[Someone1234]

True. But 5-years ago this national security reliance on foreign gas prices was well known, and little was done in the intervening time. The worry is that when the current crisis subsides that inaction will yet again fall back into favor.

The solutions are, in part:

- National gas storage reserve (to buffet price/supply spikes somewhat).

- Expansion of green energy.

- Programs to reduce usage (e.g. home and business improvements).

Luckily for the UK extremely efficient heat pump based heating/cooling solutions that offer greater than 100% efficiency exist[0]. It is just a matter of the political will to covert away from gas to electricity and then retrofitting homes.

[0] https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems

[Schroedingersat]

COP is not efficiency. Efficiency is what you did / what you had the resources to do in an ideal world.

That makes thermal chemical heating 20-50% efficient, thermal electric heating 10-30% and heat pumps 50-70% efficient (depending on where you draw the boundaries).

You could also draw the limit at reduced carnot efficiency rather than reversibility, in which case heat pumps can be close to 100%

[Someone1234]

This is such pointless pedantry. Heat pumps having an efficiency greater than 1/100% is well known, well publicized, and you're trying to make some artificial distinction here that added nothing to this thread/context/discussion.

See:

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/489467/can-a-hea...

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/06/heat-pumps-work-miracles/

I won't be further responding to this sub-topic, since it has nothing at all to do with the UK's inflation/energy prices. Plus frankly I feel like you're trying to confuse people rather than inform, I'd point people to the Department of Energy link above if they want to understand the benefit that modern heat pumps could offer to energy usage.

[Schroedingersat]

Characterizing them as >100% efficient is poor communication. It doesn't map to any intuitive understanding, it does not communicate anything about how much heating could be done with that energy (thus leading to people believing absurd claims), and it does not map to either the colloquial or technical meaning of efficiency in any other context.

Efficiency as a concept doesn't go over 100% and just because confusing and misleading explanations are the norm doesn't mean they should continue.

[danhor]

> It doesn't map to any intuitive understanding, it does not communicate anything about how much heating could be done with that energy

But that's exactly what it does. It's technically wrong, but communicates the understanding that you put 100% of electrical energy into it and get 250-450% of heating energy for your home out of it, as opposed to 100% with resistive heating. That some of the electrical energy comes out of the air outside or from the ground is irrelevant for most people.

What are absurd claims you reference?

[Schroedingersat]

No it doesn't. "400%" gives you no indication that the upper bound is 800%.

And failing to communicate that the heat comes from elsewhere is condescending and leads to misunderstandings. It also fails to communicate that it's harder to move the heat when it is colder.

We have a perfectly valid term that does what yoh want without lying and without anti-education in the name of making it 'easier' which is coefficient of performance. You could even give it a different name to `void the scary word if you want, just don't call it efficiency because it's not.

[danhor]

> gives you no indication that the upper bound is 800%.

But it isn't? For e.g. outside sheds (heated to 7°C) the COP can theoretically go up to 27. For solar panels, the highest theoretical efficiency is well below 100% and the bound isn't communicated.

> It also fails to communicate that it's harder to move the heat when it is colder.

For heating that's less the case, but the efficiency of e.g. solar panels also varies depending on the temperature. That's not exclusive for heat pumps (although much more extreme there).

> You could even give it a different name to `void the scary word if you want, just don't call it efficiency because it's not.

Few people know what Coefficient of Performance means. If I give choose a new name, even less people will understand it. I try to either put efficiency in quotation marks or explain the concept, but efficiency maps (in the sense of energy I care about in and out) pretty well.

I think anti-education is too harsh, I'd describe it more as a white lie. It's the same as saying Mac & Linux systems don't get malware or saying in school maths that you can't take the square root of -1.

Wrong, but correct enough for understanding the point and allowing useful reasoning.

[pydry]

It's not like this was an earthquake that we idly knew would come one day that just suddenly hit us out of the blue.

NATO made a deliberate decision to bring Ukraine into the fold in 2019 and Russia reacted predictably, but not before giving us an opportunity to back down first: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/world/europe/us-nato-resp...

We dove into this knowing full well the dire energy risks that escalation posed to Europe and are now acting shocked that we didnt prepare.

