[HN Gopher] Europe drastically cut its energy consumption this w...
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Europe drastically cut its energy consumption this winter
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 90 points
Date : 2023-04-06 19:47 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| dvh wrote:
| Not to brag but this winter I didn't turn on radiator once. The
| temperature never dropped below 20degC inside (I live in a flat
| that few years ago had 10cm of isolation added to it). Yes I
| know, some of the heat was probably from neighbors but I can't do
| anything about that. I also shortened hot showers to minimum and
| wore warm underwear and sweater. The winter was quite warm [1],
| coldest was around -5degC
|
| [1]
| https://www.shmu.sk/sk/?page=1&id=klimat_operativneudaje1&id...
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Similar case here. New, well insulated apartment. I think we
| did turn it on when older, temperature sensitive guests came
| over. We also clearly benefited from neighbors who (probably)
| still had heating on. But a good insulation is indeed a game
| changer.
| rconti wrote:
| We managed to travel to Berlin, west London suburbs, and
| Strasbourg in early-mid December. The temperature was never
| more than a few degrees above freezing, and often well below,
| in each of those places, for just shy of 2 solid weeks. It was
| pretty amusing to go through that and then be hearing reports
| all winter about what a warm winter Europe was having :)
|
| Equally shocking was seeing the gas meter showing GBP15+ per
| day to heat a rowhouse to what was still an incredibly cold
| indoor temperature (14-15C) and drafty).
|
| Next time we travel, we'll choose dates better.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Not some of the heat, all of the heat save for what your body
| generates and such was from neighbors. In most reasonably
| managed apartment buildings what you did is forbidden because
| it means your neighbors just have to heat more since their
| walls will leak heat to you. In total it rarely ends up being
| an energy save because the losses are bigger this way than if
| everyone kept a uniform temperature.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| For whatever reason, I'm in the same situation, but in a
| relatively modern building where the hallways are warmed and
| slightly positively-pressurized for fire/smoke mitigation, so
| there's a constant slight heat source coming in from the
| hallways. Combine that with good insulation, some base loads
| and southern exposure and we go all winter running the hvac
| for just a few hours.
|
| It would be too hot if we ran the heat.
|
| This is in Toronto where it'll average a bit colder than
| continental Europe.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| >In total it rarely ends up being an energy save because the
| losses are bigger this way than if everyone kept a uniform
| temperature.
|
| I really don't see how that can be possible except for some
| rare cases
| lostlogin wrote:
| > what you did is forbidden
|
| In law? Tenancy agreement?
| mrloop wrote:
| I generally have my heating at 18, anything more I am opening
| windows or taking off my jumper. 20 degrees would be too hot
| for me, if I lived in an apartment that mandated 20 degress
| heating at all time I wouldn't be happy about it.
| bitL wrote:
| My apartment mandates 23C in most rooms, 25C in one. Also,
| once you hit 16C, you get rapidly growing mold everywhere
| due to increase in humidity compensating lower temperature.
| hax0rbana wrote:
| I don't know what you apartment mandates, but the rest of
| the post is simply not true.
|
| We keep our heat at 16degC during the day, 15degC at
| night. We don't have any mold issues.
|
| Furthermore, humidity drops with temperature, as cooler
| air can't hold as much moisture as warm air.
| dymk wrote:
| Your apartment mandates rooms stay at least 73.4 degrees
| F? 77 in another? I'd be wearing a tanktop indoors at all
| times. I'm having a very hard time believing this is
| true.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| isn't insulation a thing anymore?
|
| I don't actually understand the "illegal" argument.
|
| Illegal in what way?
| dymk wrote:
| What you call a reasonably managed apartment, I call an
| apartment woefully built without reasonable insulation
| between dwellings. If I leave for the winter, why should I
| pay to heat a space I won't be in?
| mgfist wrote:
| The added cost of the extra insulation likely outweighs the
| cost of you heating the apartment when you're not there.
| dymk wrote:
| It can't be both ways. Either the home is sucking up
| enough heat from the neighboring units to be significant,
| and so it warrants insulation, or it's not, in which case
| why would management care about something so tiny?
|
| Insulation is the first thing you do to improve the
| thermal characteristics of a home. It's not expensive.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Because a subgroup of people got together and decided their
| interests are more important than everyone's individual
| interests.
| krzyk wrote:
| Normally apartments are built for living in them, and
| majority of dwellers don't leave it for more than vacations
| and holidays.
