By P Gosselin on 9. March 2022
Germany “gets more than half of its natural gas needs from Russia” and “almost half of all German households heat their apartments and houses directly and many more indirectly via district heating.” reports German energy site Blackout News here.
But to punish Russian president Vladimir Putin, German leaders are now calling on citizens to endure pain by cutting back on their consumption of natural gas to heat their homes and cook their food. Already there’s talk of rationing natural gas over the coming winter, and German politicians are desperate to find a way to explain it. “If you want to harm Putin a little, save energy,” said German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens party).
“Of course, ‘freeze to hurt Putin’ sounds better than ‘government rationing gas,” writes Blackout News, which expects Russian gas supplies will eventually be halted and rationing inevitable. The construction of liquefied gas terminals in Germany that has been announced will take years to complete.
Currently natural gas prices in Germany have skyrocketed to already painful levels. “Households with low incomes will soon not be able to afford heating,” says BlackOut News.
So much has the pressure grown in Germany to conserve gas, that “a group of energy experts is already recommending that politicians change rental law regarding the minimum temperature in rented apartments. In doing so, the experts consider comfort restrictions next winter to be conceivable and possibly necessary,” reports Blackout News.
That means tenants may find themselves freezing in underheated apartments all winter long. But it’s all for a good cause, politicians are insisting.
Unless the bitter conflict between Russia and Ukraine gets resolved soon, which few experts believe, Germans and Europeans can expect a lot of pain, especially over the coming winter. The bill for the country’s energy policy debacle is coming due, and it will be a real eye-popper
The situation has become so critical that even Habeck now sees the light and “wants to bring coal-fired power plants back online and is even thinking about extending the operating lives of the last nuclear power plants”, two sources of energy that have long been vilified in Germany.
But generating electrical power from coal and nuclear will not solve the German heating problem, noted Blackout News. “It is completely utopian to believe that the heating system in 50 percent of all households can be quickly converted.”
Or simply tell the Greens the Energiewende is a failure, and do something else?
+1000 🙂
but it isn’t a failure.
the Germans are only temporarily holding on to coal and nuclear while they ramp up replacement renewables.
There are dozens of statements to that effect which this website misleadingly ignores
LOL
You apparently missed learning one of life’s more important little rules:
and / or don’t do.
Don’t forget Griff works for a UK renewables company. Other than being 12 years old there’s no other explanation for the nonsense he posts here and elsewhere
Poor Griff. See what I mean. ‘It will work, if we keep on throwing money we don’t have, at it, it must, we believed in it, never mind the science, never mind the engineering calculations, it will work…really…it will…it must, or we have been made total fools of…and that can’t be so. We read the Guardian.
Yes, you have made dozens of irrational statements.
No, they have not been ignored, they have been ridiculed.
(I don’t understand what you mean by “ramp up” ????)
“the Germans are only temporarily holding on to coal and nuclear while they ramp up replacement renewables. There are dozens of statements to that effect which this website misleadingly ignores”
I don’t know what statements you are referring to because you never link to anything apart from the Guardian opinion pages, but the reality of the situation seems to have passed you by… again.
I provide two graphs that show the monthly percentages of electricity produced by wind and solar in Germany in 2021. All verifiable data, no cherry picking, just facts that you simply want to deny.
(click on image to enlarge)
Firstly, the share of electricity produced by wind averaged out at 23.1% for the year.
During the month of June that sunk to only 12.2%.
The windy Autumn month of October managed to get to 30%.
Your talk of “ramping up replacement renewables” is pie in the sky young Grifter.
How long do you think this “temporary” holding onto coal will have to last?
This is the share of solar in the mix for 2021….. not much to say, it’s laughable.
Just so it’s clear, here are the yearly averages for previous years:
Wind
2020 27%
2019 24.3%
2018 20.3%
2017 19.1%
2016 14.3%
Solar
2020 10.4%
2019 9.2%
2018 8.3%
2017 7.1%
2016 6.9%
And the replacement renewables will run people’s gas central heating how? Please tell us, we’re all ears.
You could cover the whole of Germany in windmills and solar panels, but when the wind doesn’t blow at nightime you will still have ZERO power.
And so, fossil fuels would come to the rescue again.
Griff, you’re an absolute muppet.
griffter, You’re being dishonest, again. There is no grid scale back-up except fossil fuels. Batteries can’t do it, and you know it. Solar is useless in Germany throughout the winter, and you know it. Wind has calm periods, and you know it. You also know that Germany has been running their lignite (dirty coal) plants to fill in when unreliable renewables fail. They, with absolute certainty, can’t replace fossil and nuclear with unreliable renewables, and you know it.
Why are you such a liar, griffter? What’s in it for you?
If Energiewende isn’t a failure, why do they have to turn down the heat?
griff, one of the many problems with you and your ilk is you want to shut down conventional energy sources before the replacement energy sources are ready. Most countries are years, if not decades away from being able to stop using fossil fuels. The infrastructure simply isn’t there.
Yes, Energiewende doesn’t work. The capacity isn’t there. The backup power sources and batteries aren’t there. Currently, Energiewende means doing without.
Fossil fuel shill logic:
1) Spend decades and billions on bribing/intimidating governments to prevent them from deploying renewables. 2) Pretend to laugh when pointing at the lagging deployment of renewables. 3) Mysteriously claim that renewables are somehow behind the skyrocketing costs of fossil fuels…
Did you expect the transition of Europe’s largest and most industrialized economy away from Old Energy to happen overnight? Even the most aggressive projections from Germany won’t have them running on 100% renewables until the 2030 2035 timeframes.
