[hpkuarg]

Similarly, a lot of people think it's inherently wasteful (at least in terms of climate change-related sensitivities) to live in the southern US where it's commonly accepted to run air conditioning for many months of the year, whereas nobody blinks twice at the number of oil-fired furnaces in New England.

[ricardobayes]

Or wood-fired, surprisingly common still in parts of Europe. Related, but sad news is e.g. in Hungary, they removed protection from basically all forests to be used as firewood. We will pay dearly for this hubris. Can you imagine chopping up Redwood national park for firewood? This is what is happening currently in Europe.

[MichaelCollins]

What would you have Hungarians do? The comment above yours seems to suggest that it's ecologically irresponsible to live in hot climates where AC is required, but also ecologically irresponsible to live in cold climates where heating is required. Hungary has a temperate climate, but the summers there still get dangerously hot, and the winters dangerously cold.

Why did Hungary remove protection for forests to allow people to collect firewood? Presumably because they think it's necessary. So what would you have them do instead, abandon their country?

[ricardobayes]

They had a policy of freezing energy prices at 2013 prices, in 2013. This limit was removed after 9 years, in the first of September of this year. Since then, prices increased tenfold, so households are receiving shock bills. On average hungarians lived their lives incredibly wasteful, leaving lights on all the time, because it was dirt cheap. They never invested anything in renewables, because it didn't matter. They thought they were smarter than everyone else, but it eventually caught up to them. I remember literally all my friends 'back home' outright mocking me how much more I spend on electricity. Their only trump card was always, "yeah but life here is so cheap!" This winter I can guarantee you we will see people burn their furniture and household trash to stay warm. As to what they should be doing, well, I'm not an energy policy specialist, but every other country in Europe is able to solve this situation without chopping down their protected forests, so there must be some other ways.

[galdosdi]

> Presumably because they think it's necessary.

For people who have studied the history of how countries and their leadership make decisions, even just superficially (eg, you've followed the news for 20 years), this is actually a very strange presumption.

It is historically just as plausible that it's not thought necessary for society as a whole, but is simply profitable for some special interest, such as (just an example, not an actual suggestion) a large forest land owner.

I thought this was obvious, unless one is very young still or one has never taken any interest in history or current events.

[MichaelCollins]

How do you think Hungarians should heat their homes this winter?

Not, 'What could they have done five years ago?' or 'What could they do five years from now?' I want to know how Hungarians can heat their homes 5 months from now. That's the question the government of Hungary is forced to address.

[jjav]

Since burning forests to heat homes is not sustainable nor renewable (at a timescale that makes sense), it's not a rational solution. What will they do 5 years from now (or however many years that all forests are gone)?

[MichaelCollins]

> What will they do 5 years from now (or however many years that all forests are gone)?

Solar panels and heat pumps seem like a good long-term solution, but that can't be done in time to keep people warm this winter. So for this winter, what would you have them do? Freeze? Travel back in time a few years and come up with a better solution?

[s1artibartfast]

They could buy natural gas like they always have if they so chose to?

I'm sure it would sting to do so, but it is an option.

[ChuckNorris89]

Same in rich Austria. I saw many apartments around the million euro ballpark in the older posh city center buildings, that are still heated by firewood stoves and many countryside houses are still heated by oil. Heat pumps? Ha! Never saw them anywhere around here.

It all feels incredibly dirty and inefficient to me for such a rich country.

[tpmx]

Well, oil is cheaper than electricity now*.

*) Depending on time and location of course, but it's the case surprisingly often.

As a Swede, the more I learn about about how central Europe has been heating their homes the more disgusted I become. Like, the way e.g. Germany seems to think of burning gas as "clean". I mean, maybe compared to coal, but... you shut down nuclear plants with a plan to replace with (Russian) gas? You do understand burning this causes CO2 emissions, right?

That was the many-billion-Euro German green energy revolution your environmentalists wouldn't stop talking about a decade ago?

And now our electricity in southern Sweden (which is what we generally use to heat our houses, in contrast to most of Europe, since it used to be very cheap and clean here, just a year ago. Most use an air-to-air/water heat pump or three) is insane costly, because of a combination of idiotic leftist politicans/voters also shutting down nuclear plants while at the same time building export power connections to Europe.

It's like everyone is doing the opposite of what's sane. /rant over

[adrianN]

Germany actually didn't plan to replace nuclear with gas, it wanted to replace nuclear with renewables+gas (later to be replaced by electrolysis). It was of course unfortunate for the climate to shut down the nuclear plants before shutting down the lignite plants.

[ChuckNorris89]

>building export power connections to Europe

Those export connections are there to benefit Germany industry who basically shut down some domestic production, because "green", and is instead importing its deficit from the others, raising the prices for everyone.

Portugal and Spain together are the only ones not connected to the shared grid and now have the cheapest energy prices in Europe, with Germany mumbling about it that this should change. Well done guys.

[tpmx]

> Portugal and Spain are the only ones not connected to the shared grid

(More believable.)

Source?

[ricardobayes]

We are connected, but were allowed to detach electricity prices from natural gas prices. It was dubbed the 'iberian exception' at the time.

[ChuckNorris89]

Sorry, I got some facts wrong.

