Exit, pursued by a bear

https://viscosityredux.substack.com/p/exit-pursued-by-a-bear

by recyclelater • 4 years ago

63 132 4 years ago

viscosityredux.substack.com

simfoo• 4 years ago

It's truly remarkable how badly the whole energy sector was managed in the past 16 years of Angela Merkel and her conservative-lead coalitions. It's not about nuclear or no nuclear really, Germany started out with a strong wind and solar industry and has lost all of it to China over the past decade. New wind turbines and (importantly) new power lines connecting the wind-heavy north to the power hungry south have been continuously delayed by nimby politics, also mostly pushed by conservative parties. Meanwhile the coal and nuclear industry got huge compensation payments and issuing new debt to finance investments was basically made unconstitutional by the horrible "Schuldenbremse" legislation. How bad can you fuck up country and still be seen mostly positive in the world??

isoprophlex2• 4 years ago

In 10 years or so, maybe everyone and their mother is back to burning coal. I'm convinced that even in the face of prolonged economical downturn, we'll still be able to increase our greenhouse gas emissions.

For fucks sake, in The Netherlands, we are burning WOOD for """green energy""", while everyone NIMBYs the fuck out of any windmill or power grid expansion project.

Sometimes we, as a species, act in a monumentally stupid manner.

notsapiensatall• 4 years ago

Part of the problem is that we don't act as a species.

We act as a bunch of individuals, each responding to the incentives which are put before us.

You'll never get people to stop doing something if it is easy and profitable.

beebmam• 4 years ago

Solar/wind is highly overrated in Europe. Nuclear is really the only option in Europe that's climate change friendly. Incredible that there's been a push away from it.

Realistically, in this new world (since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's coordination and complicity in it), there's zero reason for China or Russia or any of their allies to coordinate with the rest of the world to reduce greenhouse emissions, especially when their economies are so heavily dependent on greenhouse gas for their energy sources and GDP. Deglobalization is going ahead full-speed, and the forces based upon globalization were the only real way to rein in other countries' behaviors in a peaceful way.

So why should the US and EU cripple themselves? The world is in a state of war, and we need to start acting like it. Nuclear energy is a great solution that solves both climate change and energy demands, but it will take a long time for any country to get there.

rich_sasha3• 4 years ago

I have no axe in this, but what is actually wrong with wood as a fuel? It really is carbon neutral. You could say, solar energy with free storage.

Is it the relative inefficiency and cabron generated throughout supply chain?

z9znz3• 4 years ago

Perhaps we should be burning manure here... there's a LOT of it to share.

throwaway0a5e• 4 years ago

Let's be real here, this is Europe we're talking about. It's not like those trees were holding carbon from 500y ago. Wood is pretty ok in terms of carbon. It's the same carbon going around and around again over the course of a century. The tree doesn't grow out of nothing.

Pollution on the other hand...

ugl• 4 years ago

Europe is burning wood cut in the US for fuel, and I wouldn't call the logging practices or shipping in any way green 0r sustainable. It's crazy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/climate/eu-burning-wood-e...

armitron• 4 years ago

A state’s responsibility is first and foremost to its people. European states collectively messed up by going against their interests: sanctions on Russia were colossally stupid. The people are starting to wake up and see through the charade leading to an interesting winter. I predict mass protests in a number of places.

gambiting• 4 years ago

>sanctions on Russia were colossally stupid

Only in the sense that they weren't harsh enough, yes. They are stupid in how many areas they haven't tackled yet.

g42gregory• 4 years ago

Is there a reason to believe that this was done on purpose and not because of stupidity? High energy prices stimulate transition to the green energy, and there are literally $trillions to be made there.

mdp202122• 4 years ago

With that formulation, you seem to be considering short-term interests only. (Apart from hints of seeing practical interests only.)

88840-88552• 4 years ago

I fully agree.

The sanctions must be taken back, Ukraine must be divided and de-militarized, relationship with Russia and China MUST be improved. All this as long as we can.

Unfortuntatly, we only have trash politians in Germany.

Once there are demonstrations against this shit system, I will join. For the first time in my life. I am sick and tired of this system that knows it better and just hurts us. No thanks.

raducu3• 4 years ago

sanctions on Russia were colossally stupid

Declaring war to Hitler over invading Poland was colossally stupid.

