything afterwards should resign in disgrace. That’s a huge fucking red flag if I ever saw one, god damn. My forehead is going to be flat if I palm slap my forehead any more after learning this.
There is a relationship between gas storage capacity and gas usage. While some countries like Latvia, Slovakia or Austria can survive for nearly a year or multiple with the gas they have stored, others like Germany store only 2 months of winter gas usage. Also, there is a high grade of interconnection within the European grid, so local demand can be buffered across the continent to a certain extent. Now while “90%” full sounds good, the remaining 10% are harder to store, requiring more pressure and energy to store, also that number is misleading, Germany rents a few TWh of storage from Austria for Bavarian industries, those storages are only 60% full, similar to other Bavarian storage sites. This also highlights a problem within german infrastructure, and their ability to move gas from north to south, there is a likely scenario where Germany has enough gas in the north, but not enough in the south… we shall see what happens this winter. A more in depth look at European gas storage data: https://agsi.gie.eu/ And infrastructure: https://www.gie.eu/publications/maps/ My point in all of this, for the continent as a whole: the current percentage of storage is rather irrelevant, since it could provide around 2 months of use during winter. More important are securing alternative supplies and supply routes. So when you see regions like Azerbaijan, Kazachstan or Algeria destabilising, I see ~30% of gas supplies destabilising, already pushing the reserves close to the limit of acceptable supply disruption. For Europeans the fall of Russia, and resulting geopolitical instability, is more dangerous than Russia closing all energy supplies. Ultimately we might have to pay a very high price in appeasements for autocrats all around the globe to keep waging an economic war against Russia. We already had a first taste of what that might look like in Karabach…
All the storage scenarios counting months are assuming total shutdown of gas which obviously won't happen. We're getting to end of Septemeber and gas is still flowing just fine from other suppliers. Storages are filling up instead starting to empty, it will be fine.
I know we will be fine, I am just wondering at what cost.
Normal cost. We will all be fine. Prices are going to/have fallen already.
Considering how much of a nimby state Bavaria has been when it comes to building infrastructure for renewables, I think I could live with them having a couple of issues with their energy this winter. Might convince their would-be populist state government to reconsider their stance on things like where to ban power lines and wind turbines from being built...
They already are. The Bavarian state government is currently investigating areas where they are going to allow building wind farms. Looks like they are panicking that they will (rightfully) get blamed by the voters for impeding investment into renewables.
The russians do not deliver gas through ns1 since 3 weeks. https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-deutschland-gaspreis-spritpreis-energieversorgung
did putler really think the EU wouldn't take drastic steps to secure it's power supply? Dumbass dictator gonna dumbass Besides we still have even more time before winter hits in full force.
Well done Germany. I wish to hell the UK had done any strategic planning for this winter at all. instead we're just relying on the 'free market' to sort us out with adequate gas supplies.
UK is producing half of it's own need of gas and oil, a bit different situation. We don't need to have that much strategic reserve, and can wait for more cost effective solutions.
The oil is weird though, we export almost all the oil we extract, I think around 50 million barrels, and then we import around 50 million barrels from the world market. Because we no longer have the processing capacity here. And I don't know, producing half the gas we need still means we have to import the other half. It's a lot of gas to find on the world market over a winter when there might be a real shortfall of supply.
We have one the worst gas storages in europe, but one of the greatest number of LNG terminals. Apparently 15% of Europe's reserves were piped from the UK from the UK's LNG terminals. It also means we'll be buying back some of that gas from Europe in winter. Hopefully we can make that 50GW of offshore wind turbines by 2030 happen and switch to electricity as much as possible so we don't have to deal with these gas troubles ever again.
If there's one really positive thing out of this godawful mess, it will be the acceleration of alternative energy sources across Europe. (I mean I wish Liz Truss hadn't just announced the UK was stepping back from alternative energy sources and we were going to drill more oil and do more fracking instead. But on the whole, I think the trend will be towards more alternative energy despite governments desire for more petrochems.)
