Essay by Eric Worrall
UK PM Liz Truss and the EU plan to impose a Putin Energy Price Cap – but with Chinese hydroelectricity running dry, and Russia sending gas to China via a pipeline, the EU has zero leverage to negotiate a discount.
Putin warns the West will ‘keep freezing’ if energy price caps are imposed – and Russia will stop all gas and oil supplies
- Putin said Western attempts to cap prices for Russian oil and gas were ‘stupid’
- The Russian leader, 69, warned EU leaders that Russia would walk away from supply contract if EU imposed price caps on the country’s exports of gas and oil
- If gas and energy supplies stopped, there would be devastating consequences
By RACHAEL BUNYAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 19:33 AEST, 7 September 2022 | UPDATED: 05:36 AEST, 8 September 2022Russian President Vladimir Putin today warned that the West will ‘keep freezing’ if price caps are imposed on Russia’s oil and gas exports.
Putin told an annual economic forum in the far-eastern port city of Vladivostok that Russia will stop all gas and oil supplies if those price caps go ahead.
The Russian leader, 69, said that European calls for a price cap on Russian gas were ‘stupid’, and would lead to higher global prices and economic problems in Europe.
But EU chief Ursula von der Leyen this morning refused to back down and proposed that member states agree on a price limit on Russian gas imports.
‘The objective here is very clear. We must cut Russia’s revenues which Putin uses to finance this atrocious war against Ukraine,’ the president of the European Commission told reporters.
The Group of Seven (G7) wealthy democracies announced plans to impose a price cap on Russian oil exports last week by barring insurance or shipping companies from helping Russia sell oil at prices above the set limit.
…
This is a crisis which could have been avoided. Putin is responsible for shutting the gas taps, but European and British leaders are responsible for the reckless green energy policies which made their nations so vulnerable to Putin’s games.
Why are UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and the European Union making such a futile stand?
My theory is they are making rookie negotiating mistakes, because as far as I can tell the leaders of the EU and Britain have never run a business. UK PM Liz Truss went straight from being an employee to being a member of parliament. EU President Ursula von der Leyen worked as a physician before going into politics.
Running a business is a tough lesson on the dynamics of negotiation. If you want to negotiate the price down on a vital commodity, or reject someone a price increase, you need to have a backup plan, in case the other party tells you to go to hell, and breaks off negotiations. Which is pretty much what Putin just did.
Europe and Britain have no leverage over Russia, and no backup plan, because Russia no longer needs their business. Russia can sell as much gas as they want to China, via a pipeline which was opened in 2019 (another to be completed by 2025). Russia has also been using gas which used to go to Europe to generate electricity, which is being shipped to China via Russia’s HVDC interconnector.
Britain and Europe could have worked on a backup plan, but they simply ignored the problem instead of trying to find a solution. If Britain and Europe had started issuing fracking permits last February, when Russia invaded Ukraine, some of that gas would now be coming online. Even if they had delayed a few months there would have been a chance to increase supply before February.
But Europe and Britain have run out of time – even if large quantities of fracking equipment was loaded onto an East Coast USA ship today, it would still take at least a week to arrive, and months to install and connect to gas supply lines. There is now no chance of a substantial increase to domestic British and European energy supplies before the coming winter.
Europe claims their gas storage facilities are almost full – but they are still talking about energy rationing, in the wake of Russia’s complete gas shutdown.
Biden promised to ship more US gas, but now the USA itself is running short. Biden recently told US exporters to cut back, because the North East is running short of energy, thanks to all those cancelled US pipelines and cancelled fossil fuel projects.
Australia is supplying a little coal, but it almost certainly won’t be enough – Asia is just as desperate for energy as Europe, and Asia is much closer to Australia. In the time it takes to send a shipment of coal to Europe, the same ship could have carried two loads of coal to Asia, which makes diverting coal to Europe very expensive for Aussie suppliers.
Even if Australia did send more coal, thanks to regulatory hostility to coal and coal plant shutdowns, Europe and Britain likely don’t have enough capacity to use the additional coal Australia could ship, or additional coal they dig up themselves. Gas plants can be converted to burn coal, by installing a gassifier – but it takes months, more likely years, to fabricate the required equipment, and to install it correctly. Gassifiers produce large quantities of deadly carbon monoxide, which has to be correctly managed, so gassifier installation is not something you can rush.
Australia could send more liquified natural gas, but Aussie gas exporters are already at capacity, tied to long term contracts with Asian countries. The same kind of long term contracts Putin advised European leaders to consider.
Britain and Europe’s last hope might be able to buy enough refined diesel from India and China to keep the lights on. Europe and Britain have access to substantial emergency diesel generator capacity. India is making a killing, sidestepping sanctions and processing Russian crude into distillates, and selling their product on the world market. But someone will have to cover the cost of burning diesel for power, the emergency backup generator operators charge orders of magnitude more for their electricity than regular energy suppliers. In any case, It is doubtful sufficient quantities of oil could be shipped to Europe in time to make a difference.
The price cap will fail, and ordinary British and European people will suffer for the stupidity of their leaders.
Update (EW): Added an additional paragraph to the quote, to clarify it is not just Europe.
Some of us have been warning of this for years. Even before Trump highlighted it to European leaders.
For nearly 20 years I’ve been warning the UK government of the future implications and catastrophic effect of its energy policies. But PPE politicians and greens know better than energy experts.
Russia and China have been funding a lot of these green groups since before the fall of the Soviet Union. There’s no question as to which way their loyalties run.
In Europe we have no leaders only central bank puppets just as Biden is a (not)Federal Reserve puppet. Those who rule are those who print all the ‘money’ to buy/corrupt the system. Remember that the West no longer is a Free Market but a centrally controlled economy like all socialist/communist states and therefor doomed to fail.
That’s a good point. Capitalism is susceptible to centralized control as well, which I had not really considered. That explains a lot of the mess we are seeing.
“Biden promised to ship more US gas, but now the USA itself is running short. Biden recently told US exporters to cut back, because the North East is running short of energy, “
The US is not running short of gas. From your link,
“The Biden administration is warning refiners that it may take “emergency measures” to address fuel exports as stockpiles of gasoline and diesel fuel remain near historically low levels in the Northeast. “
I said the North East is running short of energy.
With no pipelines to PA, they have to import LNG
I’ve always wondered if NY’s refusal to allow new pipelines into New England could be considered a violation of the Constitution’s ‘Commerce Clause’. After all, we don’t allow states adjoining the Mississippi to block shipping there. It’s always ‘interesting’ to note in which cases ‘progressive’ states are willing to invoke their ‘states rights’ to ignore the Feds.