ROFL you are lying troll and it is noted you won’t address energy security discussion and what the future of the HVDC interconnectors is.
Germany’s immediate response has been to build two LNG terminals in Brunsbüttel and Wilhelmshaven at which they will receive LNG supplies to replace Russian Gas.
Those two new LNG terminals are long-term but may be converted for imports of green hydrogen if and when that becomes available.
That is the only decision made the rest of what they will do is all at the conjecture and planning phase because it would be to slow to help.
“Green hydrogen” is a myth invented in the dreams of the childish minds who believe in Santa Claus truly existing.
Making hydrogen through electrolysis with the aim to power an individual car will require 5 fold the electrical amount of energy needed for recharging a similar battery powered car.
I can see green hydrogen as a viable solution in a backup generation facility co-located with industrial-scale wind and solar sources. Excess power from the wind/solar generators can be shunted to the electrolysis operation and the compressed hydrogen stored on-site. There would be no fuel/hazmat transport required, and the generation could piggyback along the same transmission network the wind/solar generators utilize.
I thought that Germany was subjected to thw wind drought as well as the UK. 😉
So where, exactly, is German energy coming from?
Russian FF, Polish coal, extended life of nuclear plant ….
You are a f’g idiot. An idiot that will kill everyone when this happens …
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/02/uk-covererd-in-snow-for-the-second-winter/
But, hey, not like we need to worry huh? Global warming will see us all through?
They will never accept that they have been lied to and made utter fools of. They are Germans.
Shell is already rationing diesel fuel in Germany.
So diesel is more expensive than super 95. That meas heating oil, which is diesel too.
The price of being ‘in-sync’ !
With all the censorship, one thing they cannot blackout is the filling station price list!
Actually diesel is vastly more taxed than heating oil. It so happened that I was moving a lot of investments around and was cash rich and had ordered some heating oil when Putin made his move.
I feel quite smug. In two weeks its nearly doubled in price, but its still half the price of road fuel.
Yep, in the US at least, home heating oil is much less expensive than diesel because diesel is taxed more. In fact, I think home heating oil is dyed so people can tell when someone is using it as vehicle fuel.
In the UK non-road use diesel is known as red diesel due to a dye to discourage its use on the roads. Not sure about heating oil being dyed.
No problem: Germany can import some more “biodisel” made of palm oil from Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., after being rebranded “used cooking oil” by an import-export Taiwanese enterprise… some more hundreds of hectares of forest uprooted for planting palms… but who cares? “Greens” are now in the government but before that they seemed not to care much about those far away forests.
I have a feeling that most (if not all) of the European and UK diesel comes from Russia – I think I read that just recently. That means that diesel cars are likely to be the first to go; forget rationing – there’ll simply be nothing to run them on when the storage tanks run dry.
Yes it has a very low cloud point, which is favored for cold weather
“It is completely utopian to believe that the heating system in 50 percent of all households can be quickly converted.”
And if they were converted (to electric?) could Germany produce that much energy before their unicorns poop out? Could the German people afford to turn on their electric heat because of the massive increase in electric demand from this and the push to EVs? Or is the modern world really under the boot of a powerful Elite that is just trying to crush as many people as possible before all remaining source of resistance are extinguished?
Someone should point out to these clowns that for purposes of residential space heating, burning NG in a furnace or boiler has an efficiency north of 90%, while converting it to electricity first is probably south of 60% efficient, excluding T&D loses.
Only engineers care about efficiency. Politicians not so much.
They don’t need to be quickly converted … simply “ramped up”.
See griff comment above.
Does that mean that they are pushed up a ramp?
It’s not as if Putin himself didn’t tell them (he warned them more than 10 YEARS AGO !)
“But I cannot understand what fuel you will take for heating. You do not want gas, you do not develop the nuclear power industry, so you will heat with firewood? You will have to go to Siberia to buy the firewood there,[Europeans] do not even have firewood.”
-Vladimir Putin, 2010
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/IT-Putin_suggests_Germans_replace_nuclear_with_firewood-0112105.html
His verdict on the antics of Greta is also a sign of rationality. Which makes it all the more puzzling why he has stumbled into the quagmire he is in now.
Something Western media etc isn’t telling us?
“He stumbled into the quagmire”
What do you mean?
He has gotten himself into a place he cant get out of. If that doesn’t make sense try reading the news. The non-Russian funded news that is.
He has made Russia a global pariah for starting a war he cannot win.
Of course he can win. He certainly has the resources, and Ukraine will run out of bullets eventually. The only question remaining is, will he bear that cost? It wouldn’t be the first time Russia committed mass murder in Ukraine. Kulaks, anyone?
..Let’s not forget the Holmodor.
5 millions ukrainians starved to death in 1933 by Stalin’s soviet russians. Who can pretend that russians and ukrainians love each other ?
I am more practical. Keep the west out of Ukraine and get a signed agreement that Russia will not expand.
Biden is too stupid to organize that.
That ‘practicality’ was tried in 1938. It didn’t work in the long run.
All you can do is try again unless you are advocating a war with Russia?
Putins not a nutter, and he doesnt want ukraine entirely he wants crimea and the other 2 areas left in peace. and ideally ukies to stay OUT of nATO
wasnt a big ask really but bidet kept pushing(or the handlers did)
Remember the “Budapest memorandum” signed in 1994: Ukraine accepted to give up the nuclear weapons she got on its territory from the collapsed USSR againts the forever promise of Russia to RESPECT Ukraine’s borders. 20 years later, Putin annexed the Crimea without NATO moving a single finger.