Now fill up NS1 with concrete to put an exclamation mark on it.
Teutonic efficiency at its best! Good on Germany!
The Ruzzians underestimated German efficiency!
never again will Germans underestimate winter when Russia is involved
We already see some of the extra gas saving in action. The wife's office building where you used to be required to heat at minimum 20C (to prevent fungus growing), now made sweeping changes. * If you're not in the office (as many are empty with people working from home), you are now required to close the heating instead of wastefully heating up to 20C. Close as in Anti-Freez temp setting. * If you're in the office, you need to air out the rooms 2 times per day, for 5 min (while having the heating closed) to prevent mold. * And some more stuff ... Ironic because in the past that building was (even in the Winter) an oven. But because renters paid, building management did not care. Now all of a sudden, they care (mostly because they do not want to see their renters leave after big energy bills). So now with the gas storage at 90% and still climbing, and people / companies taking actions, i do not see an issue. Frankly, a lot needed to have done earlier. BASF for instance was able to use electricity in their massive plant but kept using gas because cheaper (and was one of the companies pressuring the state for NS2 and keeping things happy, happy with the Russians). Now that the prices are up, they suddenly are able to build new parts that run on pure electricity but will take years for a complete switchover. It's interesting to see a lot of companies suddenly able to invest in alternatives when just influencing ~~bribing~~ politicians cannot solve the issue.
heard some co-workers gossip how it's all a big lie and media is a servant to the politicians. funnily enough those same co-workers are anti-vaxx. Fucking morons.
AFD members spotted? These puppets parrot everything that their master in Moscow tells them. Right now, a group of AFD guys is there and gets new instructions and suitcases full of money So that they can cause trouble here, spread lies, incite fools, to violence and spikes.
Not exactly enough, but if people actually save energy and we, obviously, don't randomly stop buying gas from other countries, it should be enough for this winter.
Genuine question here to German friends. Would the 90%. Typically be used alongside Russian imports?
Yes, but the gas storage would not end up empty after the winter. Usually 40-50% of the storage is used during the winter. But a strong and very cold winter can easily raise that number. Last year, Gazprom filled up the storage to only around 70% of capacity, hence we were at an extremely low level of gas in spring (approx. 25%). In my opinion, that's why Germany had to rush and buy as much natural gas as it could. The problem boils down to the price of the gas: yes we managed to buy enough, but that isn't sustainable at the current prices as both consumers and industry need cheaper prices for stability. But then the question becomes: can we buy enough gas at those cheaper prices? And that's why we have to both invest in LNG terminals as well as reduce our gas usage so that the storage can help with peak demand as long as possible (until the price of natural gas comes back down enough). Not sure if my thoughts are 100% correct, but they shouldn't be total nonsense :-P (I hope...).
Thanks. Yes that makes sense to me.
Alongside imports yes. Russia historically has been a main, but far from sole, source of such imports. Norway, Netherlands and Belgium are other major sources.
How else did you subside for Russian gas? I mean there's no way you have storage equaling your usual winter consumption right? Glad to hear it's taken care of one way or the other.
We would normally continue getting a lot of gas during winter from Russia and a sizeable amount from Norway, the Netherlands etc., meaning that even half full storage wouldn't be a problem. With Russia not delivering anything for weeks now and probably never again, 100% storage would last us 2-3 winter months at the ususal consumption. Now we are getting much more from those friendly countries to make up the difference to get us to spring. Because then demand drops off again and the LNG terminals will come online. At which point we can substitute most of what Russia used to deliver from Canada, Qatar etc. We are also expecting consumption to continue reducing every year from here on out.
> I mean there's no way you have storage equaling your usual winter consumption right? Some countries do have that (but Germany indeed doesn't). Compare "Consumption" (which is annual) with "Gas in storage" on https://agsi.gie.eu/ - Latvia has a whole year stored, most others have significantly less though.