Even now Stoltenburg's official line is basically "suck it up, Europe" which I assume means that NATO leadership is perfectly comfortable with the idea of a European economic disaster this winter.

The solutions you mentioned are all great in theory but the workable ones mostly all have a 5-10 year horizon and we have a problem now.

[sofixa]

Russian war crimes apologists are the worst. Nobody forced Russia to invade a sovereign country (or to consider itself the rightful owner of those lands for that matter), that's entirely their fault. And it was mind bogglingly stupid, as we can see a few months in, with the massive losses to their army and economy. It wasn't something to prepare for because it was unthinkable. It was still a huge risk to prepare for though.

[pydry]

Nobody forced NATO to expand to Ukraine either. Or to invade Libya. Or to invade Iraq/Afghanistan.

Whataboutism as a rationale for war escalation with a nuclear power is insane.

To consider reining in NATO expansion war to be equivalent to war crime apologetics is beyond absurd.

If we get to winter and the Russian economy fares better than ours (and at first glance it looks like it will) then a lot of people should be eating a lot of humble pie.

Alas I suspect theyll just call for escalation.

[sofixa]

> Nobody forced NATO to expand to Ukraine either

Cut the Russian propaganda, NATO didn't expand to Ukraine. Ukraine, a sovereign country, wanted to join NATO, as is their every right. Denying Ukraine that right and excusing Russia's war crimes is pretty bad.

[pydry]

I'm not excusing Russian anything and Im not repeating any propaganda.

I'm explaining that war, gas crisis and 18% inflation was a predictable and deliberately chosen path that wasnt hard to avoid if we'd wanted to - simply by withdrawing an invitation.

You didnt want to avoid this scenario and consider withdrawing this invitation and "denying ukraine that right". I get that.

[CorrectHorseBat]

> deliberately chosen path that wasnt hard to avoid if we'd wanted to - simply by withdrawing an invitation.

Yes, imagine what would have happened to Chechnya or Georgia if we had let them into NATO. No, that would have been an invitation to attack Ukraine, we should have let them in.

[armitron]

> Nobody forced Russia to invade a sovereign country (or to consider itself the rightful owner of those lands for that matter), that's entirely their fault.

Alas, the world doesn't operate based on the moral principles you imply, but cold hard realpolitik. Actions have consequences in the great power game between nation states.

> And it was mind bogglingly stupid, as we can see a few months in, with the massive losses to their army and economy.

The Russian economy is doing fine, business with India and China is thriving. "Massive losses to their army" I believe is far from accurate. I'll be greatly surprised if at the end of this, Ukraine isn't economically destroyed, geographically devastated. Territories lost will remain lost, and the deaths of so many people will have been for nothing more than furthering the geopolitical and industrial interests of the main instigators.

[sofixa]

> Alas, the world doesn't operate based on the moral principles you imply, but cold hard realpolitik. Actions have consequences in the great power game between nation states.

If there's anything the Russian invasion of Ukraine isn't, it's realpolitik. Invading a country because "they aren't a real country and they should be ours" is as far as the cold practicality of realpolitik as possible. (Unless you choose to believe Russia's propaganda that it was all due to NATO's expansion, which even if true is even stupider - check Finland and Sweden which joined). Invading with the walking clown of an excuse of an army is also pretty far from practical considerations.

> The Russian economy is doing fine, business with India and China is thriving.

What are you basing this on? Have you checked their official interest rates, inflation rates (of course a bucket of salt is to be applied with those) and the warnings from the central bank governess? Not only is their economy not doing great, they are still yet to feel the effects of being cut off from industrial machinery and electronics they used to rely on. China and India can't replace all their planes, tractors, cars, trucks, phones, computers.

> "Massive losses to their army" I believe is far from accurate

Well thankfully people are actively working on this so we don't have to "believe" into anything. We have cold hard data from the ground in OSINT, compiled by volunteers such as Oryx. The fog of war is certainly obscuring things, but it's plainly obvious to see that Russian losses are massive in absolute and relative terms, in men and matériel. And the Russian army confirms that itself by the type of machines it fields (they've started reactivating obsolete tanks from the reserves) and it's desperate recruitment drives.

[pydry]

>Unless you choose to believe Russia's propaganda that it was all due to NATO's expansion, which even if true is even stupider - check Finland and Sweden which joined

A) Finland and Sweden havent yet joined and may not.