|
| Having thick isolation between apartments is a waste of
| resources in most cases - better to put on the whole
| building.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| So people in the UK aren't allowed to lower their temps
| when they leave for vacation? Am I really supposed to
| believe this? I guess you'll tell me you need a license
| to watch TV next.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Never heard of such restrictions in the UK.
|
| I used to live in a flat where we never turned the heating on
| at all. It got so warm we had to open windows even in winter.
| If my neighbors were responsible, I wish they would have
| turned their heating down!
| usefulcat wrote:
| > Not some of the heat, all of the heat save for what your
| body generates and such was from neighbors.
|
| Also cooking, refrigeration, lighting, electronics..
| ericpauley wrote:
| > In total it rarely ends up being an energy save because the
| losses are bigger this way than if everyone kept a uniform
| temperature.
|
| Really? GP is effectively acting as an apartment-size layer
| of insulation between neighbors and the outside. Put another
| way, if everyone did what GP did (for instance, lower
| thermostat to 20C) the entire building would be cooler and
| use less energy. Perhaps GP's behavior even encouraged others
| to lower their thermostat because of higher electric bills!
| alex_young wrote:
| 20 C == 68 F.
|
| Is that considered a low temp for heating your house? I
| think that's about a perfect daytime temp summer or winter.
| At night that would be too warm honestly.
| dymk wrote:
| Keeping my home at 68 degrees in the winter at all times
| would be > $300/month, and would be an insane minimum to
| enforce.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Apples and oranges, depending on where you live it can be
| anywhere between insanely expensive and practically free
| to keep your house at that temperature.
| gambiting wrote:
| That's why in a lot of apartment buildings the heating bills
| are actually averaged between flats - so one person using
| nothing will not make their bill drop to zero.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It's usually because the hassle and account fees from
| submetering doesn't make up for the conservation it
| encourages.
|
| It's a huge waste of money in smaller residential units
| where people don't have a garden or car to wash. And
| sometimes not even responsible for their plumbing or
| appliance choice/efficiency/maintenance.
|
| Paying $x/month in account fees and meter reading means
| someone else burns some other resource while you work to
| conserve (if one even bothers).
| Tarsul wrote:
| Well done! As someone in an appartement I also only used about
| a third of the heating in 2022 that I used in 2021. I only say
| this because SAVING energy (and thus CO2) can be quite
| significant and this has to be known and published more. IMO we
| have to do it to save the planet (harsh words but imo true).
|
| For the ones who say that this is freeloading on the neighbors:
| not so much since at least in Germany one pays his own but also
| proportionally for the whole building (e.g. 50/50 or 70/30).
| _Wintermute wrote:
| I never turned the heating on either, though sadly I'm in a
| drafty Victorian London flat so the temperature dropped to
| 9degC at one point. The dehumidifier likely saved the day.
| bitL wrote:
| You were basically freeloading on your neighbors; there is no
| way you'd keep 20C inside without any heating source. Without
| your neighbors footing the bill you'd have ended up with
| massive hard-to-get-rid-of mold patches near windows by spring.
| tzs wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd call it freeloading.
|
| If he shut off his heat counting on neighbor heat to keep him
| warm, then maybe it would be freeloading.
|
| But if his heating system was on and he set the thermostat to
| 20, which is in the normal indoor temperature range according
| to most sources I've seen, and it just happened to never turn
| on because his neighbors set theirs to higher I wouldn't
| consider that to be freeloading.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Modern insulation is _very_ effective. I could see 10cm of
| insulation preventing basically all heat loss if there are
| few windows and those they have are triple-pane low-E coated.
| They get radiant heating from the sun as well, so if you 're
| losing almost no energy then you're basically a greenhouse.
| hax0rbana wrote:
| This is true. It appears some people are not familiar with
| the idea of passive heating and cooling or zero energy
| homes.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-
| home...
| Hamuko wrote:
| It was reported that the total electricity consumption in Finland
| was 6% lower in 2022 when compared to 2021. December 2022 had 10%
| lower total electricity usage than December 2021.
|
| https://yle.fi/a/74-20012582
| kamakazizuru wrote:
| I'd be curious to see how much of this was simply replaced by
| coal.
| s1k3s wrote:
| It was a mild winter. Source: I live here.
| gpuhacker wrote:
| I live in the Netherlands. My own gas usage was 25% lower in 2022
| compared to the average over 2019-2021. We didn't do anything
| drastic to reduce gas usage. The first 3 months of 2023 were
| somewhat colder with gas usage is much closer to Spring 2021 and
| nowhere near as low as Spring 2022. I wonder how accurate the
| model used in this article is. The article isn't very clear on
| what kind of temperature values are used as input to this model.