I agree, but there needs to be a lawsuit. Only a state with standing (not a lawyer, hope this is the correct term) can sue, and all the NE states are on board with this insanity so NY gets a pass.
Sounds right. And it can’t be a state like Maine, unless they would also have standing to sue the other nut cases between them and NY. OTOH, maybe Pennsylvania, under new management, would have standing to sue NY for not allowing its producers to access NE markets.
Eric, I tried to upvote your article and the site wouldn’t let me. If anyone else is having this issue, then this article should have far more 5 star ratings than it does, I would think.
Also, a favor if you can. I have been having some of my posts lately held up from posting and getting this message, “Awaiting for approval: Spam”
I have never spammed WUWT, or anywhere else, for that matter. Why in the world is WUWT doing this to my posts? Yes, they eventually always get posted, sometimes much later but it is most annoying. Can you explain this or get this fixed, please?
KcTaz, occasionally genuine comments trigger keyword checks, there is nothing unusual about this. Sorry for any inconvenience. As for the upvote issue, no idea – perhaps the site was suffering unusual load at the time.
I just want you to get credit for a job well done, Eric. 🙂
As do we all.
Nit Pick Nick is an expert at changing the subject.
A reminder:
Is it naive innocence, naive stupidity or blatant untruths? Maybe just blank words unconnected to any thought process!
Strike the innocence, it’s just stupidity and untruths. H’s been a constant liar throughout his time in office as well.
Just to make sure, you are referring to Biden’s entire career as a politician?
Brandon works from the same playbook that the Clinton team devised.
It’s well documented in Christopher Hitchen’s book No One Left To Lie To.
… and so gas is diverted to make up the energy shortfalls ?
Nick, do you have reading comprehension issues? It is quite clear what was being said specified one section of the US, not the entire nation–yet.
A suggestion for you. If your desire is, as it seems, to be snarky, do read the article a few times before commenting because there are few fails quite as big as being snarky and wrong.
He has a nit pick personality. Nevertheless, the snake will bite him too and he’ll blame the snake because it didn’t rattle.
One commenter coined the most apt word: “nickpick”!
(IIRC- Mr)
The US is not short of natural gas.
Germany does not have enough LNG infrastructure to completely replace all Russian pipeline gas. Germany is also getting cheaper LNG from Africa which does not have to travel as far to get to Germany. Imports of gas from Russia atre down over 50% and that will be near 100% in 2024.
The UK has little or no storage for LNG, but has several terminals. Germany has storage and not enough terminals. I think that the UK is doing the importing and shipping onto Germany/Europe.
We’re also exporting electricity almost continuously to France.for the last year, the last couple of weeks have seen the same situation with the Norwegian link,The Dutch link has been in AC for a while, we export at night import during the day.
What this achieves for the UK I’m not certain, but what we’re exporting is generated using gas, Straight off the ship then down the wires to Europe. Buying France time to get some more Nukes back online and Norway’s Hydro to go to Germany? Who knows?
Just flatten the curve.
adjective LAW
Where, I hear, there are no supply pipelines and where US shipping regulations means the products must come from other countries. Or is that just a bad rumor?
Both your hearing & memory are 100%. There aren’t many US ships
that meet its requirements & the best solution is to import.
https://www.aei.org/american-boondoggle/oil-and-the-jones-act/
A nit-pick he said North East and you are the guy that keeps using the term Australia when you mean the Eastern States and there stupidity.
If you are going to nit-pick get your own post act together because I will hold you to the exact same standard.
“The decline comes at a time when underground storage chambers that typically get packed with gas during the spring and summer months aren’t close to being filled. With the start of the US heating season just 10 weeks away, concerns about a potential supply squeeze mount with every passing day.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-17/natural-gas-shortage-fears-buoy-us-market-as-winter-reserves-lag
Eric: GREAT POST!
I’m sorry I feel good about this outcome. It’s like the old saying, you don’t learn anything when you’re right. This outcome is a small price to pay for such a wrong policy for so many years and now, there’s a learning opportunity. EU – your move… I know what I’d do. What say you?
Schadenfreude = harm + joy, the Germans invented it.
It is someone else’s hardship, self-inflicted or not, that you find enjoyable, the true meaning of Schadenfreude
Thanks Mario. But I don’t think the price will be small. I knew people when I lived in England, friends and neighbours, who were struggling to get by a decade ago. I have no idea how some of them are surviving now.
You’re right Eric. The price is enormous and painful, but it appears a moment of learning may have happened. If that’s the case, the one way ticket to needless extreme poverty and full collapse may have veered towards the direction of hope…
It is truly hard to feel sorry for these dumbasses, that goes for the US also. Fire up every generating facility you have, drill, mine and refine, relax regulations, get off your a$$ and stop whining. Where is all that cheap wind and solar you have been bragging about for so many years? These people make me sick.
Our “leaders” are pathetic pen pushing pin heads, it’s a sick joke that they think they can win this.
I agree but, so far, these “leaders” do, indeed, win– elections, that is, sick as that may be.
At least, Truss is talking about developing and using fossil fuels which is a huge step forward over the rest of them.
Yes, she is unbelievably ignorant about the sanctions. Putin is in the driver’s seat, thanks to the stupidity of western leaders of whom Biden is at the head of the line for stupidity.
What is amazing to me is that they all know Biden is a fool and his mind has ceased to function. Why would anyone go along with any idea he has? The sanctions may well prove to be his dumbest, not that I think Joe is calling the shots. Maybe the “leaders” know who is calling the shots in the US? If so, their trust in whoever they think it is seriously misplaced.
trust or fear?
Ah, good question. I hadn’t looked at it that way before, Andy.
They only win elections because they promise ‘free stuff’ and most people are stupid. Even the Roman Emperors knew that.
Who said the idea was his?
Perhaps they held a focus group with eight mice.
This demonstrates how little Putin really knows. The EU simply need to turn up all those wind turbines they have been so industriously installing over the last 20 years. Who needs Russian gas when you have trillions invested in wind turbines extracting free energy from the ever present wind. Why would EU pay for Russian gas!
Renewable, Intermittent, Unreliable energy, ostensibly green. Spread the Green blight.
