the return of the real

vimothy

vimothy

yurp
the 2008 crisis represented a problem which originated in the financial sector which impacted the real economy (credit contraction leading to a disappearance of demand). the crisis today represents a situation in which problems in the real economy might impact the financial sector (energy price shock leading to high inflation, leading to interest rate hikes, leading to all manor of potential problems), the opposite of 2008. in 2008 the solution was to flood the financial sector with central bank liquidity. in 2022 no such solutions to fundamental problems are apparent. what to do?
 
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vimothy

vimothy

yurp
but it's not so simple since in 2022 questions of energy supply must be caveated by how that supply comports to the goals set by the paris agreement and by climate change strategy more generally. not only do we have to square the circle of how we provide energy absent missing russian supplies but we also have to do so in such a way that it meets our needs whilst doing so in a "sustainable" manor.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
an interesting side note here is us shale. the us is now the top exporter of oil and LNG, thanks in the main to the development of fracking. this fact has important financial implications given the central role of the dollar as the international reserve, but it also provides the US with geopolitical leverage. it is hard, for example, to imagine that the war against russia would have proceeded in the same way in its absence.
 
HMGovt’s Glorious Return!

HMGovt’s Glorious Return!

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Equally, if Europe (mainly Germany) had not become so dependent on Russian gas by keeping "sustainable" energy at a realistic level, by making the most of the Groningen natural gas field (rather than closing it), or domestic nuclear energy (rather than closing it), or expanding gas storage (rather than closing it in the UK's case), there would be no need for expensively and wastefully imported LNG. So, arguably, US fossil fuels gave Europe a false sense of security in Europe - cheap gas from Russia or last-resort gas from the US, when energy security and sovereignty should have been the goal.

So you agree that energy is the solution then? We'll see how much the Paris Accords, etc last when the elites feel their own warmth and security is threatened, rather than merely the that of the tax base they farm.
 
HMGovt’s Glorious Return!

HMGovt’s Glorious Return!

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We'll see as Winter progresses. Last I heard price per MWh was at a record high due to the generation situation in Europe - nuclear offline in France, becalmed wind turbines, low solar output. Blackouts in France likely, that would suggest there is a supply problem rather than a demand problem.
 
W

wild greens

Well-known member
The energy costs are an absolute shitter but equally the petrol price has reduced by what, 20p a litre since October? So there are peaks and troughs in that sense; wholesale energy price has increased as oil has decreased. Means of energy production are in record profit, so we are getting bent over a gas well somewhere. MWh balancing market will have increased costs massively over the cold snap, for example

I think the interesting bit is more linked to food, the snowball of it. One of the places i work in has had the canteen move onto egg rations over the last month because of industrial supplier avian flu issues? No doubt that's happening throughout commercial suppliers, but the byproduct isn't just my protein diet taking a hit it's all the christmas cake knobheads, mayonnaise production etc etc

CPI is up 12p since January, that's not just gas, it's a cumulative effect isn't it. I don't know where it goes really. UK re-opening the gas storage gaff is good, but it's also centrica making the government foot the bill for it, when it was their internal decision to take offline.

Corporations need cutting off at the knees if you ask me but all the MPs are in pocket aren't they
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
www.theatlantic.com

Is This the ‘Kitty Hawk Moment’ for Fusion Energy?

This week’s big news amounts to a symbolic achievement—and symbols matter.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

If the achievement is genuine (and NIF hasn’t moved the goalposts yet again), it means that—at the very least—NIF has achieved its nominal goal: ignition as scientists defined it a few generations ago. But this definition is untethered from the realities of power generation. The “more energy out than laser energy in” equation masks several fundamental problems. NIF’s doped glass lasers have an efficiency of about 0.5 percent, meaning that they would have sucked in roughly 400 megajoules of energy from the grid in order to produce the 2.1 megajoules of light energy that eventually yielded the 2.5 megajoules of fusion energy out. That isn’t accounted for in the “break-even” calculation. Nor is the large amount of energy (and time and money) required to manufacture each target. Even if we could collect all the fusion energy generated with perfect efficiency and convert it into usable power (which we can’t), this brings us to much, much less than 1 percent of the way to a true net production of energy from NIF’s very best fusion reaction.
Click to expand...
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
one depressing aspect is that most ppl seem to think next year will be much worse since no alternative sources will have come online plus theres also no obvious way to refill reserves
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
big problem now is that since the us is major oil and gas exporter, increase in cost of the dollar means that energy also becomes more expensive, rather than less
 
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