B) There are no ethnic Russians in Finland or Sweden in need of protection from paramilitaries sporting swastika tattoos.

C) No border disputes either.

D) No Russian military bases.

E) It's highly defensible terrain (see the winter war) unlike Ukraine.

F) Want to know where the Nazis launched an assault on Russia and where they almost won due to Russia's extreme strategic vulnerability? Hint : it wasnt the Finnish border.

Just because you dont understand the realpolitik doesnt mean it isnt realpolitik.

[_kbh_]

> A) Finland and Sweden havent yet joined and may not

After Russias constant rhetoric that Ukraine is only the first country on their “let’s genocide post soviet states” list their is 0 doubt that Finland and Sweden will finish the application.

> B) There are no ethnic Russians in Finland or Sweden in need of protection from paramilitaries sporting swastika tattoos.

The largest group of paramilitaries sporting swastikas and killing Russians in Ukraine is Russians from the neo nazi Wagner group so ironically if Russia left Ukraine there’d be less Russian deaths by (Russian) Nazis.

> C) No border disputes either.

Wasn’t any border disputes with Ukraine until they discovered vast natural resources in the Donbas region that would threaten Russia as a gas and oil provider to Europe. Then suddenly there were all kinds of problems then appeared over night and people who suspiciously looked like FSB and GRU officers started a civil war in Ukraine.

> E) It's highly defensible terrain (see the winter war) unlike Ukraine.

Either Ukraine is very defensible or Russia is terrible at war the losses so far have been staggering.

[_kbh_]

> The Russian economy is doing fine, business with India and China is thriving. "Massive losses to their army" I believe is far from accurate. I'll be greatly surprised if at the end of this, Ukraine isn't economically destroyed, geographically devastated. Territories lost will remain lost, and the deaths of so many people will have been for nothing more than furthering the geopolitical and industrial interests of the main instigators.

1,000 tanks and close to 45k soldiers either KIA or WIA is not “massive losses”?. The world thought Russia had years worth of tanks, turns out it only took 6 months before they started breaking out the the 4 man T62s.

[armitron]

These are western propaganda estimates from biased sources. Russian sources claim 7-10000 casualties (deaths and wounded). The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Taking into account that Russia has neither mobilized nor deployed its actual army yet, and that most of the fighting is being done by locals and volunteers from the disputed regions, I fail to see the significance of "massive casualties" much less people state that "Ukraine is winning".

Anyone that looks at the events with a modicum of objectivity should admit that it looks super-dire for Ukraine and the only thing Ukrainians can hope for given current trajectories is further devastation.

[_kbh_]

> These are western propaganda estimates from biased sources.

These are visually verified numbers, not even the numbers being claimed by Ukraine, if you want to improve them you can always point out duplicates and they will removed if they are actually duplicates. The real number is likely higher because not all losses will be photographed.

> Russian sources claim 7-10000 casualties (deaths and wounded)

Russian sources also claimed they weren't even going to invade the day before the invasion happened. Russian casualties are nearly guaranteed to be fake.

> Taking into account that Russia has neither mobilized nor deployed its actual army yet, and that most of the fighting is being done by locals and volunteers from the disputed regions, I fail to see the significance of "massive casualties" much less people state that "Ukraine is winning".

The VDV and Spetsnaz are both in Ukraine, are they not part of the 'actual army'?. In the least we know that the VDV has suffered massive losses, even just the videos of the gravestones in Russia should show you that Russias casualties are numbers are likely very fake.

If Ukraine isn't winning, why is Russias progress so slow?, Kyiv is less than 300km from the Russian and they still haven't made it there yet. Id consider being in month 6 of a '3 day special military operation' to be winning.

> Anyone that looks at the events with a modicum of objectivity should admit that it looks super-dire for Ukraine and the only thing Ukrainians can hope for given current trajectories is further devastation.

Yeah Ukraine has been devastated and lots of Ukrainians (both soldiers and civilian) are dying in the war, but Russia is suffering huge losses too, how else do you explain Russias fielding of old equipment (such as the T62)?. If Ukraine didn't put any resistance it would be even worse, Russia has been committing genocide with impunity in Ukraine and the only thing really standing in there way is the Ukrainian armed forces.