Putin is a nasty man
He knows Gazprom is losing EU business rapidly so now he wants to punish the EU before they don’t need Russian gas at all. Giving EU the middle finger is not going to get economic sanctions changed. This is what happens when governments disrupt free trade. Gazprom is being punished by Putin and EU leaders, and so are their current EU customers, and former customers in the EU. Only governments can create such a mess — the private sector does not have the power to cause so many problems.
“the private sector does not have the power to cause so many problems.”
Really? I suggest you look at the holdings of Vanguard and BlackRock. You may change your mind about that.
They can’t implement economic sanctions or play political games with natural gas trade. They can only own or refuse to own shares of energy companies. If they don’t own the shares someone else will own them. What do you mean?
Vanguard and BlackRock can’t force anyone to buy their stuff? Neither can they buy from anyone who isn’t willing to sell.
To the extent that they are forcing people, it’s by buying politicians and getting government to enact policies that make them rich. The problem lies in government assuming powers it should not be allowed to have.
401k
People just don’t get the difference between extracting energy from the atmosphere and producing energy from hydrocarbons.
Everyone will pay the price. Diesel is the primary fuel of all transport. Burning it to make electricity works its way through the entire economy.
I have a diesel fuelled motor vehicle and the price of diesel parted ways with ULP in Q2 2022 in Australia when it was being burnt to keep lights on. So not only higher electricity costs but everything else will increase in price.
When I was a kid, diesel, when you could find it, was always the cheapest fuel at the gas station. The only people who burned it were the big rig truckers, farm/construction equipment and big electric generators.
Then in the 80’s, auto makers started making diesel powered cars.
Diesel requires less refining than gasoline as well. Same barrel of oil + less refining costs = higher price. Go figure.
Our new PM and politicians in general need to learn the first rules of economics.
Lesson one
Rule 1.
The customer does not control the supplier’s right to set his/her price.
Lesson 2
The supplier does not control the customer’s right to purchase, or not..
Lesson 3.
The market price for any product is set, by the market.
Utterly clueless the lot of them. If you want a laugh, dig out “The Trillion Pound Horror Story”, and watch Britain’s idiot MPs mix up the deficit and the debt.
I wish you were kidding about that mix-up but I know you’re not. Good grief. One does wonder if they, also, confuse their bank balance with their credit card debt.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
For most of my life politicians have worn innumeracy as a badge of honour. Yet none of them would own up to being unable to read or write.
I think that is probably one of the worst failings of our ‘society’.
I still recall a memorable Beavis and Butthead sketch where one of them nearly does a simple mathematical analysis of a straightforward problem: “Uhhhhh….this is hard. Let’s do something else”
Brings to mind the Immortal Quote:
‘Math is Hard.’
Barbie.
And an awful lot of ‘elected’ politicians, unhappily.
Auto
PS – Liz Truss is an accountant by training, so presumably numerate. God, I hope so!!
Surely such highly placed people don’t bother themselves with such niggly details.
John Kerry has not balanced his checking account in years, yet he tells everyone what to do. Why are such people even listened to? Who gives them the influence?
Occasional Cortex likely does that. Because, you know, she like, literally has an Economics degree.
‘Because, you know, she like, literally has an Economics degree.’
And she thinks socialism works. I’m tempted to denigrate her alma mater, BU, but Harvard and the rest of the Ivies are probably much worse.
You can with discipline choose not to purchase until the market price falls to the “cap” price, the problem is that the volume will be closer to zero than you can tolerate without seeing possibly millions die if the weather chooses to also not cooperate.
Do they not understand that energy is a worldwide market and the world sets the prices, usually based on supply and demand? Now, the supply is low and the demand is high, so the prices will be, also, and remain high until the supply matches the demand.
This is how I’ve always understood it to work and I’ve been quite confused as to why they think they can cap prices and all will be well. What am I missing here that they think this will work?
KcTaz
The difference between Western Political thinking and classic economics theory, is just down to the quaint idea, that Marx’s philosophy of price control and the removal of the profit margin from suppliers is a real world option?
There is not one country anywhere able to show the command (communist/totalitarian) economy practices work. It does not make them wealthier than the free market economies when/if they adopt Marx based economic principles. Free markets are the working/operational living proof that freedom of choice exists. When people lose that freedom of choice, because of state ‘well intentioned’ intervention, the market dies.
People are not free to exercise personal choices/desires on anything, in command economies controlled by the state.
We need to be ever aware of the creeping statist/communist ideas now being advanced in Western politics.
It does not work!
Basically it doesn’t work because there aren’t enough “little people” from grocery clerks to farmers to plumbers to hardware store stock-keepers who keep sorting out supply chain issues in an attempt to maintain their income.
Profit motive works but is stripped out of totalitarian states, who then waste much more monetary equivalent of human effort on other things such as watching for neighbors who don’t follow the party line.
Indeed. All price caps accomplish is shortages because:
1) a lower price leads to higher demand (when something is cheaper, people are willing to consume it more).
and
2) a lower price leads to lower supply. (When a supplier can’t get the price they need/want, they’ll cut back on supplying).
high demand and low supply is the recipe for shortages.
In this case, shortage of Russian supply is one of the goals (whether explicitly stated or not), as the EU is looking to end it’s dependency on Russia. It’s just that meeting that goal will also provide considerable pain for the consumer in the form of shortages and/or higher prices from suppliers not subject to the price cap.
To be fair, the “cut Russia out” goal has been a long time unachieved goal. People were not willing to pay for it. Fixed vs variable.
Apparently you’re missing the fact that these are the same delusional idiots that think they can “transition” away from fossil fuel use with wind mills and solar panels.
Why would logic, reason, intellect, or the most basic understanding of economics be expected from them?!
Good point. 🙂
They probably assume the war will end before the policy takes effect. Who could vote no to “free hamburgers” if they knew the cows had gone extinct last Tuesday.
In a centrally (ECB, Federal Reserve) controlled market there is no Free Market and therefor the price of a product is set by the printing press. The more you print the more you pay because your money loses purchasing power (killing savings).
It ain’t pretty when you outsource energy security to people willing to risk everything to take away your position in the world.
This is a mess that took more than a decade to create, and it will take decades to recover. By then, Xi will be the leader of the not-so-free world and our kids will be learning to duck and cover again in the schools, just like the 1960s.
Joe, I remember those days well, Even as a kid, I was pretty sure my school desk was not going to save me in the event of a nuclear attack and wondered why we did those drills.