Conclusion: Never trust in a russian’s word, be he a soviet russian, a post-soviet or a neosoviet one like Putin.
Should Ukraine have kept these nuclear weapons, Crimea would still be ukrainian and Ukraine living quiet.
I hear the cherry trees in Washington make good wood pellets for export.
The shills, frauds, and liars (including those working for Putin) who fought increased wind and solar deployment in Germany are hiding under rocks right now. This is yet ANOTHER hard lesson proving that fossil fuels are in no way “cheap” or “reliable.”
It just proves that depending on your enemies is a stupid idea.
Alow me to rephrase: “it just proves that becoming hostile to those on which we depend is a stupid idea”. Trade relations were flowing well before the EU started the hostilities (sanctions, etc.).
Putin invades Ukraine without cause and it’s the EU at fault for resisting? You think like a college professor — if we just gave bullies what they want, they won’t be bullies anymore.
BTW — Putin is the bully
Ukraine IS NOT part of EU!
Putin may be the bully, but he was/is not bullying EU; he is bullying somewhere else. EU depends on its oil and was not harassed.
Some countries in EU are buying its oil from Russia because they chose: Russia did not FORCE these EU countries to buy its oil.
Do you fight all the bullies in all the schools of your country, or just those that harass the school where your children go?
Stop digging
listen to the mearsheimer lecture maybe??
Trade relations have never guaranteed peace. This is a lesson from the 20th century the EU forgot because of wishful thinking.
Managed trade never guaranteed peace.
No it shows that disinvesting and refusing to invest in the supply side of an absolute essential product, fossil fuels, one that is going to remain essential is the height of folly.
That might work if you can reduce demand at the same rate but we can’t, all forecasts show that in 2050 the world will require substantially more fossil fuels than they do now.
You see there is the ‘minor’ matter of the less well developed world wanting to develop towards Western standards, India, China, Africa etc and they are the bulk of the worlds population and they aren’t going to be stopped by Greta et al, no matter how loud they shout!
You see, anyone with half a brain knows that, if you are using something absolutely vital to the functioning of your society but you fancy replacing it with a different form (foolishly but there you are), you build the different form first and then switch off the original form. You don’t do it the other way round unless you are a complete idiot, do you agree?
No one can predict the future. It’s entirely possible that the remarkable increase in standard of living enjoyed by the West has run its course and that through both an increase in the cost of important commodities and ineffectual government policies to alleviate their scarcities the Western model joins that of the less developed world.
If that indeed be the case, it seems likely that a new rural medieval feudal society could emerge since large metropolitan conglomerations would no longer be able to support their populations. Sophisticated technological knowledge would still be available but the materials to implement it would not.
The best approach to this issue would be for governments to get out of the way of individualistic efforts to address the problems and allow them to succeed or fail on their own merits, as has been the case until fairly recently.
Why not just say:
Government enforced policies cannot deliver the goods and services necessary for a high standard of living. Only free enterprise without government interference can do that.
“through both an increase in the cost of important commodities and ineffectual government policies to alleviate their scarcities the Western model joins that of the less developed world”
The cost increase in, and scarcity of, important commodities (and everything else for that matter) are the result of horrible (not ineffectual) government policies, both foreign and domestic. If what you mean by ‘Western model’ was once based upon limited government and free markets, then, yes, we can join our counterparts in the ‘less developed world’ as our governments continue to trash these concepts.
You see there is the ‘minor’ matter of the less well developed world wanting to develop towards Western standards, India, China, Africa etc and they are the bulk of the worlds population and they shall not be stopped by anyone…
Or else peace does not anymore and war becomes more viable as a matter of conduct.
There is a difference between trade and Free trade… international or otherwise.
Pointing a gun to your own head is much more different than just pulling a gun,
or pulling the gun on someone else.
cheers
The shills, frauds, and liars (including those working for Putin) who fought FOR increased wind and solar deployment in Germany are hiding under rocks right now. This is yet ANOTHER hard lesson proving that RENEWABLES are in no way “cheap” or “reliable.”
FIFY
I have no doubt that Putin’s energy partners have contributed to Alarmist / Green NGOs. Ruble for ruble, no commercial media ‘buy’ could possibly have provided so much favorable access to the ‘policy makers’, media, academia, etc., who have contributed so much the West’s trashing of its energy economy.
Barry,
The juxtaposition in your post is pure Lewis Carroll.
Brilliant!
The shills, frauds, and liars (including those working for Putin) who fought nuclear coal and fracked gas deployment in Europe are hiding under rocks right now. This is yet ANOTHER hard lesson proving that fossil fuels are indispensable and cannot be replaced by ‘renewable rubbish’.
“ no way “cheap” or “reliable” ” are the politicians and members of government who have pushed forward Energiewende and all its translations in the official and unofficial UE languages! With their tyranical arrogance they are very, very expensive; and they are not relliable at all because of their lack of knowledge of elementary arithmetics.
The “politicians and members of government” are both cheap and reliable.
You got me!…
Bazza,
At nightime when the wind isn’t blowing, what do you suggest we do with windmills and solar panels? Burn them for warmth and light?
Your conclusions are interesting, to say the least. You must not be aware the current shortage is due to politics. The same politics you advocate.