No, relying on oil and natural gas was stupid.

We had so many warnings -- Moldova, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine in 2014 and Ukraine now -- the only explanation possible is that Merkel and her cronies are russian agents.

jollybean5• 4 years ago

Wind installation and Wind gear are completely different things.

On the former, it's not a competition.

On the later, Chinese state massively subsidized the industry with the objective of wiping out foreign competition.

That said, few saw a war with Russia coming.

The Greens are the #1 culprit, for their social destruction of Nuclear over the last 50 years.

If we were to have expanded Nuclear at the pace of 1980 we'd be within striking distance of getting away from fossil fuels.

It might be too late now.

It's going to be a crappy winter and I have no faith that politicians will be able to do the big pie in the sky strategy things necessary.

A Nuclear rewnewal, alongside doubling down on renewables is in order on 'Marshall Project' scale.

The stakes are high now.

martijnvds• 4 years ago

The "green" parties around Europe also tried to get people to switch to solar/wind and other renewables. But the parties in charge (with their oil company lobbyists) didn't want that.

And now those parties are blaming the greens because "you told us to get rid of nuclear".

mdp202122• 4 years ago

That said, few saw a war with Russia coming

It was public doctrine in textbooks, taught at university. The warnings about moves at the chessboard (which in diplomacy often are issued in advance, contrary to chess) have been stated for decades, publicly and face to face. The products of the propaganda machine were quite reachable, and not really ambiguous.

Really, that «few saw» is farcical.

Edit: and it is quite worrisome to think that said "doctrine" is now implemented only up to a small fraction, and those expressions suggest blindness not just about the current actions, but the openly planned, stated future ones.

jimmydef• 4 years ago

Why didn't the German government massively subsidize Green energy?

How on earth is it right to criticize a government for subsidizing green energy in the face of climate change? The reason why solar panels are so cheap today was because Chinese companies achieved economies of scale due to governmental support. This is a GOOD thing.

European countries were way ahead of the curve 10 years ago in terms of these green technologies but chose to do nothing. Their solar companies could have been world leaders as long as governmental policies supported them too. They would have been wiping others out. How can anyone blame China for investing/subsidizing in green energies? The way I view it, it's their just rewards for at least taking this aspect of green technology seriously while others did next to nothing in terms of subsidies.

kjellsbells• 4 years ago

few saw a war with Russia coming.

Wilful blindness is a thing in international relations. Churchill plowed a lonely furrow in the 1930s. We were sure the bad old days were over in 1992. Etc. Policymakers and the public /wanted/ to believe that the era of aggression was over (or perhaps, more cynically, that the only permissible aggressor would remain the US).

baxtr2• 4 years ago

What is definitively clear by now: They never did a proper "worst case" planning. They haven't thought through that case (no more Gas coming from Russia).

It is ok to take some risks. It is not acceptable to be without a plan once these risks materialise.

mdp202122• 4 years ago

I have been discussing this with friends in-loco, and they witness - especially bewilderingly to the many of us that strongly plan in terms of business continuity - that backup plans are culturally not a priority in current Germany.¹ Friends report that it is seen in daily live in firms and elsewhere. Quite a strange note.

¹Consistently, they apparently put backup plans for worst-case scenarios "there where they must" (there where they must only - where it is part of the scripted plan, there where it is consolidated practice), not as a general consideration.

ibz7• 4 years ago

Is it Russia stopping exports to the EU or the EU deciding to stop buying gas from Russia? To me it seems like they are simply taking decisions against their citizens best interests.

_ph_4• 4 years ago

It is Russia ramping down exports for about a year already. Which shows how the war was a long planned operation. The European gas storage was ramped down and then the delivery slowly cut. This is the perfect example of "boiling a frog".

The EU did not reduce their attempts of buying gas from Russia.

the_cramer2• 4 years ago

Currently, Russia delivers less gas than expected, due to "technical issues". Repairs, that ought to be finished 21st of July. This is most likely not true and just a pressure point for Russia. If the repairs "fail" then Russia could switch of all of the gas. "Oops something broke"...