Me. too, pure theater…
two reasons:
1) for a sense of being able to “do something” in the face of a situation that there really was nothing that ordinary citizens could do anything about
2) It really depends on how close your school was to where the bomb would hit as to how much “saving” it could afford you. Obviously if you are in a school in Washington DC (a prime target for a direct hit), you’d be toast no matter how big your desk was. But if you were out in rural nowheresville many miles away from the nearest hit. being under your desk and covering your head means you aren’t looking in the direction of the denotation (so not going to be blinded by the light of the blast) and somewhat protected from flying debris (mainly glass from your school’s windows, though falling chunks of plaster from the ceilings would also be a possibility) when the shockwave hits your location. IE they drills would only serve to protect you from incidental harm, not from the bomb itself or any radiation fallout.
You should read the book “Hiroshima”. Ducking and covering is a good practice in such circumstances. It can save your life. Even in a school classroom.
maybe they will be learning Mandarin…
Eric, two thoughts on your article.
” India is making a killing, sidestepping sanctions and processing Russian crude into distillates, and selling their product on the world market.
I may be misunderstanding what your mean but to clarify, India is not, in my opinion, sidestepping sanctions. They flat-out refused to sign on to the sanctions. Their leaders are now looking positively brilliant in their refusal to do so. Perhaps, their politicians do understand business.
“The price cap will fail, and ordinary British and European people will suffer for the stupidity of their leaders.”
That is true, Eric, but the people who bought all this CAGW and Net-Zero nonsense and who voted for them are just as stupid if not more. See Greta and her popularity. (Granted, her star does seem to be fading, perhaps, because she’s no longer an innocent-looking sweet schoolgirl and no longer projects the image her creators desire?)
The Fraud Behind Greta Thunberg
https://bit.ly/3ggPr91
_______
I do feel for all the Europeans and Brits who saw through the CAGW scam and knew what would happen and will now suffer just as much as the stupid, gullible voters. Oh, OK, I even feel sorry for the stupid ones who were gullible just like I feel for innocent but naive victims of fraud and more mundane scams, just not as much.
“UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and the European Union making such a futile stand”
Apparently Eric doesn’t realise that the UK is seperate from the EU and is not taking part in
the EU’s prize freeze. The UK is expect to cap the energy bills of consumers with the government paying the difference between the cap and the actual price. In contrast the EU is proposing to cap the amount it will pay Russia for gas.
Whereas EU hopes and dreams that Russia will take a knee, beg, … the UK will impose shared responsibility and progressive prices a.k.a. inflation with minority benefits.
Izaac, Added an extra paragraph to the quote. I probably should have said G7 rather than focussing on Europe and Britain, but I was thinking of the impact of Europe and Britain.
Honesty… excellent.
The UK may no longer be part of the EU but the electrical grids are connected in a big and increasing way. There is a Europe wide gas grid as well, that’s why the UK can ship LNG on from a UK terminal into Europe. Membership of the EU is irrelevant in this instance.
Europe fell into the trap of having gas supplied by a monopoly gas supplier.
The EU countries, as I understand it, are all doing their own thing on price freezes. The UK Conservative and Unionist party has a Laissez–faire attitude to business it always has. Part of the reason why our utilities tend to be wholly or partly owned by non-UK enterprises and (foriegn) state owned companies. That’s why there’ll be no windfall taxes under this government.
Time will tell who got it right.
Being slightly less socialist than Labour, does not make one laissez-faire.
I don’t recall any politician suggesting a complete elimination of all regulations.
I took it that Eric meant the sanctions are a futile stand, not the other issue. Also, saying Liz Truss and the European Union indicates to me he is well aware they are separate, not the same.
Based on your comment time stamp vs Eric’s comment time stamp, you might have read the updated (corrected) version
“The UK is expect to cap the energy bills of consumers with the government paying the difference between the cap and the actual price.”
Does the government of the United Kingdom produce some saleable product or service? If not, shouldn’t this premise be amended to rather claim that energy bills will be capped for consumers, “with the [consumer] paying the difference between the cap and the actual price”?
Truss was the first idiot to talk about a cap and I believe we all laughed because it was obvious the gas would simply get sold to others willing to pay more than the cap.
A Slavic Spring in the World War Spring (WWS) series, eight years and then the fall. Sanctions with “benefits” and collateral damage. Now they care about the people. One step forward, two steps backward.
Every Western Green, climate change alarmists politician should be rounded up and thrown in jail for crimes against humanity. The damage of their climate activism on the Western economies is absolutely criminal, verging on manslaughter, if this nth winter is extremely cold, people will die! They should be sued and all their assets confiscated to pay compensation to the poor that are hungry and freezing. Jail the Greens now!
Who gave the Greens the alarmist climate change ammunition? Answer: The corrupt alarmist climate change “scientists”, who have misled the world about the Earth’s climate and CO2.
The corrupt climate alarmists manipulated the Earth’s temperature records to present a false reality where they claim the Earth is getting hotter and hotter, decade after decade, and they attribute this warming to CO2.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is it is no warmer today than it has been in the recent past. The written, historic temperature records from around the world confirm this fact.
“Hotter and hotter” is a lie. It applies to the satellite era, but that is not the complete picture. The complete picture shows a different reality: No “hotter and hotter”. A benign reality where CO2 is a minor player in the Earth’s atmosphere, and is not something to fear, or to spend money on trying to regulate or reduce.
Corrupt alarmist climate scientists are the source of the People’s misery. The People will figure this out at some point in time.
Given AGW, Russia and Canada should be burning as much as they can, as fast as they can. Maybe the upper midwest USA would repopulate.
“The corrupt climate alarmists manipulated the Earth’s temperature records to present a false reality where they claim the Earth is getting hotter and hotter, decade after decade, and they attribute this warming to CO2.”
What was it you wrote a day ago Tom?
“It seems even skeptics are not immune to some conspiracy theories.”
Read the Climategate emails Simon and you’ll see what conspiracies look like when the curtain has been pulled back.
Ummm…. that’s not how I read them. But happy to be proved wrong. Give me an example of an email that showed scientists conspired together to manipulate the data in any meaningful way. I’ll look forward to your response.
Here’s a trove of examples Simon –
The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science
Authored by A. W. Montford
Sorry I do’t recall an email with that wording. Do you have a specific email?
One of many Simon –
mail/1089318616.txt
Mike,
Only have it in the pdf form. FYI ONLY – don’t pass on. Relevant paras are the last
2 in section 4 on p13. As I said it is worded carefully due to Adrian knowing Eugenia
for years. He knows the’re wrong, but he succumbed to her almost pleading with him
to tone it down as it might affect her proposals in the future !