I’ll keep repeating this — you want to turn off conventional power sources because the replacement infrastructure exists. This causes shortages and many people are suffering because of you and people like you.
Well according to Clean Energy Wire the German Environmental Agency estimates that 5.5 million tonnes of residual concrete, 1 million tonnes of used steel and 30,000 tonnes of rotor blade waste per year will be generated during the 2030s with volumes starting to spike (or should that be ramped up 🙂 ) from 2024 on.
Perhaps they should build rotor blade burning energy plants (RBBEs)
The concrete foundations and towers of wind turbines can support many generations of dynamics. And given that the foundation and tower represents the lion’s share of the initial carbon footprint, each iteration of dynamics installed on the tower is amortized and cleaner.
The EPA estimates that the US will have 720,000 tons of wind machine waste over the next 20 years. That sounds like a big number, but compared to the amount of landfill waste already generated (146,200,000 tons/year) by households and industry…it amounts to 0.025% of the total waste over the same 20 years.
And some additional perspective to consider:
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/20/coal-gas-emissions-are-1500-3000x-the-mass-of-waste-wind-turbine-blades/?fbclid=IwAR01oBlM3wgHqiIhl4PikRbFYMzBgdurzMSH3X0r_cd0nwQUMh_Olx6XQkA
And of course wind turbine blades can be recycled.
https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2019/03/27/company-expands-wind-turbine-recycling-operation/?fbclid=IwAR2Ulgz3yujLl1cXPtQaCqP4yezC2Vw5bi-DuJKQXsTbbvaYYgbZ_lFT0aI
And…
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/cement-production-to-use-old-wind-turbine-blades-after-ge-inks-deal-.html?fbclid=IwAR1xHRwbmdteUWmxKeWJGcF9z6U4PeS-WdrEh4Wud22chYijiXRCSiKaheM
Dave,
Yes, the concrete base, and likely the tower, can be reused for subsequent wind turbines (of the same size).
But your claim concerning recycling the blades seems premature. It seems that it’s just not economical to do so.
The first link you provided has the company still looking for a final product (and customers). From the press release:
“GFS is going through design, engineering, site preparation and air quality permitting for its scale-up in Sweetwater, Texas. The facility is currently capable of processing two or three blades per day, or 2-3 tons per hour on an eight-hour shift. At full production, expected by the end of 2019, the plant will be able to process eight tons per hour.”
Of course, at 8 tons per hour vs >700,00 tons/year of waste…
btw GFS was referred for legal action in 2021 by Iowa’s AG since it has never done anything with its ~1300 blades stored there since 2017. Doesn’t sound like a commercially viable business.
And here is a 2020 Bloomberg link about turbine blades:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
Sorry, the above post should have been to Barry, not Dave,
And yet it’s happening more and more.
https://www.globalfiberglassinc.com/
And…
https://www.compositesworld.com/blog/post/recycled-composites-from-wind-turbine-blades-used-for-cement-co-processing?fbclid=IwAR2d00wMcwFFGO-hr1gmQoRlwsLOUaZe1EQrP_gwGpvlYeawx2QhGOTC4m0
That bunk article from Forbes was dead wrong when it was first published, and only becoming more so since. It’s time the shills and Deniers gave up that old trope.
Oh sunny Germany. Now they need more room for windmills – more Lebensraum. Drang nach Osten. That’s the real meaning of the Energiewende.
Given the decades long advocacy for the hemp industry, I’m sure the campaign just needs a slight adjustment for hemp as a heating source infomercial.
And we could all sit downwind from the chimneys and sniff up the smoke.
American tourists are going to be in for a shock.
For everyone who thinks they understand. Try a history course going way back. For a lesson from world war two try this
https://rumble.com/embed/vubrga/
Documentary by Oliver Stone from years ago
Banned on youtube
Big picture, you can not belive anything from our gov/acedemia/media these days
climate change, covid, Ukrane…..
Notice that our little troll Griff is nowhere to be seen to tell us how good the German and EU energy policy is now. Remember these guys were super advanced and the rest of the world needed to follow them.
He has not made a single post because the stupidity the EU has now walked into can’t even be defended by a troll.
The EU idiots walked right into this and everyone with half a brain could see it coming and it’s hard to have any sympathy.
Have faith. Climate change trolls are the most devout trolls. He could pop up anywhere to explain to us that the only solution to the current crisis is more windmills and solar.
No, that’s the UK Energy Secretary.
JF
No, but we have the equally absurd Barry Anthony to take his place.
You may have just conjured him up.
See? I keep telling people, stop invoking the stupid.
You woke him up. See above.
Meanwhile in the UK:
Quote:”Sturgeon: Impractical to ramp up North Sea production due to Ukraine invasion
from the Indy
She’s not especially ‘good with words‘ is she?
Us/we/them/anybody/nobody can ramp up North Sea production because there’s nothing left under it.
It’s all gone. Burned in the Dash For Gas and any money that did come from it was totally wasted trying to support and bail out Nationalised Industries
(and filling the pockets of wide-boys in the City of London and generally ramping up inflation – esp house prices)
So I’m sorry hun, you and your predecessors wasted it all, don’t pass the buck onto Mr Putin
(All gone apart from what the Norwegians have under their section of that god awful mere)
Similar, seemingly UK doesn’t get *much* from Russia – apart from 18% of our diesel – as per Germany, is that what’s going on?
Also, a now disappeared article on MSN UK’s home page this morning, told us that UK Home Energy Costs were soon expected to top £4,000 per year – up from less than £1,000 pa barely 12 months ago.
