Why Europe Needs Russian Gas
March 4, 2022
By Paul Homewood
All this week, most of Europe has been overwhelmingly reliant on gas and coal for its power:
Even Denmark, the poster boy for the wind lobby, has got most of its electricity in the last few days from gas, coal and wood, with wind power almost non existent.
According to the IEA, the answer to the continent’s reliance on Russian gas is to build more wind farms!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Realistically, how quickly could we A) get fracking going and B) reopen the North Sea fields?
If we really set our minds to it:
a) several months but a significant amount of capacity perhaps not for a year; and
b) several years
To be clear, we are talking about national emergency powers riding over local opposition in a totalitarian fashion. Oh, wait, we just did this with Covid so…
More like 10 years. Its not just a matter of the drilling everywhere there is shale. It has to be the ‘right sort of shale’.
There was a comment on WUWT from a US expert on the shale extraction who spelt out you need in depth knowledge of the resources available and the methods to extract it. That just doesnt exist in UK and cant be magicked out of thin air. Other wise you end up chasing rainbows
My recollection of “local” opposition is that it wasn’t local at all but, mostly, a national effort coordinated by the usual suspects including our very own Caroline Lucas MP.
Local communities were to be recompensed for any inconvenience by some sort of levy on the value of the fracking output which they could use for community projects like libraries, sport centres, cottage hospitals etc.
All the XR activists and the “useful idiot” fellow travellers will have a lot to answer for the first time there is a major blackout in the UK. A situation that gets ever nearer with every winter that passes.
Thanks Caroline.
“According to the IEA, the answer to the continent’s reliance on Russian gas is to build more wind farms!”
So..how can that be done without fuels for transportation? Using vehicles to bring in the people and all the materials needed? Russian gasoline maybe?
“build more wind farms!”
Demonstrates either malevolent intent or abject stupidity.
Why not both? 😇
You actually have to have both. Windmills for when it’s breezy and gas or coal or nuclear for when it isn’t.
O/T Bishop Hill raised the issue of the BBCnews anti-plastics campaigning story using a “concept” doctored image.
And a whole bunch of BBC depts and activist groups just taking up the PRtrickery and running with it
Here are the side by side images
.. https://twitter.com/No2BS/status/1499768507961163776
Oops, cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was probably a bad idea
Many scientists worry that flashy efforts to clean plastic from the ocean do more harm than good.
https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/22949475/ocean-plastic-pollution-cleanup
From today’s NET Zero Watch email:
The former head of MI6, Sir Richard states, “I applaud the objective, as we all do, to move to Net Zero, but we need a policy that is practical and achievable.”
So, to work towards an unobtainable goal, with all the associated costs, should be applauded?
The costs are being paid for by private individuals or the public. Most of the money (and Carbon Dioxide emissions 🙂 ) will have to be written off. All that human effort, the skills learnt and honed will have to be redirected. And most of the productive output, the electricity, has caused disruption to the existing system due to an inability to be timely and of good quality.
Perhaps he meant to say that the intentions were good but, without the appropriate knowledge and skills, well, we know where that leads.
If that isn’t spelt out clearly to the country, so the current policy makers and implementers can be removed and replaced, we shall continue to lurch from one catastrophe to another, as a nation get poorer and cold.
How could the EU and indirectly the UK come to rely so heavily on Russian oil and gas with Putin in charge? Any fool could have seen that we were handing over to Putin the means to enforce his will on us. Might as well have handed over all our nukes. This will end badly.
Now we’re handing the Chinese access to our nuclear plants and 5G security. Can’t possibly go wrong can it.
Shutting down nuclear and coal like Germany doesn’t leave much other than gas for reliable generation. Industrial countries, or any countries really, can’t operate without baseload power if they want to even have a national electricity grid that doesn’t break down all the time.
Many people thought that Putin would not actually invade, I certainly didn’t. Annexation of the Donbas, minor land grab on the Azov coat yes, but a full scale war of conquest – I didn’t think he would be so stupid. Shows what I know.
Yes, Europe will still be taking a lot of Russian gas, that is how it is all set up, and it will take time and effort to change things. The key question is what they do now. Germany seems determined to step away from all Russian supplies. That is not surprising, the Germans have not forgotten the horrors of 1945 and the behaviour of Russian troops, so this invasion will stir old memories.