| Is it daily mean? Hourly? I can imagine that you want to somehow
| factor in the diurnal cycle which would be obscured by daily
| means.
| maherbeg wrote:
| What's the insulation and air sealing opportunity like in Europe?
| I wonder how much of a permanent reduction can be done with
| retrofits for places that haven't had them done yet.
| zokier wrote:
| EU is and has been actively driving improvements on building
| energy efficiency:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Performance_of_Building...
| bluGill wrote:
| There is a lot of opportunity, though I'm not sure how much is
| possible. Some old historical buildings are very hard to make
| better, and the law may not even allow the required
| renovations.
|
| However Europe is a large place. Some places are much better
| than others. Some people live in a "passive house" already and
| so have no opportunity - or need - to do better, while others
| live in a house that may as well be a tent for as bad as it
| leaks. There are places where almost every house is well
| insulated and so people living there think all of Europe is in
| great shape, meanwhile the next country can be in terrible
| shape.
| lm28469 wrote:
| No shit, my electricity bill doubled while my consumption
| decreased (Germany)
|
| People can't afford to heat their home, small businesses can't
| afford to operate (bakers are a good exemple), so they just don't
| do it = lower energy consumption
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Energy prices over winter were high enough that I started
| reducing room temperature to 15 degree Celsius whenever I
| expected not to be home (or using a particular room) for at least
| two days.
|
| I also mostly showered in gyms, like 4 out of 5 occassions.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Why would you heat your home at all if you're not going to be
| home for over two days?
| basisword wrote:
| If you don't heat your home for a while, and it's cold
| enough, the pipes can freeze, break, and flood your home.
| It's happened to more than a couple of people I know and
| they're in the UK - so it doesn't need to get very cold for
| it to happen.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This, plus I don't want to return to a completely cold
| house that takes about three days to heat up to 20 degrees
| Celsius again. The building is built of bricks, it has a
| certain thermal mass and the floor heating isn't very
| powerful. Letting the inner temperature to drop close to
| zero would mean a very uncomfortable period after return.
|
| I was never absent for more than 5 days anyway, so...
| yread wrote:
| In addition to other replies you want to keep the relative
| humidity <60% otherwise you get condensation (your 20C air,
| 40% relative humidity gets cooled to 15C and that becomes 55%
| relative humidity, cool it to 10C and it becomes 75%).
| Condensation can cause mold, short circuits and all kinds of
| other expensive problems.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Getting humidity under 50 per cent in a freshly built house
| over the winter ... turned out just impossible.
|
| We fought hard to keep it at least under 60 per cent, as
| you say. If it froze outside, windows in the bedroom would
| be covered with water droplets in the morning.
|
| (Actually, it froze last night, quite late in the season,
| and the windows were wet again.)
| suresk wrote:
| Letting it get too cold could lead to plumbing damage if you
| parts of your house get below freezing. 15C is probably
| higher than I'd leave it if it were vacant, but you do want
| to leave the heat on and a decent buffer to account for
| temperature variations in other parts of the house.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I discussed the temperature with the guy who oversaw the
| construction and he told me that, given that the house is
| still pretty fresh and moist (it was finished in November
| '22), lower temperatures would mean a risk of mould
| developing. 15-16 is the sweet spot according to him.
| suresk wrote:
| That's a good point - where I live it is pretty dry, but
| in a more humid area you definitely want air moving
| around more too.
| jdmichal wrote:
| In addition to other replies, in hot and humid climates, you
| still want the A/C running for de-humidification purposes. So
| you set it high instead of turning it off completely.
| zokier wrote:
| The article does not support the title; gas is only one slice of
| the whole energy consumption pie. Would have been interesting to
| see at least some analysis of total energy consumption so that we
| could have seen how much of this was now actual reductions vs
| shifting to other forms of energy
| Scoundreller wrote:
| You'd have to amplify the effects since nat gas is usually
| where your marginal capacity comes from.
|
| For electricity, it's the last to get turned on and first to
| turn off.
|
| And I don't imagine a quick change to non-natgas building
| heating except for those that have existing dual-fuel (e.g.
| using the wood stove for once). Unsure if oil heat became
| cheaper than natgas but that's unusual.
|
| But the whole equation is even more complicated. Did Europe
| import more ammonium fertilizer instead of making it itself?
| Then that's just pushing the energy consumption elsewhere. Same
| for glassmaking, aluminum smelting, etc.
| gnat wrote:
| https://archive.is/Gc8FF
| swamp40 wrote:
| Title should be _" Mother Nature drastically cuts Europe's energy
| consumption this winter."_
|
| Warmest winter in a long time. Very lucky.
