Germany's gas reserves are at 50%. Russia throttled the Nord Stream 1 pipeline much more than previously expected, Nord Stream 2 is cancelled. There won't be enough gas for the winter. Freeport exploded, american LNG export is gonna be severely limited for the rest of the year.
Our economy and energy minister said that every kWh we save counts*. Talks about limiting the temperature you have the right to heat your house to to like 16°C.
*not the kWh in electricity produced by nuclear power plants. Those don't count. We might have used more natural gas than ever before to produce electricity in May, and maybe some of that could have been saved if we just had no turned off a few GW worth of perfectly fine nuclear power plants, but no, we would do anything for climate protection and pay any price, but we won't do that.
It's going to be a cold and dark winter, and the next years will be worse.
If patriotism hadn't been eradicated as wrongthink I'd maybe feel some sadness that this country is dead. But as such I only feel sorry for my family.
We are in the eye of a perfect storm at the moment. Covid was a dry run/expedition in what was possible to get away with with the masses. It also introduced new legislature and frameworks for spying and accountability of the plebs. But the great turd in the punchbowl is the Green agenda, such as seen in Germany to an insane level, and how that has affected domestic policy in these countries where they thought they would trade future energy security for short-term votes and getting back in to power; all the while to make even more insane promises. Rinse, repeat. A vicious whirlpool in the punchbowl has now consumed the turd. Everyone will get sucked under with this madness.
Add on to that the fact that Russia just cut ALL of France's Gas supply off today not to mention several other EU countries all the while sneakily claiming sanctions in Canada. Plausible? Who gives a fuck. France is pretty savvy in that it gets a major part of its energy from pre-invested nuclear, but still. The EU and Russia seem to be playing a massive game of chicken with regard to NO WE WON'T SELL YOU THE GAS - WE'LL JUST CUT IT OFF IF YOU PISS US OFF, combined with WELL, WE STILL WANT YOUR MONEY FOR IT, SO WE PROBABLY WON'T DO IT FOR ANY GREAT LENGTH OF TIME, WELL, NOT UNTIL WE CAN LAY DOWN SOME PIPES TO SUPPLY THE CHINKS.
WE DON'T WANT/NEED YOUR GAS. WE ARE STUNNNING AND BRAVE. GOOD WILL OVERCOME EVIL. MORE SANCTIONS AGAINST PUTLER. AMIRITE?
European countries are very reliant on that Gas. Most do not have the size of the nuclear capabilities that France has. That is why Macron can afford to be so cocky and Lord it with Zel-boy!
Besides all that, there are more factors that go to make up this perfect storm, that is yet to hit, but will real fucking soon. Lack of investment in infrastructure. When the times were good the rich investors got fat off the fat of the land, preferring to pay out personal dividends to shareholders rather than putting it back in to future infrastructure needed to get ever more scarce resources out of ever more dwindling fields. Complexities in the supply chain complicate things even more. Those motherfuckers milked that motherlode for every last drop of milk. Now the milk is harder to attain. It can be got at. But it will take time while new investments in new infrastructure take time to come about.
Germany is particularly fucked because of their Green and Nuclear agenda of past years. Too much of one, not enough of the other, respectively. UK is not much better off. Corruption, lack of investment. Same old story. These problems were foreseen on forums I used to visit 6-8 years ago. By professionals in the industry of energy, but what the fuck do they know. The blackouts will come, they'll be coming real soon. Buy a UPS so at least your hard disks don't crater when the power just crashes. Brown outs aren't much bettter for them either.
I don't believe they have the capability to limit individual homes and cut them off if they go over so the only way they can enforce these limits is in billing.
European gas bills are going to be absolutely insane. They'll probably have tiers where once you go over a certain amount a multiplier is applied. Boy that dovetails nicely with carbon pricing doesn't it?
