Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t englandrichard – According to Bloomberg, Green energy shortages caused by extreme winter cold have turned the EU energy market into a gigantic Prisoner’s Dilemma, with national governments tempted to take care of their own people, before allowing electricity exports to their European partners.
Winter Cold Exposes Soft Underbelly of EU Energy Union Goal
9 February 2017, 15:00 GMT+10 9 February 2017, 20:18 GMT+10
As freezing weather triggered energy shortages across southeast Europe at the start of the year, Bulgaria’s refusal to export power was typical in a region where everyone had to fend for themselves.
Nations from Greece to Hungary hoarded power last month in response to the coldest winter in a decade, exposing the weakness of the region’s power markets, which should enjoy unrestricted flows. Temperatures in the Balkans and surrounding countries are expected to drop below freezing again next week.
The reaction highlights the European Union’s struggle to break down national barriers for power and gas, integrate markets and bolster energy security as it tries to ease dependence on Russian fuel. While many southeast European countries are in the EU, they have been slow to modernize plants and cables in a region where assets per person for production and infrastructure are about a third of that in advanced Europe, according to the International Monetary Fund.
“What I see in the Balkans is clear evidence that everybody first secures its own consumption and only then, if they’re in a position to do so, they’ll help the others,’’ said Andras Totth, the deputy chief executive officer of strategy at Hungarian state-controlled utility MVM.
…
While aging infrastructure is a concern, the main obstacle to integrating markets in the region is lingering political distrust between the countries, according to Julian Popov, a Fellow at the European Climate Foundation and a former environment minister of Bulgaria. Every time power or gas supplies get tight, the nations’ top politicians panic and order exports to stop, which hurts traders, he said.
“It creates a typical prisoner dilemma — countries start thinking only of themselves,” Popov said.
…
The root cause of this desperation is Europe’s lunatic drive for green energy at any cost.
Why is the EU so stubborn about embracing renewables, despite the obvious problems? Unlike the USA, the true leaders of the EU are not chosen by the people. They never have to answer for their mistakes, to the people whose lives they blight.
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Here is a great one about today’s events.
Hey California!!!, Wind and Solar Don’t Work in a Flood
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/hey-california-wind-and-solar-dont-work-in-a-flood/
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PHtqLHjMaLw/TzMoNsCxK8I/AAAAAAAAGDE/hqBvt3wU65g/s1600/JohnWayne.jpg
An extremely clever prisoner was sitting in his cell at 9am on Monday morning and the prison governor dropped by and told him that before the end of the week, on Friday, he will have been executed but that on the day of his execution he would have no idea that would be his final day until told.
Ah he thought, being clever, if I get to Friday then I’d know that must be the day of execution so it can’t be as the governor told me I wouldn’t know. Similarly, if I get to Thursday I know it can’t be Friday therefore it can’t be Thursday as I’d know it must be Thursday. He then applied the algorithm back through the week and smiled to himself, “I cannot be executed, if I am not to know on the fateful day”.
Unfortunately there ws a knock on his cell door on wednesday morning and he was taken off and executed againsts all of his expectations.
Life behind error bars.
+1
The EU suffered the first setback when it failed to reach a common constitution. The attempt to impose an EU tax has also failed, which means that the EU administration is financially dependent on the member states of the EU.
All this results from the founding of the EU by then 7 founding states, whereby each of the states received the right of vetoing every single decision.
With the continued veto power for any single new state, the EU as a whole is practically incapable of action.
So we have the ridiculous situation that every single EU member state has had reservations about international trade agreements, which resulted in many street protests.
With the US election, we have a lot of street protests against Trump, who first struck up all international trade agreements.
“Unlike the USA, the true leaders of the EU are not chosen by the people. They never have to answer for their mistakes, to the people whose lives they blight.”
Didn’t Americans die fighting a war to prevent Europe from falling into the hands of unelected bureaucrats ruling from a city starting with ‘B?’
“…everybody first secures its own consumption and only then, if they’re in a position to do so, they’ll help the others,’’ said Andras Totth …
If everybody secured its own consumption, there would be no need to buy the surplus produced by others. Apparently, some countries have the foresight to produce enough power for themselves plus a little surplus, and other countries don’t even produce enough for themselves. What I don’t understand is why the countries with foresight are being made out to be the villains in this story for not sharing when demands are high. Shouldn’t the villains be the ones who failed to plan correctly for their own needs?
Greece, Hungary and Bulgaria have the lowest levels of renewables in the EU (absent Poland, I suppose).
so their problems have nothing to do with renewables.
They might have something to do with an anomalously warm arctic, the one you are all ignoring ?
Actually it has to do with the freezing temperatures and lack of supply by conventional power, due to an over reliance on “Renewable” supplies that have failed to produce anywhere near their boilerplate output capacity.
Griff rides in on his one trick pony named Warm Arctic and spouts more nonsense SSDD!!
LMAO – and then cleaning the coffee off the screen!
Did anyone, anywhere, throughout all of history, ever claim that all of problems of Greece, Hungary, etc, are due completely to their use of renewables?
For crying out Griff, when will you produce a valid, logically coherent argument?
You are an embarrassment to protoplasm.
That’s outrageous a national government tending to its citizens needs first!
This is an inappropriate usage of prisoners dilemma.
“Why is the EU so stubborn about embracing renewables, despite the obvious problems? Unlike the USA, the true leaders of the EU are not chosen by the people. They never have to answer for their mistakes, to the people whose lives they blight.”
This type of stuff marginalises WUWT.
Telling the truth tends to marginalize the truth-tellers, yes.
I really like the photo that is the lead to this piece. It make me wonder just how much energy that particular windmill (aka wind generator) has to produce to make up the cost of flying the helicopter and deicing the blades? I’m pretty sure it would be more efficient to simply wait for the inevitable thaw that comes with Global Warming!
Bur what do I know, the only attribute I possess is a modicum of common sense.