Thank you Boris, thank you soooo very much.
haha – please don’t tell me that Boris’ consumption of Russian vodka got us here – I’d always had him down as a Pinot Grigio sort of chap
🙁
There will be trouble in the UK and politicians will have to defend their disastrous energy policies that have left us at the mercy of global events and actual enemies.
I got my six monthly energy statement two days ago. It showed that, over the same period last year, my gas usage had reduced from 15250Kwh in the six months to 12500, a useful reduction as we have cooled the house by as much as is possible without being in discomfort.
Even so my expected annual energy costs will rise from £2300 to £3600 from April.
In October the ‘Cap’ will be revised upwards again. Given the gigantic rises in global energy costs, the rise will be at least the same as this one,( I am expecting more actually). That would take my annual bill to £4900 at least (probably more). More than doubled year on year and will push many households, who are managing close to the financial edge, completely over the edge.
These sort of letters will be arriving soon in every UK household and the outrage will be enormous.
Tosh?
JF
Sorry, but tosh.
You can’t immediately ramp up oil production, no. But you can’t ramp up green energy immediately, either.
These people stand in the way of progress. They shut down production and then complain when the oil isn’t available. In the USA, they fought /continue to fight oil drilling in ANWR. They say if we start now the oil won’t be ready for years. Yet the only reason we don’t have oil from ANWR now is because they stopped it.
And if they were converted (to electric?) could Germany produce that much energy before their unicorns poop out? Could the German people afford to turn on their electric heat because of the massive increase in electric demand from this and the push to EVs? Or is the modern world really under the boot of a powerful Elite that is just trying to crush as many people as possible before all remaining source of resistance are extinguished?
“Or is the modern world really under the boot of a powerful Elite that is just trying to crush as many people as possible before all remaining source of resistance are extinguished?”
The question answers itself.
Putin is literally shaking in his boots, what with McDonalds closing and all….
Putin’s on the fritz.
Very clever!
Putin may be an autocrat but he can only survive by keeping the Russian population reasonably satisfied. This war has really hurt Russia. Their economy is crumbling and the rubble is losing value daily. How much more pain can the Russian people take before they throw out Putin and his cronies?
The current national average price for 1 GGE of CNG is $2.33. Really, in the long run who needs oil for gasoline in states anywhere near NY, PA, Wyoming, Texas or Oklahoma where there is an abundance of natural gas. Cars get equal mpg with CNG and are actually safer than gasoline and works perfectly fine in engines.
NY doesn’t allow (fracking) the development of its extensive shale gas reserves, nor will it allow new pipelines, e.g., from PA which does allow fracking, to transverse NY in order to serve the needs of any states near it.
But those “states near it” are the woke states of new England. They don’t want evil gas.
Certainly their ‘leaders’ don’t, unfortunately. If memory serves, NE’s marginal demand for fuels is supplied by ship, which means that consumers there may soon be paying European-like prices (save for taxes) for gasoline, diesel, heating oil and gas ex-LNG.
And the do want $5.00 a gallon gasoline made from oil from Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia? Makes no sense.
I get the political-climate change issue that is impairing the NG industry especially in NY and Europe for that matter. Ukraine wants to frack (has decent reserves of NG…don’t know the numbers). This is one of the reasons they didn’t go EU sooner and one of the reasons Putin has invaded them. NY still produces plenty of NG and has even prior to fracking, ( I am Pro- fracking…and pro-coal. I live in deep red county in PA). I was taking a non-political track by stating the fact that CNG is is much cheaper alternative today for cars than gasoline and has been since for at least a decade. This would especially be true for Europe. France would have likely transitioned to automotive CNG due to LNG hitting their markets from USA and Brazil but it didn’t happen. Not because USA has a lack of NG or LNG ports. The issue was the pollicization of the global market place. It’s been 12 years since the NG boom hit PA. Yet the total USA NG export is only 4% of the NG that Russia exports. The climate change political conundrum doesn’t fully explain our paltry NG exports. This can be partly blamed on the climate change impairment but it has as much to do about the politicization of the hydrocarbon market globally since the prospect of huge US NG reserves and development of LNG ports, challenged the heavily colluded global energy markets in 2008 Then Russian then invaded Ukraine in 2014. This put an end to the the prospects of USA LNG being exported to the black sea to supply Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This fact instigated France’s alignment with Russia for NG even at a higher prices. Even at the time France was ending it’s dependency on nukes for electrical generation. The malaise in the US NG industry has been incremental with the political features of the colluded and politized global energy market. In my mind, climate change propaganda which appears to be serving it. A quick transition to to automotive CNG in the USA would do well to shut the mouth of the climate change BS and shudder the global hydrocarbon fuel markets. If the NG industry in the US needs a market, why not give it to them.
You’re lucky to live in an area with access to plentiful NG. Unfortunately for me, heating oil, which is the fuel of choice where I live, is hostage to world markets and, therefore, the stupidity of world politicians. You bring up a lot of points re. NG, LNG and CNG, to which I would only add that as to where, when and how they’re produced and used should strictly be left up to producers as dictated by the wants of consumers.
Never drove a vehicle with natural gas I see.
I have. Government of course. It had a natural gas tank larger than the gas tank that took up 1/3 of the truck bed. I was told to use the natural gas as much as I could.
The problem was my job took me to all reaches of the City of Las Vegas, so quite a bit of windshield time. There was only one natural gas filling station but at least that was near to my office.