The most important question for me is what will the UK do? Will our govt. take the decisions necessary for us to ditch all possible Russian imports, or will it wander along in its green fantasy world. So far I have seen nothing encouraging.
Of course Russia has forgotten all the horrors of the German invasion in WW2?
Well they clearly have, or they wouldn’t have started it all up again. The problem with Russia today is that they have spent so long ‘hating the Nazis’ that they have become what they hate. Their largely accurate view of WW2 in the Soviet era has been replaced by a fantasy world of distortion. They actually believe that the Ukranians were all Nazis during the war. A few moments reading up on the views of Erich Koch, Gauleiter for the Ukraine, would promptly dispel this garbage, but they believe it.
When I quote information about Maidan 2014 incident from non russian sources which clearly implicates nazi like behaviour I am not believed.
and free speech sites ban Russian sites in many foolish nations . Maybe it is government but I feel it is the newsmedia. They are the same when it comes to environmental matters. The owners I don,t know but I now keep off Skynews Australia which now favours U S opinions, scandalously.
Female editors and government employees ,I expect. Unfortunately this is what feminism has come to .
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/imports/russia
$6 billion isn’t a lot.
Where exactly did that solar generated electricity go when no-one seems to have needed it?
Another source of gas
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/now-just-a-pipe-dream-biden-blows-up-israel-europe-pipeline/2022/02/16/
maybe?
Those graphs are the devastating rebuttal to claims that wind and solar can replace reliable generation. Even Denmark after nearly 50 years of “going green” still uses coal and gas.
Unfortunately politicians and bureaucrats have, by a process of reverse evolution, lost their ability to read graphs and draw logical conclusions.
They only seek votes, not truth. Truth does not keep you in power. They are not mindless, just careful.
This is relevant:
Why “cheap” solar increases the price of power
By David Wojick
https://www.cfact.org/2022/03/03/why-cheap-solar-increases-the-price-of-power/
The beginning: “I keep hearing that since solar power is cheap it pays to add it to the generation mix. Sometimes this claim is caveated, saying that it only pays up to a certain fraction of total generating capacity. Typical limits range from 30% to 60%. Moreover this claim that it pays to add solar is made by conservatives as well as liberals. We are, after all, just talking about money, not principles.
In reality this “solar pays” claim is like saying it pays to add a small, high mileage car as a second car. It ignores the added cost of buying two cars instead of one. With two car payments to make, you would only save money under very unusual conditions. For example, where you mostly drove the small car, drove a lot, and fuel was very expensive. None of these conditions hold when it comes to adding solar to the grid.”
Much more in the article.
According to the Express today,they have stated that the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has found that we get 4% of our gas from Russia.The ECIU also recommend that we switch from gas power stations to renewables.Dr. Simon Cran-Mcgreehin says so,so it must be right.
A good article on Bowland shale from Matt Ridley:
https://www.the-sun.com/news/4818142/britain-gas-gold-mine-putin-monopoly-fracking/
The first casualty of War is the truth.
Net zero is unachievable, the war just highlights the underlying risks of current policy.
Paul, for comparison, is it possible to see the same graph for the UK, please?
Thank you.
They don’t do the UK now since brexit
Not quite the same Susan but if you go to this website
https://app.electricitymap.org/map
Zoom in on the UK (or any country) then right click and it gives the energy mix over the last 24 hours (slide down on the right hand side) in a very similar format.
alternatively this website gives you various time options showing generation by percentages from months to years.
https://www.mygridgb.co.uk/last-28-days/
Earlier someone asked how long to start fracking and came up with an answer of several years. Not so. Probably as little as a year. The technology is known and just has to be adapted and not learnt again from scratch. The Ford Model T rolled off the Detroit assembly line in 1909 and just three years later were rolling off production lines in Manchester. UK. It’s the same with fracking.
MPs issue eleventh-hour plea to Boris Johnson to reverse fracking ban
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/03/05/mps-issue-eleventh-hour-plea-boris-johnson-reverse-fracking/
Thank you, Ray.