Deep freeze in Arctic Europe sends power prices soaring
By Paul Homewood
It’s so cold, even Norwegians refuse to ski!
On the Finnmark plateau, between Kautokeino and Karasjok, temperatures dropped down to -35°C on Sunday. The forecast for the coming week shows a temperature anomaly for the last days of November of 10°C below the reference period 1961-1990, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute informs.
Coldest out is Nikkaluokta near Gällivare in Norrbotten with -36°C.
In times of climate change, the current freeze comes in sharp contrast to last fall, when meteorologists reported about the hottest October and early November ever measured, with an average of 6,7°C above normal across the Arctic.
Cold weather even sweeps the coast of northernmost Norway where the Arctic waters are kept ice-free by the warm Gulf Stream. In Kirkenes, on the border to Russia, the thermometer read -25°C on Saturday outside the Barents Observer’s office.
On the Kola Peninsula, Sunday November 28 came with temperatures from -18°C to -30°C the news online Severpost reported.
Further east in the Russian Arctic, quickly accumulating sea-ice on the Northern Sea Route has created a critical situation as a number of ships have been trapped in thick sea-ice for several weeks.
At the ski resort Ruka near Kuusamo in northern Finland, this weekend’s opening of FIS Cross-Country World Championship is deeply troubled by the frost. With temperatures below -20°C, the start of the competitions was in jeopardy. Norway’s team withdraw from the race, arguing it was too cold to ski.
Extreme freeze over northern Scandinavia causes energy prices to soar to a record high. The main reason is high consumption combined with ice formation on rivers with hydropower plants in northern Sweden. The northern regions of Norway and Sweden are closely linked together in the same electricity grid.
Low production in Sweden pushes prices up, also in northernmost Noway. On Sunday, a kWh came with a price-tag of 1,92 kroner/kWh (€0,19/kWh) on the spot market, the highest cost for electricity inside the Arctic Circle since 2010. Current prices are up to 10 times higher compared to the average daily over the three first weeks of November.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2021/11/deep-november-freeze-sweeps-across-arctic-europe
And it’s not just the Barents Sea, the situation is now getting critical at the other end of Siberia:
The quickly accumulating sea-ice on the Northern Sea Route is creating a potentially critical situation along Russia’s east Arctic coast. For several weeks, a number of ships have been trapped in thick sea-ice.
Several ships have also been waiting to sail into the area. For many days, the Tiksi, Yamal Ibris, I. Trubin, Polar King and Arshenevsky were located in the Kara Sea awaiting icebreaker assistance to their destinations. On board the ships was thousands of tons of equipment needed by local authorities and companies in the Chukotka region.
However, none of the ships will reach their destinations. In mid-November, they all turned back westwards and are now about to make it to Arkhangelsk where the cargo will be unloaded.
According to regional authorities in Chukotka a replacement will come in early January when nuclear-powered container ship Sevmorput will bring the cargo to destination.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
How many old people has Greta offed, now?
“Low production in Sweden pushes prices up…”
Maybe quite a few. Greta and her puppeteers may even have to use a fossil fuel or two?
I doubt we shall hear/read about any of this in our warming obsessed media.
That east wind does not look good.
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=66.2;31.9;4&l=temperature-2m&t=20211130/1800
Goodbye Mary Poppins…
Fantasy over.
Do the “great and the good” want to know this, or do they believe it’s weather and and nothing at all to do with climate?
Global Warming has so far surely been a net benefit by a long way, a big benefit being the reduced severity of winter cold waves. How strange that Canadians, for example, have been major beneficiaries of this change, yet are leaders in climate alarmism. Unfortunately, most climate change zealots today have not experienced the severe winters of the past, and the MSM won’t educate them.
‘when meteorologists reported about the hottest October and early November ever measured, with an average of 6,7°C above normal across the Arctic’
Which you surely thought important at the time.
Temperature spikes in the Arctic don’t really mean very much, they are always caused by the jetstream dragging warm air up from somewhere south. They are always localized, as that one was, and are common in periods when the northern jetstreams are highly disorderly as they have been for some years now. Last winter we had a jetstream actually over the North Pole for two weeks, which is about as dis-orderly as you can get.