The german government is not deciding against the people in this case. (i believe... a german). German people are highly against nuclear and think that renewables could immediately solve our problems. This is just a lack of information and a ton of ignorance on the peoples side.

Apart from that our politicians are really "soft" in my eyes and i don't believe they will help the situation much in relation to Russia.

edit: Don't know about the rest of EU. That's why i state "my" countries perspective more.

_ph_4• 4 years ago

Neither nuclear nor renewables would be useful right now for heating homes or powering the industry. There are few who would claim so - except for those, who try to abuse the gas shortage to push for nuclear, despite the decision about nuclear taken over 10 years ago.

mdp202122• 4 years ago

Repairs, that ought to be finished 21st of July. This is most likely not true

Why should it be not true? Planned maintenance is fully normal and certainly occurs on that infrastructure. The differences to normality are:

-- that sanctions have made the maintenance operations problematic: e.g. one turbine was held in Canada, and its release was agreed days ago only upon request from Germany. Why and how this process was impacted by the sanctions I do not know: it is what is reported by journalists;

-- that during normal operations, during maintenance on the main pipeline the gas is redirected to the secondary pipeline in Ukraine, hiding the technical works through such backup system. The secondary pipeline is inactive because of the war.

moltar4• 4 years ago

Not sure if related, but a few months ago there was a massive explosion at one of the terminals, I think. Wouldn’t be surprised if this was a sabotage operation.

AndrewThrowaway8• 4 years ago

simply taking decisions against their citizens best interests

What decision do you have in mind?

Throwing nuclear out the window and becoming so dependent on Russian gas? Not predicting Russian Imperial dreams of ruling the Europe?

Trying to curb Russia during the war the best they can.

Because we need not to forget that Europe is at war. It is Ukrainians who are doing all the fighting ATM but all the western world is very much involved.

ibz7• 4 years ago

Trying to curb Russia during the war the best they can. Because we need not to forget that Europe is at war

Europe is not at war. Or at least it wasn't until some politicians decided it was their business to intervene in somebody else's war. This is certainly against their own citizen.

I am an EU citizen myself and I did not consent to join this war.

Not predicting Russian Imperial dreams of ruling the Europe?

Sorry, but that was never the case and will never be the case.

Throwing nuclear out the window and becoming so dependent on Russian gas?

Bingo! However, that was not Russia's fault. It was definitely self-sabotage.

moltar4• 4 years ago

EU has definitely decided not to import. Since Nordstream 2 is fully ready. And it’s even filled with gas to the brim. But EU won’t approve it for political reasons. Mostly because the US had meddled with it to gain an advantage and provide their own expensive gas via shipping tankers.

parkingrift3• 4 years ago

The US for years desperately tried to convince the EU to rid themselves of Russian energy dependency. Angela Merkel, Germany, and the EU made their bed. It’s comical to now blame this situation on the US.

popcube2• 4 years ago

I am so happy that EU decided to suffer for this, everyone including Russian government did not trust this will happen before war started.

isoprophlex2• 4 years ago

I have just finished reading "the end of the world is just the beginning" by Peter Zeihan, which was released just as Russia invaded Ukraine.

In it, the author argues that the end of global trade and energy has arrived, and that the endless economical growth of the past ~ 70 years will never return.

It's scary how much the war in Ukraine seems to be triggering exactly those phenomena the book talks about. Energy crisis, food crisis, economical downturns.

Observing how the world changes with this war (and also how covid completely fucked our globalized supply chain) it's clear to me how brittle globalization and capitalism actually is.

The coming 10-20 years will be hella interesting.

_ph_4• 4 years ago

I don't know that book, but an argumentation of "xxx will never return" about something fundamental like trade doesn't sound very solid. Yes, recent events have put a huge dent into human progress as developing a truely global population. Some parts of globalization have been too naive, as already shown due to the pandemic or a single ship getting stuck in the suez canal. You cannot always expect long range trade to work with minutes. On the other side, high tech, especially microelectronics, can really only work on a global scale.

And I am meeting more Russian colleagues than ever in the office, so I do not think that there is less desire by the peoples to work together and trade and travel. It is single heads of state which are disrupting the global community and trade, even if it is to the clear detriment to them and their population.