| pphysch wrote:
| > Russia used to supply 40-50% of the eu's natural-gas imports--a
| reliance that meant Mr Putin's war on his neighbour wreaked havoc
| on energy markets.
|
| It is fascinating how the tone of elite journalism has regressed
| to early 20th century "yellow journalism" standards over the past
| couple decades, partly due to economic upheavals in the industry.
|
| Technically speaking, "Mr Putin's war" didn't wreck energy
| markets any more than "Mr Bush's" or "Mr Obama's" invasions of
| energy-rich regions did. A lot of gas flowed through Ukraine, but
| also other routes. Russia remained a stable producer. It was the
| Western _reaction_ , i.e. sanctions & sabotage, that did the real
| damage. An important technicality.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| You're being downvoted, I can understand why, but there's some
| truth that must be addressed before deeming your comment
| completely bogus.
|
| Gerhard Schroder, former German chancellor, was a big advocate
| for the Nord Stream pipeline and then was appointed in the
| board of Gazprom, the sole (Russian) shareholder of the
| aforementioned stream.
|
| Germany paid the highest price when Russian gas was cut off and
| the government, led by a coalition that includes the Green
| party (die Grune), had to open new coal mines.
|
| Something was obviously wrong in our (the EU) energy policies.
| pphysch wrote:
| What is "wrong" about Germany buying cheap energy from a
| willing local producer, and profiting enormously from it?
|
| In Washington's fever dream, where it is "right" that Germany
| should instead buy expensive energy that is _shipped across
| the Atlantic_ and lose its industrial advantage as as result.
|
| It is totally, comically absurd. Untethered from reality.
| bluGill wrote:
| Because we now have 20/20 hindsight that Russia is an evil
| actor and would not reform. Therefore Germany should have
| spent the previous 10 years getting off Russian gas (leave
| nuclear power plants open is one obvious example)
| pphysch wrote:
| If your geopolitical thesis includes the word "evil" you
| need to work harder on it. That word is meant for
| children's books. The real world is complex.
| [deleted]
| lostlogin wrote:
| How would you describe Putin and Russian foreign policy?
| Bonus points for capturing it in one word.
| pphysch wrote:
| Self-interested.
|
| Like every other (sovereign) state.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Not bad - but it's a very accommodating description for
| actions which are unlike the behaviour of other states in
| recent times.
|
| Self-interest also implies that it works for Russia. It
| very clearly hasn't, and could undo the regime.
|
| The level of violence and aggression is like some
| mid/late 20th century empire building BS.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| Not because of evilness though, but because it would make
| you look bad in hindsight.
|
| An experienced politician should know better.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| What is obviously wrong is that when Schroeder was
| appointed as the president of the board of Gazprom, Putin
| had already invaded Crimea.
|
| For example...
|
| edit: I'm not claiming Washington is better than Germany,
| I'm from Italy, we are still paying the price for both.
|
| My claim is that EU policies were wrong because each
| country was playing its own game.
| pphysch wrote:
| EU has problems because of massive foreign influence
| (mainly Washington), not because individual participant
| states promote their own interests, as they should.
|
| It's hard enough to maintain a federation of neighbor
| states. It's impossible to do that while also catering to
| the whims of a distant superpower.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| Could be, not wanna open that discussion, but teaming
| with Putin (Gazprom equals Putin) it's not the smartest
| of moves, especially if you are a former influential
| European politician.
|
| Let's put it this way: there were (are) plans on every
| desk of every Prime Minister or President in Europe that
| say "we could let Putin take Ukraine and avoid a conflict
| that could harm us all".
| pphysch wrote:
| I fail to see what is wrong about maintaining the spirit
| of the Budapest Memorandum. Since the events of 2014, it
| can't be totally restored, but the spirit can be
| reimplemented (by Minsk, etc). It seems that many
| thoughtful EU statesmen, like Schroder, believe that.
| boo-ga-ga wrote:
| The sanctions were a reaction to the Russia's genocidal war.
| Late reaction, as it should have happened in 2014 or even in
| 1999, but it's better than nothing. So, yes, the putin's war
| has wrecked the energy markets in Europe. And many many peoples
| lives as well unfortunately.
| pphysch wrote:
| Is it a good or bad result that no one was around at the
| start of the 21st century to punish Washington's "genocidal"
| wars in West Asia and Northern Africa?
| boo-ga-ga wrote:
| I don't think these wars were genocidal, but indeed they
| were terrible in consequences. It's bad that no one was
| around to stop them.
| pphysch wrote:
| You're right, "genocidal" only applies iff the subject is
| an official enemy of Washington DC.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Another way of achieving that moniker is raping and
| murdering your way across a country, taking the children
| and killing the rest while erasing cultural symbols and
| monuments.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Whataboutism doesn't get us anywhere. It's possible to
| state that one is against something without specifying all
| the other things one opposes.
| postsantum wrote:
| >Whataboutism doesn't get us anywhere
|
| Just like double standards and shutting down questions
| with that whataboutism duckspeak
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's bad that no one was around at the start of the 21st
| century to punish Washington's wars in West Asia and
| Northern Africa.
|
| Not sure what I was shutting down. Where to now?