Probably not. But they do have the new capabilities of Smart Meters. So it won't be difficult to get a note to Santa to tell him who's been naughty and who's been nice. Sanctions and penalties will work their magic from that point. I don't even have Gas, so good luck cutting that off. I've learned to survive without it. Long story. I pay more for my electricity as well because I have a pre-payment meter. Sad. Many such cases. If I want to change, say to paying by direct debit, like normal people, then that's almost 500 bucks upfront (even though they take the money out of your bank account), and the real clincher: you need to get a fucking Smart Meter anyway - they will NOT install anything else. So you keep paying extra chump! It's how it was when I moved in and it's been battle after battle ever since. You can't beat these people. Heating/cooking/lighting/supply to appliances... it's the stuff of life. And they got you screwed.
Anyway, prices go up again in a few months to about 1000 bucks more on top of the already 50 percent fucking increase we just had a few months back. And prices have been warned to go higher again in April of next year when the Energy Cap (the max amount one has to pay for gas/electricity) will go up again. The government has brought in some benefit payments for the poorest of households so they don't literally freeze or starve, but it's just a bandaid and kicking the can down the road for when the real shit hits the fan. The price of food is set to rise, with inflation marked to go up to 11 percent from the already stated 9 percent it is at now. And at best it will stay at that, until it goes back down, so they say. They don't fucking know of course. Except that things will get ugly, and are already starting to get ugly, as people are just in that initial stage of grief, it being 'denial' - this is NOT happening. This CAN'T be happening. Shit it IS happening. Then things get interesting.
Not really. There were shortages, yes, but no real riots in the conventional sense. There was a big hype in the media about people mass panic buying up almost anything capable of wiping asses ranging from napkins to Brawny, and the thus the great TP shortage was memed at the start of the chink virus panic in circa March 2020. Eventually it went back to normal and you could wipe your ass in comfort again without being gouged -- same with getting hand sanitizer.
However I do specifically recall that at the first wave of St. Floyd rioting, some smug leftards on social media tried to downplay the chimping out of feral nogs by saying retarded Reddit fag takes along the lines of, "Ha, if you think these protests are a big deal, apparently you forgot a few weeks ago when white Karens were fighting over toilet paper at Rite Aid! Ha, take that white people! I am very smart!". Say what you will about muh Karens, but they sure as hell weren't burning down entire city blocks and causing billions in damage.
Which leads us on to this phase. What will be interesting is when the new energy cap comes in October adding around 830 GBP (1000 dollars) on top of everyone's energy bill again. Of course, some won't pay so much, but some will pay more. We are only one really fucking cold winter away from anarchy if the price of food keeps going up like this along with fuel for cars/trucks, along with the price of heating your own home and being able to cook hot food as well. Everything could conceivably just start spiraling in on itself: inflation/bills/jobs...
Last winter was very mild in the UK. I hardly had any heating on at all for the whole winter. But I'm a fit, hardy soul, that doesn't mind wrapping up warm. Temps of -5 or -10 could really see things change. I've worked out what it costs to run a big electric radiator already. With the new energy costs, well, let's just say if we had the same cold snaps as before - lasting a week or two or three - well, something would have to give. Heating or eating? You get to choose!
It was only a few years ago we had temps of -20 here in Bongland. And that lasted for a week or more. Temps of -5 were a tropical relief around that period. We haven't had one of them for a while now. But statistically we are due another one,
soonish. That's all it would take to tip the scales. Roads blocked due to ice. Supplies not able to get in to shops. Pensioners not able to heat their homes. As I said, we are in the calm of the eye of a perfect storm. And some kind of storm is coming you can be sure of that.
As for the riots, well, I've yet to see that in -10 conditions, but it might happen. It might be fucking warmer outside rioting than shivering in your little shoebox trying to keep warm while you just run out of money to buy cup-a-soups at 5 quid a fucking packet! Then things will get sporting.
Probably there will be no super cold spell. Definitely prices of energy/food/fuel will go up.
Probably most people will be able to afford it. Definitely, the most vulnerable will not, not if it gets real bad.
And the thing that gets me most about all this shit is, there's a good argument that a lot of it has been engineered. If not through willful efforts, then at least by extreme incompetence. I'm going for the former. I have a saying.
I never ascribe to incompetence what I can ascribe to willful malice.