So yes, I am worried quite a bit about them succeeding and in consequence setting back humanity, but I remain fundamentally optimistic, that common sense prevails.

seydor• 4 years ago

it's useful that he bases his analyses on demographic trends , but linearly extrapolating into the future is not a good way to predict. People are adaptable , and nonlinear. The current year is already interesting and i believe no-one will foresee the adaptations of the next 10 years

epups4• 4 years ago

Observing how the world changes with this war (and also how covid completely fucked our globalized supply chain) it's clear to me how brittle globalization and capitalism actually is.

That's interesting, because I had the opposite impression. In the midst of a very complex situation, with a significant percentage of the world literally frozen in place, not only did we not experience famine but also managed to create economic growth. The book you describe could have (and has been) written any time in the past 100 years and still sound true, while being ridiculously inaccurate.

tomjen3• 4 years ago

If I could own a copy of every book that has predicted the end of capitalism in the last 150 years I could sell them all as fuel and end the energy crisis.

epups4• 4 years ago

Russia is pausing gas supply to scare everyone and guarantee better negotiating conditions for the end of the war. I find it surprising how little discussion there is of what those terms might be, or what would the West accept as a reasonable outcome. In Germany especially, there is censorship around this topic like never before.

_ph_4• 4 years ago

There is no censorship in Germany. Please provide evidence if you make such claims.

epups4• 4 years ago

Gladly. Since the beginning of the war, Germany and the EU as a whole have pushed to ban Russia Today and other state press it deems dangerous [0]. More worryingly, Germany has one of the most repressive social media censorship laws ("NetzDG") in place [1]. Through this act, they have attempted to prosecute Telegram from giving Germans access to pro-Russian content [2]. It has also issued a draconian rule, where any German posting pro-Russian content - in this case, the "Z" symbol - would be prosecuted [3]. You might think that this is alright but legitimate political discussion is also being banned under the same premises - here is an example of that [4].

[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/russias-rt-sputnik-ban-raise...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Enforcement_Act

[2] https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-rt-media-telegram-ukr...

[3] https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-prosecute-use-of-...

[4] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/30/pers-m30.html

mdp202122• 4 years ago

Really, actually, there is a global crisis about information and management discussion, since decades and climbing. The cost of information and the expectations from the web model - consequently, reduced quality and/or independence in the lower budgeted informational products; the raise of noise and propaganda through the deviated discussion model in social networks - with the emergence of unleashed delirium as an issue in societies that have lost the controlling/mitigating and educating pyramidal network social models, and with generated bastions for the practice of manipulation; the difficulty in managing these phenomena and cleanly so, with the emergence of perverse micro-regulation (from mentally inept terminal managers) and maximalistic macro-regulation (from governments banning "misinformation" - cpr the UK - as if it were trivial to assess truth)... I could go on.

genocidicbunny7• 4 years ago

The west can accept whatever terms it wants. Unless Ukraine accepts those terms too, the west's acceptance is largely irrelevant.

raverbashing3• 4 years ago

The NS1 pause is a technical one and has happened other years

epups4• 4 years ago

You can see in the article that this year is much different.

raverbashing3• 4 years ago

Alarmist much? People won't freeze to death with less gas. But they might have to put on an extra layer inside. Or get an electrical space heater and burn more coal (thank the "ecologists").

The numbers worry, but as the article says, 1/3 of deliveries is from Europe itself. If people need do with that, it's bad, but not catastrophic.

hunglee23• 4 years ago

Europe is going to be ruined by this conflict. Most people (understandably) focus on gas price in residential heating terms, but the real damage will be to European (especially German) manufacturing and the costs that now need to go up throughout the supply chain now that Russian gas supply is restricted.

Any widget made in Europe - already losing in cost competition with East Asia - will now become even more expensive to make. It takes circa 10 years for nuclear reactor from plan-to-grid, and that is on the basis *with& the available workforce to do it, which of course Europe doesn't have any more.

Mass purchase of the Hualong One reactor might be a solution if the Chinese can make them fast enough. Either that, or dig up some more coal and burn that for the next decade or two, so goodbye climate change goals. It's an absolute mess, pain has started to percolate now, but will reverberate for years

mdp202122• 4 years ago

the real damage will be to European (especially German) manufacturing

German and Italian.

hunglee23• 4 years ago

did Italy ever have nuke industry btw?