I didn’t say any of this, so be careful how you use it – if at all. Keep quiet also
that you have the pdf.
The attachment is a very good paper – I’ve been pushing Adrian over the last weeks
to get it submitted to JGR or J. Climate. The main results are great for CRU and also
for ERA-40. The basic message is clear – you have to put enough surface and sonde
obs into a model to produce Reanalyses. The jumps when the data input change stand
out so clearly. NCEP does many odd things also around sea ice and over snow and ice.
The other paper by MM is just garbage – as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also
losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well – frequently as I see
it. I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep
them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !
Cheers
Phil
An interesting read. I counter it with this…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/a-climate-scandal-or-is-it-just-hot-air/JTZK5G34FKPHOUQCZNKL44O6RY/
I’d also note that if you stole the emails from numerous scientists in any one field you would find some that are unacceptable and let the team down. Does it meant the entire field of scientists is conspiring? I’d say not.
And let’s not forget there were eight committees who investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.
You can try to rationalize any perfidy if you’re a zealot I guess.
I couldn’t agree more…. Which was Tom’s point.
And let’s not forget the emails were stolen 13 years ago. Since then the science has moved on and improved. And….The planet keeps warming, the seas keep rising and the ice keeps melting.
As it did in all past geological ages.
And now doing it again in the comically named “Anthropocene”.
What is it with you history deniers?
No one denies climate does not change. It does, but alway it does because it is forced. The difference is this time the change is being caused by us. Just saying.
And “just saying” is all there is to support the AGW conjecture.
How does Earth’s atmosphere (comprised of 99% Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules) differentiate its recognition of a CO2 molecule that originated in say terrestrial and/or undersea volcanic outflows to that of a C02 molecule that originated from a coal-fired power stack or one of those ~6,000 naturally-ignited coal deposits all around the world, some of which have been burning continuously for thousands of years?
And the global C02 emissions have been up and down like a yo-yo for aeons, without any sign of a “tipping point”.
Natural history – it is what it is, no changing it, and only the naive or disingenuous would deny it.
“Russia has also been using gas which used to go to Europe to generate electricity, which is being shipped to China via Russia’s HVDC interconnector“.
“Britain and Europe’s last hope might be able to buy enough refined diesel from India and China to keep the lights on.”
I recall Trump saying that Russia in their culture, religion, and history is far more aligned with the West, not China, and should be our natural partner. He worked to make that happen.
Everything Biden has done since being installed has managed to push Russia and China away from the West and into each other’s arms. The same is true for India in that India is a democracy and had close ties to the US. India and China have long been enemies and periodically have armed confrontations on their borders.
It is remarkable that in addition to all the damage Biden has done to the US, he has managed to get Russia, India, and China to put aside their differences and join forces. He said he was going to bring unity to the US but has only driven us farther apart. It seems he was confused when he said that and meant he was going to bring unity to nations who were former enemies of each other. That is what he has succeeded in doing, anyway. Unbelievable!
Lend him to Syria.
Biden, like Obama before him, are also pushing away the Saudis with their Iran nuclear deal they seem hellbent on.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say India has joined forces with Putin and Xi. It looks to me like India is just taking advantage of the fossil fuel situation.
The G7 trying to impose sanctions on Russia when Russia has plenty of customers for its fossil fuels is a futile gesture, something clueless politicians would do.
The link does not work.
The heart of this issue is the desire of the politically powerful and wealthy in the collective west to dictate to the rest of the world. The Great Reset, as advocated by the World Economic Forum, which acts as the spokesman for these connected people set its sights on furthering its agenda by destroying the Russian government, putting in its place a pliable administration what would do as it was told. Unfortunately they had not paid attention to the policies and efforts advanced by President Putin over the last two decades, changes which strengthened Russia’s ability to stand on its own. The collective west and its neo-colonialist programme have hit a stumbling block, those who will pay are its people, including me!
Dave Chapelle’s reparations skit
He has also made 24 threats of nuclear war against the UK since March (I started keeping a count as it got so ridiculous!)
What’s your point? Did the threats you counted include a date of action?
The Grifter doesn’t know how to count.
It’s dumnuts like them that got us into this mess.
I have not heard of that at all. Can you, please, post a link to Putin making those threats?
I assume you mean Putin and not Biden but he is so addled, that Biden could have made them against the UK out of confusion.
Are you serious? you somehow missed all the nuclear saber rattling Putin has done over the past half a year?
Actually for longer than that if you look beyond the UK as he threatened to target the U.S. with nuclear-tipped missiles capable of quickly striking the continental United States when the United States announced plans to withdraw from a key arms control treaty back in 2019 (a treaty which the US says Russia had already violated with its secret development of a missile banned by the treaty). “Nuclear war is part of our strategic culture,” an unnamed retired Russian diplomat told American foreign policy analyst Harry Kazianis on the sidelines of a Track 2 dialogue in 2012.Using nuclear threats is one of Putin’s go-tos when things aren’t to his liking.
Could that be propaganda?
“Could that be propaganda?”
Is that relevant to Endicott’s point, which now by your own admission is confirmed, i.e., that Putin has threatened nuclear conflict?
What difference would that make?
“an unnamed retired Russian diplomat told” stopped reading there.
How nice for you, since that was the last example in the paragraph, and you had nothing to say about any of the examples prior to it, your comment is pointless and silly and does nothing to counter the fact that Putin has saber rattled about using nukes on numerous occasions.
At least In future I’ll know I can stop reading your posts at “KevinM” as what follows will likely be pointless and silly if your pointless and silly comment here is anything to judge by.
I don’t have access to any links right now, but I can recall at least two occasions when Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons if things don’t go his way in Ukraine.
Would the US make similar sabre-rattling noises if China adopted Mexico as a client-state and started installing their military hardware there?
Russia has similar thinking to the Monroe Doctrine. Sauce for the goose….etcetera.
If I had to share a room with Biden and Putin, both probably evil, I would at least know which one could be negotiated with and which one was non compos mentis.
The Guardian is having a fit
“We needed Vladimir Putin’s energy war to get serious about how stark our situation is. This is not to predict any sudden conversion to sense from Truss, but rather to point out that the brass-necked irrationality of Tory arguments – that somehow net zero targets were pushing everyone’s bills up”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/07/liz-truss-energy-crisis-climate-bills
I can’t wait for Rees-Smugg to get fracking going, neither can the country
Net zero is anti human flourishing
Amazingly, The Guardian refuses to accept the connection between Net Zero and the vast increase in the cost of gas and electricity.