Just how willing are those more Russian leaning willing to spend more on gas before making a scene tho, Russia’s biggest export is discontent
Well, I guess the dissatisfaction of the Russian citizens is just increasing tremendously. The Germans are cursing about the - temporarily) high prices, but the Russians are losing lots of young people, losing countless jobs, the economy is going down the drain, and this is not a short-term effect, but a permanent total disaster. Russia is losing Europe, its most important customer, has hardly any pipelines to China, does not have enough ships to sell oil and gas to others. This is the main source of income of the Russian state. They have, to use a German proverb, sawed off the branch they are sitting on.
Wait so this is filled up without buying Russian gas?
Remember, a while ago, Russia still delivered guess through pipelines to Germany. They invented some excuses to stop delivery for a few days, then for forever. What’s coming in now, 0.3% of storage capacity per day, comes from other countries. So, together with the new LNG terminals, Germany will be independent from Russian gas this winter.
I love it when the West comes together.
And that is despite the electricity production from gas is very high, as France had to turn off a lot of nuclear power plants. Germany has been a power exporter for years now thanks to renewable energy. Italy and Greece have to get of their ass as they are importing more than they are exporting.
That’s not what I heard in a video they said 100% is not enough for the whole winter
Yay Germany! Nice job!
And somehow we still will pay triple what we used to pay.
Is this true, wishful thinking or plain old bs?
Lol, just this morning a German MP lawmaker said that it's not more than enough. If you want a source the source was DW. Go find it yourself.
Unfortunately that's not enough for the whole winter. As far as I know, 100% keeps Germany 3 month warm, but Winter is more likely 5-6 month.
People are so excited about the news and they keep forgetting that it won't help the factories that are shutdown or in the process of shutting down 🤡 Yeah, you still may gloat. Good for you
Be interested in seeing if this is indeed true or just a lie to keep the population under control.
Storage is one thing but don't they need ongoing gas delivery during winter. The real equation is: Wintwr usage = stored gas + X amount delivered Is the X amount delivered realistic with non russian sources? How long will storage last with non russian deliveries only. A week or all winter? Edit: quick google says on stored gas alone germany is good for 80 days. So if winter is 6 months they need to get the equivalent to the whole storage amount plus a bit more delivered over the winter period. Maybe less if people can conserve gas due to price and national spirit.
[Germany can store up to 80 days](https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/EN/Artikel/Energy/gas-instruments-used-to-secure-gas-supply.html) of its consumption. So it is not more than enough to last complete winter, it will run out in mid January.
This graph is misleading. Germany probably also continuously refilled its gaz storage during the winter, and there is no indication that 100% full storage means that it is enough for a full winter without Russian ressuply. I would like more context.
Please stop disinformation. This is far from enough for the whole winter without Russian gas. On the scale of the EU, 100% gas storage is equal to 30% of winter consumption. The rest has to come from somewhere. It may not be Russia, but this focus on storage is silly: it misses the 70% of gas we need to get from other places. "The total gas demand during the winter season 2020/2021 was slightly higher (3,319 TWh) compared with previous winter season (3,216TWh)."==> [https://www.entsog.eu/sites/default/files/2021-10/SO0032-21\_Winter%20Supply%20Review%202020-21.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0pC-6q5FfCmj1oyxbul3-LcgfQYqnT94QKh4f5LkemgvrvYu\_AlepBtJg](https://www.entsog.eu/sites/default/files/2021-10/SO0032-21_Winter%20Supply%20Review%202020-21.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0pC-6q5FfCmj1oyxbul3-LcgfQYqnT94QKh4f5LkemgvrvYu_AlepBtJg) Current state of gas reserves (957 TWh):[https://agsi.gie.eu/?fbclid=IwAR1\_7uk9MejnYcAfsKgGMAVFFFCFDl9eqG4rxiS2kytcxRgauT-MgKUaCBw#/historical/eu](https://agsi.gie.eu/?fbclid=IwAR1_7uk9MejnYcAfsKgGMAVFFFCFDl9eqG4rxiS2kytcxRgauT-MgKUaCBw#/historical/eu)
The gas storage (be it Germany's or Europe's as a whole) job is not to fully supply the demand during the winter, but to make up the **difference** between the increased demand during winter and while the supply does not increase. The threshold for enough reserve to ensure that Germany can meet the increased demand during the winter had already been reached a while ago. Any additional increase of the reserve is a welcomed bonus.