[moistly]

Y’all gonna Easter Island yourselves

[d0mine]

Europe essentially banned cheap energy sources.

The winter is coming. Despite global warming, somebody (starts with U, ends with S) will make a pretty penny. It will teach those EU socialists (healthcare, education, functional public transport) how to do business. Fixing somebody's problem that you yourself created--Godfather would be proud.

[MichaelCollins]

> Europe essentially banned cheap energy sources. The winter is coming. Despite global warming, somebody (starts with U, ends with S) will make a pretty penny.

Ah yes, the country of Urussias. Or perhaps you mean Unorways. Or Ualgerias? Or Usaudi Arabias?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_European_...

[d0mine]

"The tug of war between Europe and the biggest buyers in North Asia caused the price of LNG to soar, and contributed to a quadrupling of European benchmark gas prices between the start of 2022 and late August."

x4 price increase!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-lng-can-...

Though the increase in military spendings may eclipse that.

[finiteseries]

That graphic needs to be updated to reflect an entirely different new world, it’s from 2016, the same year the US lifted a 40 year old ban on oil & gas exports.

It’s now the largest LNG exporter in the world in 2022, though that hardly benefits the country directly in terms of making a pretty penny.

[MichaelCollins]

> LNG

LNG only accounts for a small portion of the EU natural gas imports, most of their gas is imported in gaseous form.

Main extra-EU partners for imports of natural gas, 2021:

    Russia: 39.2%
    Norway: 25.1%
    Algeria: 8.2%
    United States: 7.3%  <-- The one you're blaming.
    United Kingdom: 6.5%

All natural gas import, LNG and gaseous combined, only account for 24.9% of EU energy imports. In 2021, 61.8% of EU energy imports were crude oil.

Main extra-EU partners for imports of petroleum oil, 2021:

    Russia: 24.8%
    Norway 9.4%
    United States: 8.8%  <-- The one you're blaming.
    Libya: 8.2%
    Kazakhstan: 8.0%

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

[finiteseries]

EU imports of US LNG eclipsed monthly Russian pipeline output as recently as June.

These figures will be updated to reflect an entirely different new world. They’re from 2021, the year before Russia invaded Ukraine and Europe’s energy supply was dramatically changed at both ends.

Natural gas in the EU is generally used to heat homes and power industry, it and other sources of energy aren’t immediately fungible.

I don’t subscribe to realism and don’t personally blame anyone but Russia and the EU member energy policies responsible for this situation unlike the Russian sympathetic commenter you originally responded to, but using pre war figures on top of pre export ban statistics does border closely on disingenuity given how loudly and rapidly changes have been occurring in 2022.

[kuboble]

Though there is a sense of hypocrisy here.

Europe used to be a one big jungle and the western Europe was first to chop it all and build their wealth on it.

If now we regret it then those who did chop off all their forests should share part of their wealth if they don't want others to follow suit.

[galangalalgol]

Keeping your house at 80F when its 115F outside would seem to use less energy than keeping your house at 60F when it is -1F out. Maybe humidity makes it closer to even? For me one bill was gas and one was electric, so harder to compare. I'll ask some coworkers with only a heat pump.

[bombcar]

Part of it is everything creates waste heat - so a well insulated house can take a looooong time to cool (my furnace died in the winter and I didn’t notice for over a week).

And you can survive “unaided” quite low (sleeping bags rated to -30°?) but there is a heat point where you die if you cannot escape it somehow.

[pdonis]

> Maybe humidity makes it closer to even?

If the humidity is high enough, it can take it past even. But you won't find that out by comparing summer and winter numbers in the same location, because there aren't a significant number of locations that have both summer and winter conditions severe enough to push the numbers. You would want to compare, say, Canada in winter with south Florida or south Texas in summer (or, for even more extreme, northern Scandinavia in winter with southeast Asia or equatorial Africa in summer).

[galangalalgol]

Scandinavia in winter won't usually be a heat pump to air though right? Don't they heatpump from geothermal?

Even just locally here the 25 degree F differential with ~50% relative humidity in summer would be interesting to compare to the 60 degree F differential in winter. Maybe those ultra efficient hygroscopic dehumidifiers will finally enter production.

And heat pumping to geothermal for summer might help too. I know some people locally do that. Big investment though.

[yesbabyyes]

Sweden can range from -25 to 35 °C. Heat pumps are common, both downhole heat exchangers (rock heat we call it) and air source heat pumps, among home owners.

Central heating is also common and often heated by garbage.

[dahfizz]

Yes, but a lot of that heat comes "for free" from cooking, your fridge/computer/apliances, hot water usage, body heat, etc.

I have a heat pump for heating and cooling, and my electric bills are only slightly higher in winter (5-10%).

[spikej]

That's the reason there's now a major push in a lot of places to replace those with heat pumps...

[1-6]

We can’t let politics run the nation’s energy policies. The decision makers need to be a neutral body of elected officials.

[PraetorianGourd]

An elected official is by definition not neutral. I think representative government is as good as it gets, but it will never be neutral or bereft of politics.

[pessimizer]

The usage of the word "politics" has somehow become so distorted that people are begging for non-political government.

[hpkuarg]

Neutral and elected are mutually exclusive. ;-)

[8note]

Neutral and decisions are mutually exclusive, even