That’s religious dogma for you.
Gazprom wants to sell as much natural gas as possible to the EU
The EU companies would prefer cheaper pipeline gas from Russia versus LNG by ship. But this beneficial trade is completely disrupted by governments. Who are hurting themselves to prove a point.
Meanwhile, Russia controls the Donbas regions of Ukraine as Western nations ship in weapons for more Ukrainian military men to die until there are none left. This is an example of the losing side fighting until the last man dies.
If the Ukrainian military has any success, which I doubt, Russia would begin destroying civilian infrastructure which would end the fighting in weeks. Note that they have allowed Kiev to have electricity and internet service. Russia controls the air so could destroy civilian infrastructure at will, if they wanted to.
.
The battle for Donbas is over. Whether that Russian attack was a good idea remains a mystery. I bet a lot of Russian civilians ARE NOT HAPPY.
Russia stopped the Donbas Civil War — was that worth it? That war was in progress since 2014 — 11,000 Russian speaking Ukrainians had already died, along with 3,000 Ukranian military. The US, UK and Russia stood by for eight years and let 14,000 deaths happen. Then Russia decided to acf.
But even the Donbas separatists NEVER wanted to be part of Russia
That moves them from being under one corrupt dictator (Zelensky)
to being under another corrupt dictator (Putin). Not the independence some of them (about 35%) wanted.
The trade war sanctions changed nothing except to disrupt trade and hurt both sides. The attack on Donbas did not help anyone.
I’m still waiting for the US and UK to help defend Ukraine in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea. The US and UK told the Russians in 2014 that their 1990’s promise to help Ukraine defend themselves was an empty promise. Doing nothing in 2014 had consequences in 2022
Ukraine has advanced laboratories full of high threat pathogens – the USA openly admits they helped build them.
In 2003, the Aussie CSIRO stumbled across a simple way of creating an unstoppable biological pathogen, and promptly published their results. Since the 2003 CSIRO publication, everyone with advanced biochemical skills knows how to replicate the CSIRO work.
Russia threatening a country with advanced biological capabilities with mass destruction would really be taking their chances – especially a country like Ukraine, which has no problem producing infiltrators who can pass as Russians.
Eric, I’ve seen reports that those US Biolabs are one reason Putin invaded. I have no idea if it is true but, I suspect, it might be as it is a major threat to Russia. Look at all the damage Covid did.
There are far worse pathogens in those labs than Covid, including smallpox, and who knows what other lethal pathogens have been developed in those? What would we think if there were Russian biolabs in Mexico? What would we think if Putin had developed them as our President’s son did in Ukraine? I think we know the answer.
WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S HUNTER: Biden Firm Rosemont Seneca Invested in Ukrainian Biolabs
https://bit.ly/3J5Ks8d
I understand Russia’s concern, the events in Wuhan in my opinion gave us plenty of reason to question the activities of Fauci’s network of research labs. But if Russia say used tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, nobody in the West would punish Ukraine for retaliating with biological weapons.
I think we all hope both sides find a path to peace, before something terrible happens. A nuclear bomb is not the worst possible outcome of this conflict.
In most cases a nuke is the only way to sterilize a biolab that has bad pathogens in it.
Unless you hit the bio-lab directly, the best you could hope for would be killing maybe half of the stockpile, while widely spreading everything that survived.
Even a direct hit isn’t guaranteed to kill everything.
1980’s ting song about it?
smallpox????
“Ukraine has advanced laboratories full of high threat pathogens – the USA openly admits they helped build them.:
I have read about the labs and wonder why in Ukraine. I would think those labs were an incentive for Russia to NOT attack, or at least stay away from the labs.
Ukraine also had many connections with NATO although was never a member.
I understand why Russia wanted to stop the Donbas Civil War — although not why they waited eight years to do so. But the price was high. What do they get in return? They are surrounded by Ukrainians who don’t want them there. Even most of the Ukrainians who live in the Donbas region don’t want Russians there. It seems to be like the US in Kabul, Afghanistan, surrounded by people who didn’t want us there. It took a long time, but they eventually won. The Afghans beat Russia too.
The Russians bombed Afghanistan back into the Stone Age before they left, not unlike the American bombing of North Korea during the Korean war (more bombs than all of WW2). Such destruction results in multi-generation animosity. Putin will learn this in Ukraine.
Well-coined phrase. Original?
“ multi-generation animosity”
Richard
Russia see Ukraine as betrayers of ancient Russia. Preferring to be Na3is than Russian. For this there can be no forgiveness. Russia don’t particularly care if Ukrainians want them there or not. Ukrainians in occupied parts will mostly be deported to the Russian Far East, except selected pro-Russian ones.
“That moves them from being under one corrupt dictator (Zelensky)
to being under another corrupt dictator (Putin).”
No, they want their own independent corrupt dictator….
If they (politicians on either USA team, or whoever) try to send my boy to die in Eastern Europe then some other person more serious than me will exercise USA 2nd amendment rights before I get to the nearest winter jacket store. “Militia” is a small part of a founder’s power decentralization philosophy.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin today warned that the West will ‘keep freezing’ if price caps are imposed on Russia’s oil and gas exports.”
New England might suffer shortages. Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana won’t…
Neither will Florida. Warmer is better.
What will you use to heat your pools?
Membrane solar. No fuel required.
Possibly we’ll freeze for one winter.
But if this is true and others follow then some common sense and pragmatism will have returned to British politics at least
Liz’s big moment: Truss will unveil £150bn plan to freeze energy bills at £2,500 TODAY – but warn fracking and North Sea reserves MUST be used to stop costs soaring again in future
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11192489/Truss-unveil-150bn-plan-freeze-energy-bills-2-500-TODAY.html
I’d be a lot happier if she set say a 6 month limit on this plan, and published details of how she plans to restore energy security. But I’ll give her a few weeks, she hasn’t been in the job long.
God help us if she’s only just started to think about it.
Amen to that.
Thinking about it is one thing.
Negotiating with others to form a unified position is another.
Deficit spending to subsidize energy bills leads to monetary inflation which leads to price inflation. Everyone who purchases goods and services then pays an “inflation tax” so THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH.
Subsidies will also encourage more electricity use than would otherwise happen with free market high prices. If the utility bill is capped. the customers have no incentive to care about energy use above their maximum price. Turn up the heat — it’s “free” energy after a certain maximum payment. How does that solve the energy shortage problem?
Or… “Russia can sell as much gas as they want to China, via a pipeline … electricity … via Russia’s HVDC interconnector.”