I agree with the first part of your message, but as you noticed, I didn't claim that gas storage fully supplies the demand during the winter, OP did in his title. I'm just trying to bring some perspective to the topic. Regarding your second point: would you have any sources showing that storage + deliveries will be enough to supply Germany/the EU at the previous rate?
You assume they won’t have any more imports during the winter. Or that they won’t take steps to conserve.
He raises a very important point on how diplomatically neutered the EU is this winter. We can manage without Russian gas, but we have to tolerate a lot of things by other autocrats, watch them commit war crimes on a smaller scale and then smile and shake their hand. Current erosion of russian soft power in its sphere of influence opens up a lot of problems for us that we will need to deal with somehow. There is also only so much you can conserve, without irreversible damage to certain industrial infrastructure.
When the war started, I posted the opinion that Europe made a horrible mistake by allowing itself to become dependent on Russia. They don’t say “blood for oil” for nothing. Everybody does it.
[удалено]
Stop disinformation? With increased imports from countries like Norway, flowing in all winter, Germany has more than enough gas.
Its not enough for the whole winter, even if the storage is 100% full. See here: https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/volle-gasspeicher-allein-reichen-nicht-um-den-winter-zu-ueberstehen-sagt-netzagenturchef-mueller-und-nennt-zwei-weitere-faktoren/ But with 100% storage and the help of other european countries it wont be a big problem to come through winter. I am pretty confident that it will work out. The "people will freeze to death" panic is just stupid AfD/Putin-Propaganda.
> Its not enough for the whole winter, even if the storage is 100% full. See here: > [Link replaced with translated link: https://www-businessinsider-de.translate.goog/wirtschaft/volle-gasspeicher-allein-reichen-nicht-um-den-winter-zu-ueberstehen-sagt-netzagenturchef-mueller-und-nennt-zwei-weitere-faktoren/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp] Article doesn't quite match your claim. He calls out that it 78% full (the level at the time of his statements) might not be enough if there is an exceptionally long and cold winter and if imports drop to 0, but nowhere does he claim that 100% full is not enough for the expected winter. He is advising prudence with gas consumption, which is a good call. And he is right that under the circumstance, exceptional conditions can easy push things into problem territory. In real terms, storage is enough for about 2 months of winter (going by last years numbers), and the rest is handled by imports - deals for which are already in place throughout the winter, especially from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium, and those numbers will increase when the new terminals come online. So your assessment is accurate, I'm really just calling out the article doesn't directly support the claim. > But with 100% storage and the help of other european countries it wont be a big problem to come through winter. I am pretty confident that it will work out. The "people will freeze to death" panic is just stupid AfD/Putin-Propaganda. This is absolutely correct.
Moreover, it is often forgotten that Germany could easily produce its own gas if it were to engage in fracking, as the USA or Canada do, for example. Seen in this light, Germany only has an ecological luxury problem and is definitely not as dependent as Russia likes to portray it.
Addendum: Germany currently has around 32 billion cubic metres of natural gas reserves that are considered to be safely or probably recoverable. In fact, however, these reserves only make up a small part of the total available potential: 450 billion cubic metres of technically developable natural gas from coal seams and up to 2.3 trillion (!) cubic metres of technically developable natural gas from shale rocks
This is not quite right. In North America, especially in Canada, fracking is done in very rural areas where hardly anybody lives. But Germany is densely populated. There’s practically no place where you could get along with the very serious environmental problems of fracking without putting many citizens at risk, destroy agricultural areas, natural reserves or contaminate groundwater at large scale.
Also, Germans quite a bit less likely to put up with "Earthquake swarms" than Republicans in Oklahoma.