88840-88552• 4 years ago

We will be ruined.

But at least we got something something demoncrency to some random country 90% of us have not been able to identify on a map before the war. I mean.. come on, it is not some brown-people shithole like Syria, Iraq, Yemen that it was totally OK to bomb. This is the evil Russia who we are talking here about!

And we are the good guys.

Better to live poor in a recession than having some random corrupt country where people anyway dont care who robs them being part of Russia.

NOT MY WAR.

baxtr2• 4 years ago

According to this logic, the United States should never have liberated Nazi Germany.

polotics• 4 years ago

Pray tell who is the "we" you claim to be writing in the name of? Letting bullies succeed only produce bigger bullies. So yes, my war and Pust sve' gorit...

genocidicbunny7• 4 years ago

But at least we got something something demoncrency to some random country 90% of us have not been able to identify on a map before the war.

You're quite a moron, or willfully ignorant, if you can't identify the second biggest country on the European continent.

Better to live poor in a recession than having some random corrupt country where people anyway dont care who robs them being part of Russia.

No, if 'some random corrupt country' becomes part of Russia, you're next. You have a choice to live in recession, or to live under the Russian yoke. And these days, the first time you speak out against being under the Russian yoke, you're going to find yourself in a gulag deep in siberia. You may want to get yourself sized for your coffin in that case, you won't make it out alive.

petre• 4 years ago

This is the price we pay for years of dependence on Russian gas. The US has long warned EU leaders (especially Germany) about this, but they refused to listen.

sofixa5• 4 years ago

The US also warned for years about Saddam's WMDs, and love a boogeyman. They were right this time, eventually, but that doesn't make them trustworthy.

blub2• 4 years ago

To be fair, if somebody warned me of something for 40 years and that something would not happen, I’d be tempted to dismiss such warnings.

genocidicbunny7• 4 years ago

This could also be the straw that breaks the fossil fuel camel's back, and gets more european countries to move to clean energy, leaving their fossil fuels for the industrial processes that cannot do without them.

mdp202122• 4 years ago

How? Surely it will place the problem of energy acquisition as a priority - but also with the need of assessing the problem of access to /cheap/ energy, also to compensate for the past luxury that now appears compromised. The matter of "clean energy" will have to compete with other pressing parameters.

dispat0r• 4 years ago

If you mean nuclear with clean energy, yes, but you can't run a power grid with renewables you always need a backup gas is out so what is left?

stareatgoats2• 4 years ago

Europe is going to be ruined by this conflict

If so, then the trans-Atlantic unity will come under serious strain as well. This is happening just as Europe began to climb into a bigger suit, that of an independent economic and military bloc to be reckoned with (not that it was at any moment a realistic ambition). Instead Europe will be forced to take a back seat again, have thousands of US troops on the ground for protection, while the US escapes unscathed if not considerably strengthened.

It's going to be a bitter pill to swallow.

drippingfist69• 4 years ago

C%@r3at4r5i

sofixa5• 4 years ago

This is happening just as Europe began to climb into a bigger suit, that of an independent economic and military bloc to be reckoned with (not that it was at any moment a realistic ambition)

For military it's not a reality today, but pre-pandemic it was absolutely a realistic goal many were working towards. Economically, it rivals the US in GDP terms and has some extremely strong sectors. Politically it's the main leader in human rights and regulation of new stuff that needs it (GDPR, Digital Markets and Services acts).

With the US in the process of imploding politically, the EU needs to maintain all of those and go even further.

morsch• 4 years ago

Any widget made in Europe ... will now become even more expensive to make.

Sure, but that's always the case. The question is, how much more expensive. And that's going to vary a lot depending on how much the natural gas and electricity required is part of the overall price.

No doubt we're in for a rough transition, which we should have avoided by embarking on it twenty years ago, but I see any evidence for long term ruin. Not due to loss of energy imports from Russia, anyway.

akmarinov• 4 years ago

Big win for the US and China.

Europe and Russia are both getting destroyed economically.

I’d imagine that Europe will be looking to quickly bring around “peace” in Ukraine, much to Ukraine’s detriment starting Q1 2024

Exit, pursued by a bear

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