A pipe and some wires? Very solvable.
England expects…
“”Britons must never again be forced to pay exorbitant energy bills, Liz Truss will declare on Thursday as she promises more North Sea drilling and ditches the fracking ban.
Annual energy bills will be frozen at around £2,500 for the average household both this winter and next, and green levies will be scrapped.”” – Daily Telegraph
Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth
Strange enough, the EU leaders(?) think to put a cap to russian gas price and let to rocket that of USA? Eni, an Italian company, buy gas from Russia (low price) and sell it at Amsterdam Market (speculative) price. So it make a profit, not incomes but profit, of about 7 bilion Euro in the last year. (Sorry for my bad English).
This is not unusual, suppliers including Russia prefer to sell large blocks of gas, then its up to companies like Eni to figure out how to sell it at a profit. Normally it helps keep prices down, companies like Eni make a profit if they correctly guess the amount of gas people will burn. But in the current environment, with prices skyrocketing, its uncomfortable to make such a large profit.
It’s not a price cap!!!!!
The UK government is not telling suppliers what price to sell their energy at.
The UK is simply freezing the the bills consumers and (hopefully) businesses pay at £2,500 annually. The £2,500 calculation is only a rough estimate of what the average household will pay, which is £1,500 more than they were paying just a year ago. Bigger households and businesses will still pay far more.
The UK government is then paying the difference between the maximum the consumer can pay and the amount the energy company demands.
It’s not a subsidy either, which comes with legal implications e.g. a subsidised Tesla comes with a contractual government obligation to pay a certain proportion to the company when a consumer buys a car.
There are no contracts here. The government is acting like a benevolent uncle who helps you pay your mortgage when you lose your job and welfare won’t cover it.
It’s neither ideal nor desirable, but the alternative is that much of the country’s industry and leisure business go bust because they can’t pay bills in excess of 10 time what they were just a year ago.
If that doesn’t include farmers it will most certainly affect the food processors they send their raw materials too. And if the processors can stand the cost by passing the price on accordingly, goods will be so expensive consumers who are also paying soaring energy bills won’t be able to afford to buy any.
This is neither a perfect nor a long term solution, it’s a quick and dirty, quick in, quick out solution until north sea gas and fracking can be introduced early next year. One fracking business has promised it can have gas flowing by January 2023 if it get’s the green light now.
Truss is promising tax cuts now to stimulate the economy so we can pay for this down the road. The alternative offered by various commentators is to raise taxes to pay for it. Great idea, further punish already beleaguered people and businesses to make life even more difficult. Give the free market a chance. Put money in people’s pocket to let them cope instead of handing taxes to the Treasury for them to waste, as they usually do.
We can guess all we want as to how it will reduce energy bills but you can bet the government has been in talks with fracking and North Sea oil businesses since the war in Ukraine began and I’m fairly certain they will have already done work to get things up and running when the button is pressed. It would shock me if fracking hadn’t begum months ago.
Is it logical or sensible to let the whole country literally go bankrupt because a few thousand people in Lancashire might suffer a bit of vibration from fracking? Give them all paid holidays in Spain for the next 6 months to get them out our hair FFS.
Putin is now sabre rattling to scare the European public. He doesn’t for a moment think every country in Europe isn’t coming up with its own plans to mitigate the problem as best they can. Are we all supposed to just sit here and wait until he decides to turn his gas back on?
This isn’t a “covid emergency” when a few people in the country might catch what amounts to a nasty flu and for which we shut the country down for 2 years, only to discover the survival rate is 99.8%. This is an emergency which will affect every single person in the country very directly and very personally.
I don’t like government intervention in anything and anyone claiming this is some sort of socialist solution is, frankly, an idiot.
We have 25,000 Excess Winter Deaths in the UK during the best of winters. That’s deaths uniquely associated with cold weather, they are over and above what we would expect at any other time of the year, hence the term “Excess”.
How many more people will die from hypothermia and/or starvation if some genuinely drastic solutions aren’t delivered? Equally, how many businesses will go down the tubes leaving people with no income? We are facing a very rapid, very painful societal collapse.
Of any group on the planet, we climate sceptics are more aware than any other how vital cheap, reliable energy is to humanity. We have been banging on about it for 40 years.
How much longer must we tolerate being told what to do by greens and deranged minority groups who might suffer a few cups rattling in their cupboard when we are fracking enough gas to make the country energy independent for at least the next 50 years?
Natural gas always was the transition fuel to Nuclear. OK, now we have the opportunity to make that a reality. If the greens don’t like it, exclude them from the solution and hand them a £10,000 annual energy bill. Then watch the a$$holes shut their mouths.
The time is long overdue to take the gloves off.
The messages are a bit mixed unfortunately, Britain participated in the G7 meeting which agreed the price cap plan. Lets hope Truss clarifies PDQ if she doesn’t intend to participate in the price cap scheme.
IT’S AN ENERGY WELFARE PROGRAM
And as you should know, once the people get used to a welfare program it becomes political suicide to do away with it.
“Even if large quantities of fracking equipment was loaded onto an East Coast USA ship today, it would still take at least a week to arrive, and months to install and connect to gas supply lines. There is now no chance of a substantial increase to domestic British and European energy supplies before the coming winter.”
There will be no quick fracking solution for UK. There is a worldwide shortage of fracking equipment and crews. I predict late 2023 or early 2024 before a single barrel of oil flows from a fracked UK well.
Now, Donald Trump on the other hand ….
Orange man bad 🙂 – because his grasp of the issues makes other politicians acutely aware of their personal inadequacies?
Eric,
One of the business training courses I went on when I worked for BP was a Negotiating Skills Course. My naivety was such that I got badly exposed in the Role Play Exercise.
I think we all always have something new to learn about negotiation. My wife used to be a sales trainer, so I’ve had plenty of practice ;-).
And Trump did “mean” tweets. Can’t have that on the world stage.
To me, I see the tweets as a great sense of humor. Miss ’em. And “orange man” his own self.
We went from mean tweets about individuals, to Biden accusing everyone who disagrees with him of being semi-nazis and being a threat to democracy itself.
Of course the media is celebrating our new, “kinder” president.
If I hear the phrase “existential threat” uttered one more time by anyone who appears not to know what those two words together mean, my screaming will cause windows to fall out of their frames.
uk has coal and surely Drax can burn coal too?
aus coals hardly short supply but the prices wont be cheap anymore
we arent paying the shipping YOU are;-)
and at the present insanity here today passing 2030agenda bullshit aus coal gas and the rest is in deeper shit than it was the day before.
shortwalk off a long pier for bandt albo and the teals, looking better by the minute
Government bureaucrats and academics do not understand markets or commerce. They have no experience of them.