SO:
Like EVs, but not as bad, it took 8 to 10 times as long to fuel after reaching the station.
I only got less than 1/2 the mileage from a “tank” of natural gas.
Luckily the truck would run on gasoline, so if I was out and about I didn’t need to run 15 or more miles to get a refill of natural gas.
After a while, I just quit using the natural gas. Although I was a government bureaucrat, I was a conservative bureaucrat, so I attempted to keep my “production” high. My liberal coworkers lived to stand and fill their tanks, drive out of their was to refuel, refuel 2 times a week instead of once, etc. because if they were not writing correction notices (which was our job), they were not being aggravated.
Full disclosure if you think I against natural gas for transportation.
I once (30 years ago) looked into converting a 4 cylinder small transportation vehicle to natural gas. There was an easily available conversion system that was not exorbitantly expensive. The compressor to fuel the tank was also not that expensive but would take 10 to 12 hours to refill the vehicle since it was low pressure. That was not a problem because I would fill it overnight. Of course the tank would fill up the trunk, so storage lost. Also, like todays EV drivers, I would be leaching off of those driving vehicles fueled at gas stations since I would not be paying gas taxes.
In the end I decided not to do it. At about the same time a house became available at a good price that I would use as a rental which required most of my cash, so excess cash was not laying around for the project. I still own that rental, have for about 30 years. Getting ready to move into it so that I can sell it in a couple of years without tax consequences of capital gains, depreciation recapture, etc.
As to the tax situation, Thanks Ronnie!
Yes modification of current gasoline vehicles to CNG is not very doable… but it can be done. But making new CNG cars is easy and all of the problems you mentioned are over come. Of course CNG cars are a great idea economically when gasoline is high The other benefit is to provide a local home grown market for our own natural gas which would require a improvement in our NG infrastructure. Right now the infrastructure is being held back by climate changers but the argument is simple. Trade one for the other and the NG infrastructure is cleaner, safer and cheaper. You don’t have to have giant refinement plants to process NG in CNG.
Worldwide, there were almost 28 million NGVs by 2019. In 2016, the market was led by China (5.4 million), Iran (4 million), India (3 million), Pakistan (3 million), Argentina (2.2 million), Brazil (1.8 million), and Italy (1.1 million).
ICE petroleum engines typically use ~ 15% more litres per 100 kilometres when running on gas after conversion to dual fuel capability
Gas burns hotter than petrol in cylinder heads and has no inherent lubrication. Valves life is significantly reduced (burned out), requiring replacement.
However, the pump cost of gas usually still works out as a more economic proposition than petroleum.
Bad info. Do your research.
Jeff I owned a Toyota Landcruiser for 12 years, 380,000 kms that ran dual fuel.
Valve replacement & head shave at 220,000 kms.
That was my research, and sharing similar experiences with thousands of other owners in club forums, who all had the same outcomes as I did.
Now, an exclusively gas powered ICE might offer a different experience to what happens with dual-fuel capable systems, but I have not seen any such claims or experiences.
CNG is $2.33 equivalent to a gallon of gasoline.
Don’t use a ICE petroleum engine buy a NGV there are many models to chose from.
Worldwide, there were almost 28 million NGVs by 2019. In 2016, the market was led by China (5.4 million), Iran (4 million), India (3 million), Pakistan (3 million), Argentina (2.2 million), Brazil (1.8 million), and Italy (1.1 million).
The engines don’t require modification to run on LNG or LPG?
CNG cars would have to be modified. It’s not an easy endeavor and the NG tank would take up much of the trunk. But it would be far easier to build CNG cars than Electric cars. I read a Peugeot study in 2009 that indicated that could produce CNG cars and have new models one year. Not a problem. Peugeot had hoped to partner with Brazil and work with the France Government in build a LNG port for Brazil to export LNG to France. The project died when an Air France plane dropped out of the sky into the middle of the Atlantic with the Devon LNG team, the Peugeot team and Brazilian and France automotive and energy execs in 2010. France LNG imports are at 20 billion Cubic meters… 13 BCM from Russia and very little from Brazil or the USA. This is the price the PA NG industry has paid and is paying for Putin and the climate changers.
I think “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” applies here.
Their fuel injection systems do.
It seems to me the longer this goes on the harder it will be to justify the notion of Net Zero.
While there are some who are beginning to stick their head above the parapet on fracking etc, there are progressive plans to put an end to wars….
“Extinction Rebellion to block UK oil refineries and cause more energy misery despite Ukraine-Russia war chaos
Extinction Rebellion has announced plans to block major UK oil refineries in April.
The direct action group said it intends to “stop the harm at the source” as part of its campaign to force the Government to stop the fossil fuel economy. The protest group Just Stop Oil will also be blocking refineries across the UK, with other groups to be confirmed.”
https://www.gbnews.uk/news/extinction-rebellion-to-block-uk-oil-refineries-and-cause-more-energy-misery-despite-ukraine-russia-war-chaos/243743
Yes, just when the weather gets a bit warmer they emerge…
If those dolts actually follow through, XR is going to need police protection.
Those dimbulbs have a potentially fatal habit of missing “social cues” and assuming current trends continue, by April, the average Brit is not likely to have much of a sense of humour left.
That is an act of war.
The Extinction Rebellion folk may come to regret their actions when their gas and electricity bills arrive, at least those not living with their parents.
They can ask Rory Kennedy, their XR millionaire moneybags for more money.