Cold temperatures OTOH reflect the temperature that the Arctic sinks back to when it is not warmed in this way. However, just like warm temperatures in the Arctic, very cold temperatures below the Arctic Circle caused by cold air dragged south, also don’t mean anything.
I do dislike the convention of using “normal” for average when temperatures have a normal distribution. It’s very unlikely temperatures were 8 degrees above actual “normal”.
This Arctic region cold air was discussed last week when it developed over Alaska and the adjacent region. That cold air had to go somewhere; and I didn’t want it. The “atmospheric rivers” impacting B. C. and Wash. State are enough weather for one month.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/11/23/alaska-suffering-through-some-intense-cold-and-there-is-no-relief-coming-anytime-soon/
30 cm (12″) in the past 12 days and another forecast of 10 cm (4″) over the next 3 days.
ALL east west Highways are Closed washed out !. Shipping was shut down for 10 days from Vancouver to the rest of Canada (the busiest Port in Canada) the railways were washed out. This is NATURE . . . Unpredictable !!
Climate Change has been with us for millions of years. It was warmer in the Roman Warming Period and during the Middle ages . . . Yet humans build and prepare for 100 years. The peak of the Little Ice Age was 1750 warming has continued ever since then . . . Naturally . . . Based on history and Natural evolution we probably have 250 more years of warming to go. A volcano here and there above VEI 6 will temper things for a while as they always have . . . But NATURE RULES Planet Earth . . . We Humans are just here for the ride.
Living in Vancouver . . . pumping out the water . . .
The same words I’ve been boring my more gullible acquaintances with for about three decades. It’s so simple and so obvious but a certain bread of humanity needs imminent catastrophe to rail against. If the war was still Cold Climate Change, Global Warming as was, would barely rate a couple of inches on page six.
The lowdown-Thanks!
More data Climate Change and the influence of Volcanoes . . . Page 33 – 37
https://www.academia.edu/45570971/The_Environmentalist_and_The_Neanderthal
Ironically, back in the USA, Joe Biden, fresh from speaking at the COP26 summit, has put the climate emergency on hold. He has just released tons of oil from the strategic oil reserves. That will quickly add more CO2 into the atmosphere. The Green-new-Deal alarmists must be angry. But so far they seem to like lower prices for biofuels at the pumps.
The climate zealots will not be any more embarrased by this change in the weather any more than they are a spending other people’s money..
(Will Greta Thunberg defiantly go skiing in Norway or is she going to see sense, cut and run?)
Going skiing anywhere will require Great-Greta to use some expensive renewable biofuels with 90% fossil fuel in them. Don’t think she’s up to doing that. May have to stay warm indoors… with heat from the Sun… until darkness returns?
NOVEMBER 30, 2021 – what’s winter got up its sleeve, apart from higher energy bills?
European power cuts before Santa’s even got his boots on? And not from storms, just your usual, run of the mill, ‘global warming related’ cold/demand/supply issues.
Here’s a chart of Nordpool day ahead prices covering Scandinavia and the main EU connected markets.
It shows that Northern Scandinavia was living in splendid isolation from the chaos in Europe until the weather got cold and they were no longer self-sufficient from local hydro, and had to pay EU mainland prices to keep the heating on. Notable is that France is consistently the most expensive market as its nuclear shutdowns leave it short of power. The futures markets are expecting France to remain a big net importer through until the end of February. That almost certainly means they will struggle to find anything to export to the UK when the weather gets cold and the wind isn’t blowing. National Grid’s assumptions about winter margins are likely to prove hopelessly optimistic.
An update on UK power prices:
What doesn’t show up in the power prices are to soaring costs of trying to keep the grid from collapsing and the cost of 26 energy companies going bankrupt. the new daily record for grid costs of £63M – beating the previous record set only 3 weeks earlier by £17M – is nearly a third of the annual cost before the unreliables insanity really took off. Users are going to have to pay at least £100 extra each to cover the costs of failed suppliers. And if that wasn’t enough, how are the few suppliers that are left going to balance their books? And what if one of them decides it no longer wants to supply energy? As a private company it must have the right to withdraw from a market.