One way or another, demand will be always be supplied (be it by operation of an open market or by operation of a black market).
The attempt to embargo Russian crude or cap its price is only going to enrich bad actors. The arbitrage between Russian petroleum and world marker prices is so fat that it cannot and will not be ignored.
Petroleum is a fungible commodity. Straw purchasers, transhipments or other means are already being employed to circumvent sanctions.
The nitwit Janet Yellen (who you can thank for the current raging inflation) was the worst Federal Reserve chair in its history. She is a genuine idiot whose ascension is wholly attributable to her gender and political correctness. Only someone as incompetent as Yellen could come up with the truly zany idea of trying to “cap” Russian hydrocarbon prices.
Good luck with that!
There is an attitude amongst many who consider themselves to be the “elite”, that making money through any of the trades or through being merchants, was something that the “lower” classes did. A true elite made their money by telling other people what to do.
Because of this, being ignorant about anything that mattered, was a point of pride.
fungible fungible fungible fungible fungible fungible fungible fungible
fungible fungible fungible fungible
fungible fungible fungible fungible fungible
Liz Truss the new U.K. prime minister has indeed just announced the ending of the ban on fracking.
But this being the U.K., that’s not the end of course. You will have the antics of the likes of extinction rebellion, the muddle-headed malthusian misanthropic mingers called Malcolm, who will use their elite old money to oppose fracking all the way. So I remain very doubtful if fracking will happen in the foreseeable future in the U.K., or ever.
Nobody seems to take the ordinary Russian into consideration who is just as bad off, if not worse. As bad as things look, I still would rather be the victim of bad, disastrous even, policies than the victim of an evil regime.
Just what kind of response did the morons in the EU and elsewhere expect from Putin? If I were Putin, I, too, would be looking for the highest bidder to sell my energy products. Thus, it looks like China might be just that buyer. Which will enrich the energy sector of Russia, and lead to possible more money in the pockets of the Russian workers.
An extreme lack of common sense and logic seems to be the lead requirement to have a job as a “leader” in the EU and elsewhere in the West.
Except China isn’t looking to be the highest bidder. They’re looking to get the gas cheap (they’re getting discounts of up to 50%). And they can because Russia has little alternative for selling it’s gas.
I’m of two minds on this issue. One, I want the most complete energy security my nation can produce utilizing it’s own resources. And then my Dark Brandon self wants those who parroted this nonsense with their band-wagonish, head-bobbing, blind obedience/subservience as virtue, brought to financial ruin. While all the politicians who pushed this agenda onto the taxpayer’s cuff engage in a kind of global group hari-kari (ritual suicide by disembowelment). 😏
Stupidity or planned process?
It is no surprise that the ultra-wealthy often live in penthouses: the view obtained by looking at minions struggling to live down in the dumps is greatly enhanced the lower the depths at which the plebs are struggling!
You still don’t get it. They want the “energy crisis”. They need to destroy our standard of living down to the level to which “renewables” will be sufficient. Putin & the Ukraine are the smoke screen for this the way COVID was for totalitarian tracking, mandates, and censorship.
They aren’t making energy policy mistakes; this is deliberate.
CO produced by coal gasification is combusted along with all the other gases produced. Before natural gas was common, coal gas was used in major cites. It was a major hazard, a pot could boil over and put out the flame and kill an entire family.
I think he’s talking about the EU price cap, not the Truss subsidy.
What makes you think it’s not going according to plan? They keep on the same path…they aren’t collectively that stupid.
And if another cargo ship should just happen to run aground in the Suez canal, shipping times would be even greater.
I agree market price can’t be imposed on a fungible resource. However this article seems to take what Putin says at face value while doubting what Western leaders say. Western leaders, as quoted, have said some dumb things, mixed with some smart things, as not quoted.
I see no fibs here, just credulity imbalances.
“Even if large quantities of fracking equipment was loaded onto an East Coast USA ship today, it would still take at least a week to arrive, and months to install and connect to gas supply lines. There is now no chance of a substantial increase to domestic British and European energy supplies before the coming winter.”
There is a major shortage of fracking equipment and crews in the world. Even if they had opened up fracking back in Feb, it is highly unlikely that any production would be seen until 2023. As it stands, it is more likely that any fracking production would be realized in 2024.
Would the process move faster with “free money”?
Eric,
Great article, but I have to call you on this: “even if large quantities of fracking equipment was loaded onto an East Coast USA ship today, it would still take at least a week to arrive, and months to install and connect to gas supply lines.” That’s not how hydraulic fracturing (fracking) works. It is not connected to gas supply lines, it is a well completion application, very well known for its suitability in multi – horizontal wellbores in tight (impermeable) shale, used after drilling a well to complete it, and put it on production.
“………which makes diverting coal to Europe very expensive for Aussie suppliers.”
????? dont think they pay the bill in the end
Nonsense article. European and British storages are already filled up to 80-90%. Nobody is going to freeze. Russia is doomed. While it is true that they made themselves vulnerable to Russia, European countries are winning and putin bluff is about to fail. Russian king has no clothes
“Gas plants can be converted to burn coal, by installing a gassifier – but it takes months, more likely years, to fabricate the required equipment, and to install it correctly.”
Gasification is hideously expensive and a huge consumer of energy in its own right. It therefore significantly reduces the power station’s output to the grid. It would also require a lengthy shutdown of the power plant during construction of the gasifier.
The recently completed oil refinery in Jazan Saudi Arabia includes a 2,400 MW power station. It was originally planned to use fuel oil from the refinery as fuel for the power station boilers. Some genius decided it would be a great idea instead to use coke from the refinery, gasify it and fuel the boilers with it.
Additional plant units required included gasification, gas cleanig, HP oxygen generation, etc. Additional cost and time: Billions, and years.
Power required for gasification and associated facilities: 600 MW.
Max power available for output to the grid: Reduced from 2,400 MW to 1,800 MW!
More money and equipment to produce less power!
An additional power station will be required to deliver the 600 MW consumed by gasification facilities to the grid!
Gasification is an excellent technology when applied correctly, but a hopelessly inefficient and expensive when inappropriately applied.
Perhaps if the EU had not meddled in the affairs of Ukraine back in 2014 they would not be in this mess but they were blinded by their desire to expand eastwards.