Extinction Rebellion are almost certainly funded by the Kremlin. One of their chief idiots is Rupert Read ‘philosopher of climate change’ .
Google his literary diahoerrhea for a good laugh.
Is it possible ER gets it’s money from China?
After all they are 2nd largest economy and would be a brilliant way to hamper the west.
Rory Kennedy is not Chinese so far as I know. Why cover for her?
The sad or the hilarious thingy here is that neither Kremlin or China needs to pay this idiotic/hysterical anarchist organizations, as other wealthy corrupted idiots in the west are paying them to crumble the western societies economically and otherwise… which works well in the benefit of/for both, Russia and China.
cheers
Will they walk there ?
Lots of tar available at those refineries. 😉
Just need to find a feather factory nearby
And that’s what happens when you believe propaganda about AGW and renewable energy. Take a decent method of providing your energy needs and take on an untested, unreliable, and costly system to replace it because “it’s better for you and the world” while ignoring and destroying the means to revert back to the good old days. You fell right into their plan.
Missing completely, hyperinflation hitting now, with voters squeezed, is because the absurd belief in the magic of the markets, and animal spirits. Nuts!
Luckily spring is underway.
Only in your hemisphere!
Yeah, the Spring has sprung, the bird is on the wing, and nuts thought the wing was on the bird.
Left-wing, right-wing is for the birds.
The scorpion and the fully-warned, virtue signaling frog.
Meanwhile their plan to shut down several gigawatts of clean, green, reliable nuclear power—enough to power millions of homes—that doesn’t emit that awful CO2 they bleat about incessantly continues apace. Has any government administration ever been so cognitively dissonant? Yes, as a matter of fact. Right here in the good ol’ You Ess of A.
I’d have thought German citizens agree with applying sanctions to Putin… who wouldn’t?
Today Diesel Euro 2,34, Super 95 Euro 2,30. Now ask a citizen at the Tankstelle.
How many bought diesel autos to escape gasoline?
Last summer that was Euro 1,34. It is heading for Euro 3,00.
Now what was the question again?
Ah yes, blame it on Putin. Well sanctions leave Russian gas flow, and it is only 3% of US gas, so why the Inflation? Well it is the economy, stupid.
In simple terms hyperinflation is happening regardless caused by bank policy since at least 2019.
Putin said inflation is due to western mistakes, and now is applying counter measures to crazy sanctions.
So what, exactly should Germans have done about heating their homes, if they’d been as clairvoyant as Watts readers?
There is not enough gas in Germany to heat it all, frack as you will.
You are kidding (for your sake, I hope so).
Correct, Germany has no chance whatsoever of surviving the next winter without Russian gas. NATO does not care about its satrapies. The attempt to sell US LNG cannot work either.
A new security and development architecture is urgently required.
OK griff, give us your references for “There is not enough gas in Germany”.
Germany has no reserves, even a German Michel knows that.
Unfortunately, Griffy is actually correct in this (for once). If Germany extracted 100% of its proven gas fields in one go, it would last maybe 10 or 11 months at current consumption – Germany ranks 59th in the world for proven gas reserves. On the other hand, they do have far more coal – ranking 3rd in the world for coal and having around 154 times their annual consumption under their feet.
You all should just learn to be sustainable.
You know that word … sustainable.
All the green jobs that you created allow for a higher standard of living, right? You just have to cut back a little from that elevated standard of living.
Someone should inform griff that ‘sustainable’ means a lot fewer folk, most of whom will be poking in the ground with sharp sticks to ‘sustain’ themselves.
Kept all their coal fired power plants producing more electricity than they could use?
All the nuclear plants and coal plants shuttered in recent years would have both provided power for space heaters and reduced the amount of natural gas needed for electricity, freeing up more for areas that use centralized heating systems
Reduce? Such bullshit simply would not flow thru a gas pipeline.
bonbon
Are you not forgetting something there.
Too cheap to meter!
🙂
cheers
griff
A: Not going full Retard with the stupidity of wind mills and solar.
Can not be put any simpler than that, I think. 🙂
It has always been known that Central Europe cannot produce enough energy from windmills and sunshine from fall to spring and during La Niña in summer. This is what the big climate lie is all about, resulting in rockets falling on hospitals with women giving birth. And yet there are still gas deposits in northern Europe.
Lotta coal in Po-land.
The climate lie didn’t result in rockets. According to Putin, the expansion of NATO was the result of his invasion.
According to Putin, the expansion of NATO was the cause of his invasion.
There, fixed it for ya.
I have to concur with bonbon on this one. Maybe we can all just agree that there really aren’t any ‘good guys’ with respect to the governments of Russia, the US and Ukraine.
I am with you. I just want practical solutions that are best for all. Cancel culture is killing the west.
Indeed. The only solution I can think of is already on the table – small autonomous regions in the Russia-speaking east, acknowledgment by all that Crimea is part of Russia, Ukraine’s neutrality / non-membership in NATO and Russian withdrawal. The West’s removal of sanctions before it collapses would also be nice. Won’t happen, though, because it would effectively end the Brandon administration and WEF puppet Zelensky would be booted out once his countrymen figure out they could have had the same deal without their country being leveled.
Well I’d rather freeze to kick Putin in the nuts than to ‘save the planet’ for the children I dont have.
Be a Hero
Kick Net Zero.
No Ifs, no Buts
Kick it in the nuts.
You are simply nuts – do you not look in the mirror while shaving?