On a cold day consumption can run to 1TWh (just over 40GW average demand) so the balancing cost in £m is about the added cost in £ per MWh. On a day with lower demand the added cost per MWh of a given balancing cost is somewhat higher, as it is diluted over a smaller amount of energy.
Balancing costs look like breaching £2bn a year, which will add about £7/MWh on average. They will run higher and higher the more renewables are on the grid.
Kathryn Porter at Watt-logic.com has just published a fascinating analysis of how things are developing in Australia. It really should be compulsory reading for policymakers here for the lessons it offers.
https://watt-logic.com/2021/12/01/negative-demand/
I wonder whether we shall ever see a lead global warming scientist from Canada or the rest of the world to come out and admit that global warming is not happening due to the fact that all the fanatics have been proven wrong on every doomsday forecast over the last 25 years. The first to do so should then receive world acclaim for saving the world and humanity from a continuing downward spiral that the fanatics are creating for their own financial gain.
The Answer is an absolute NO. So long as ‘Environmental Science’ continues to examine ONLY the years 1750 to present, NO.
So long as The Roman Warming period or The Middle Ages Warming Period are NOT compared to The Modern Period Period, NO.
So Long as Cooling Periods like the one that peaked in 1750 during The Little Ice Age are NOT compared to The Bronze Age Cooling Epoch or The Dark Ages, NO.
When the parameters for analysis are ‘Rigged’ to prove ascendancy there can be no doubt entered into the calculations.
In the late 1990’s a correlation was found between Global Warming/Climate Change and elevated levels of CO2 since Pre-Industrial times. They could be seen as three parallel lines from the mid 1700’s to present. These three Scientific facts were falsely and inadvertently combined, if the Dominant History of Nature is deemed Irrelevant.
· One . . . James Watt, and Mathew Bolton started selling Steam Engines that burned fossil fuels. 1775 became the end-date for ‘Pre-Industrial’ era and became the beginning of Industrialization, thus, the introduction of ‘Man-Made CO2’ into our Global Climate.
· Two . . . From 1300 -1750 Global temperatures had fallen dramatically. By 1450 with 500-years of history in Greenland, the Vikings were pushed off their Ancient Farms. Then, by 1750 the World had reached its Coldest temperatures in the last 2,500 years. The second Coldest in 10,000 years . . . a Natural event.
· Three . . . From 1724 until today, we have had the Mercury Thermostat invented by Fahrenheit. This invention has given us the Third Parallel Line – ‘Recorded History’ . . . and the start date for Thermometer Based record keeping.
The result is that, these three Scientifically verifiable parallel lines were co-joined by Activist Environmental Researchers in the late 1990’s. Then, they were submitted by Researchers and Authors which became part of The United Nations Narrative on Climate Change in the 2001 IPCC report. Combined, they have become the ‘indisputable’, yet false, demonstration of Climate Change . . . from ‘Man-Made’ sources.
Proof APPEARS to come from the increased burning of fossil fuels and a simultaneous rising trend in temperatures since the end of pre-industrial times, recorded on thermostats daily, by Scientists from all over the world, since 1724. The action resulting from publishing the 2001 IPCC report at the United Nations, has evolved into the Foundational Narrative for Environmental Activism world-wide.
None of these factors are linked, directly . . . Scientifically . . . All three events occurred independent of the other two . . .
Correlation must never be described as causation . . .
Yet . . . the Environmentalist Narrative did so . . . without challenge . . .
None correspond with or consider the many long-term cycles of Planet Earth . . .
Therefore . . . The answer is . . . NO.
For 10,000 years we know that CO2 was at 280 ppm until 1750 . . .
For 250 years CO2 is rising . . .
Suddenly . . . CO2 causes Climate Change . . . Why NOT before ???
https://www.academia.edu/49421861/CO2_Cradle_of_Life_on_Planet_Earth