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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35368 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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escues EU and German economy

Nothing short of imminent mass production of nuclear reactors that could be used to provide heat and boost electricity production by replacing burners in thermal power plants could 'rescue' the EU economy. Last I heard the only EU company making such is just building their prototype for non-fission testing. Expect mass production in 2030. I'm almost certain EU never gave them a cent and has no interest in the design either.

Providing weapons to Ukraine is going to get a lot, lot harder when companies making components are going out of business, economy is in a downward spiral and there are rolling black outs and population is looking for someone to blame.

How fast can they scale up LNG shipments from the US and get serious about domestic fracking? Surely not fast enough to save them this winter, but I would (perhaps naively) think this is no more than a two to three year project before they start seeing some of the benefits.

Residential heat pumps are probably the best short-term answer.

A few years at least until there's enough LNG regasification capacity.

Domestic fracking is an non starter. Not sure if the geology fits - e.g. Poland supposedly has a lot of shale gas but apparently not(was somewhat confusing) and there is no existing industry to scale up, and it'd get bogged down in courts for a decade anyway.

Residential heat pumps are probably the best short-term answer.

Sure. Now try re-fitting an entire country and lots of old buildings with that. You need a well insulated structure.

It's not as egregious as 'let them drive electric cars if they can't afford gas' but maybe a quarter of the way there..

Domestic fracking is an non starter. Not sure if the geology fits - e.g. Poland supposedly has a lot of shale gas but apparently not(was somewhat confusing) and there is no existing industry to scale up, and it'd get bogged down in courts for a decade anyway.

You might be surprised by the potential of an acute energy crisis to overcome political and legal constraints. And from what I've read, fracking has potential across the continent. It hasn't been proven, but my guess is they're going to give it a hard look.

You might be surprised by the potential of an acute energy crisis to overcome political and legal constraints.

I've been surprised by the lack of such potential. Both in Europe and in California.

Which acute energy crisis are you thinking of, exactly? I don't think they've had one so far in our lifetime.

California announced a ban on fossil fuel cars the same week they were threatening rolling blackouts, the latter amusingly resulted in a plea asking electric car owners to restrict charging. Europe is currently not only facing severe gas shortages but has had industries shutting down due to cost and availability of energy... and cutting production from gas fields, and still shutting down nuclear plants. The only slight concession they've made is they're going to only shut down one plant and move the other two (the last two) to standby.

California announced a ban on fossil fuel cars the same week they were threatening rolling blackouts, the latter amusingly resulted in a plea asking electric car owners to restrict charging.

Literally nothing compared with what Europe is facing.

Europe is currently not only facing severe gas shortages

Anticipating an acute energy crisis is different from experiencing one. We'll see where it goes.

Fracking in Poland, it came to a naught.

TL;DR: regulations and customs are unfavorable. Exploration drilling is far harder because gas can't be flared. The few areas surveyed had unproductive shale that doesn't fracture well.

I've already responded to your point about regulations and customs. I agree that fracking in Poland came to naught, but of course Europe contains more territory than Poland.

No one else even tried, iirc.

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