Meanwhile, Russian high will freeze Russian tanks in Ukraine. Pathetic that such an empire has to attack hospitals to take revenge for war failures.
That hospital was emptied for Azov. They are no more.
Nice try. Maybe instead of parroting Ukraine government propaganda, you can explain why the US was supporting a biological research facility in one of the poorest countries in Europe that also just happens to border Russia. BTW, one of your Neo-Con friends admitted to this under oath in the US Senate, so please spare me the ‘Russian disinformation’ defense.
blob:https://wattsupwiththat.com/8259718f-72ad-43f3-99f6-39e25657248a
Are the German UN delegates still laughing at Trump?
I’m sure all the government offices and facilities will be nice and toasty though.
Gas continues to flow from Gazprom to the EU (and Germany).
The Germans (and the EU) just might be able to limp through this winter without the lights going out or a bunch of people freezing to death.
Gazprom (obviously) doesn’t want to shut off the gas (it is, of course, always a possibility).
That’s the reason you don’t want to back Russia into a corner— really, really, truly awful bad things could be the result.
Could Germany make it through next winter (without freezing in the dark) if Gazprom turned off the valve? I don’t know.
Nobody wants to see Germany freezing in the dark. The last time a whole bunch of Germans were unemployed, really bad things happened.
One hopes that, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, there is some sort of compromise that allows the parties to “save face.”
Anybody got any bright ideas how to do that?
Instead of two pipes from Russia, at least one could have been built from Norway. Now let Germany count the losses and benefits.
Deputy Prime Minister Novak clearly said NordStream1 is on the table.
Push it, get it.
Sign an agreement with Russia for a neutral Ukraine. Build up coal plants, nuclear and create new methods to bring in gas from other places.
Things can be done, but like the US, politicians are afraid of greenies. They would rather have us die.
Well said. The only thing I would change is that politicians are afraid of the left. ‘Issues’ like climate, race, gender, etc. are the left’s ideological spears.
There’s a race between how long it takes V. Putin to reduce Ukraine to rubble and how long it takes for the oligarchs/Russian people’s suffering to reach critical mass.
In the meantime, we’ve got a stone cold killer who might not be entirely sane with a finger on the nuclear button while we’re now (constructively) in the regime change business.
I might not sleep too well tonight.
Curious as to what you mean by “we’re now (constructively) in the regime change business.”
The longer young Russians are returned home in coffins and the more Russian wealth and the Russian economy suffers, the more potentially vulnerable the V. Putin regime becomes.
He knows it.
The West knows it.
Got it. From your description (death and destruction), we’ve been in the regime change business for quite a while. I’m not looking forward to the unintended consequences for this episode.
Yep, the US has been in the regime change business for a long time…see how well it has worked 😉
Joe Biden?
if only…
https://babylonbee.com/news/nation-wishes-we-had-our-own-oil-we-could-dig-up-with-big-machines-and-then-transport-around-with-some-kind-of-pipeline
First of all, how often do you hear anyone in power, any politician or bureaucrat admit being at fault?
Second, it never hurts to make people feel better about their current situation. Propaganda is just a form of marketing. It can be used for good, such as in this case, or for bad, such as trying to blame oil producers for rising prices.
This is what happens when the desire for easy profit overrides reason and a sound assessment of reality.
Serves ’em right for voting SDP & Green. They asked for this. They must be masochists.
The energy crisis is not helped by the many consumers, and especially older people, who are running their heating far too high. They are not only running the risk of dehydration but ‘ramping up’ (to use Griffs warped humour) their costs. The optimal is 18C-21C. Just Google ‘optimal heating temperature for older people’.
The term “Government Rationing Gas” reminds me of the mid 1970s when I was stationed in Italy. During the gas crisis, they had even and odd fill-up days, based on whether your license plate had an even or odd number. To make things worse, a lot of the gas stations were on strike. Fortunately, our post was not a main post, and we all had very good relations with the locals. The local gas-station owner would wave us around the back of the gas station, so we could fill up with gas.
California on steroids
Stupid is as stupid does. Russia is constructing a gas pipeline to China, and China can also absorb any oil Russia want’s to sell. But commit economic suicide, why not?
Please very much block the Russian trolls who repeat the obvious Putin propaganda bullshit on this site. Russian missiles are systematically destroying Ukrainian cities where innocent people are dying. Please be respectful of their deaths. If it were otherwise, there would not be 1.5 million refugees in Poland, the vast majority of whom are women, children and the elderly.
Russians north of Kiev are preparing howitzers to shell Kiev. Russian troops are unable to encircle the Ukrainian capital.
Mariupol is completely surrounded by Russian troops who have cut off evacuation routes for civilians to western Ukraine, leaving only east to Russia open, meaning they are treating residents as hostages.
Maybe you should post a little less and gather your thoughts 🤔
People should know that the situation in Ukraine is quite similar to the war in Syria.
How so?
That is, cities are destroyed by air attacks. Cities are turned into rubble. Ukraine is not the aggressor, it has not attacked anyone.
Even before the Chinese-virus pandemic, Europe was paying Putin four times the world price for its gas. Now it pays more like eight times the world price; and, on a day in December 2021 when Europe was under a blocking high and the wind did not blow, it rose to 200 times the world price (!!!): Putin, on the pretext of addressing an unspecified technical fault in the pipelines but in reality to serve notice on Europe that it was now utterly dependent upon him and him alone to keep the lights on as he prepared to invade Ukraine, had turned the gas off for a few hours. The price had duly and very profitably surged.