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's also caused an incredible number of Russian deaths, and
| at some point that's going to be a problem in Russia.
|
| All round it's an absolutely incredible waste.
| makomk wrote:
| No, Russia did not remain a stable producer and it wasn't the
| West's "sanctions and sabotage" that did the real damage.
| Russia turned off the taps, plain and simple - in fact they
| started turning down exports and draining Europe's gas storage
| the autumn before. In some cases they may have made excuses
| about how sanctions meant they couldn't get the parts to
| operate their gas pipelines, but those excuses were bullshit,
| loosening the sanctions to give them what they supposedly
| needed just caused them to give more and increasingly bogus
| reasons for not supplying gas, and often they didn't even
| bother with that.
| pphysch wrote:
| If Russia unilaterally wanted to stop production, then why
| did the West resort to sanctions, price caps, and sabotage?
| To aid Russian strategy?
|
| Your story makes no sense.
| bluGill wrote:
| Because Russia saw what was coming and Europe's efforts to
| mitigate sanctions that were coming but not yet in effect.
| Europe was trying to buy as much gas as they could before
| the sanctions went into place, so by stopping early Russia
| had a better change of the sanctions hurting Europe enough
| that they stopped them.
|
| Between the warm winter and the other mitigations Europe
| did there was no problem and Europe didn't hurt too much,
| but that was the goal.
| pphysch wrote:
| Ah, so Russia's limited production decreases were a
| _reaction_ to sanctions.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Pipeline deliveries from Russia declined by 25% year-on-year
| in Q4 2021. This decrease in Russian pipeline supply to the EU
| became more pronounced in the first seven weeks of 2022,
| falling by 37% year-on-year. The last pipeline deliveries to
| Germany via the YAMAL pipeline (which goes through Belarus)
| were on 20 December 2021. Gas flows via Ukraine to Slovakia
| have fallen from an average of over 80 mcm /d in December to
| just 36 mcm/d in the first seven weeks of 2022._
|
| https://www.iea.org/reports/russian-supplies-to-global-energ...
| eynsham wrote:
| This is an absurd nitpick. First, nobody would read the claim
| as a literal one that Putin blew up the relevant gas
| infrastructure, especially since the background assumptions to
| the Western reaction include one that Putin would be willing to
| continue selling. If he weren't there'd be no debate on energy
| sanctions. Also gas continues to flow through Ukraine as any
| fule kno.
|
| Second, a further 'important technicality' is that even if the
| West (quite correctly) blew up Nord Stream II, it wasn't in
| use, so its destruction didn't disturb energy flows.
|
| Third, Western interventions would also be described as
| 'wreaking havoc', so this isn't the gotcha proving Western
| hypocrisy you think it is. And even if it were, the answer is
| to consistently oppose, not acquiesce, to imperialist
| aggression; many people are capable of opposing more than one
| thing.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > It was the Western reaction, i.e. sanctions & sabotage, that
| did the real damage.
|
| There is an actual death toll and very real crimes have been
| committed. Your 'comparing and contrasting' needs a bit more
| thought if you think the consequences equal.
| pphysch wrote:
| I'll break it down:
|
| Russia is primarily responsible for causing death in Ukraine,
| closely followed by the other material participants, due to
| its _choice_ to destroy Ukraine 's military.
|
| The West is primarily responsible for "wreaking havoc" in
| energy markets, due to its _choice_ to destroy Russia 's
| economy (failed).
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Russia is primarily responsible for causing death in
| Ukraine, closely followed by the other material
| participants, due to its choice to destroy Ukraine's
| military.
|
| That isn't the aim though, why are so many attacks targeted
| at civilians and civilian infrastructure? This isn't about
| destroying their military, it's about destroying Ukrainians
| and their country.
| pphysch wrote:
| > why are so many attacks targeted at civilians and
| civilian infrastructure?
|
| This simply isn't happening. The better question is why
| didn't Putin flatten Kiev on day 1, or any day hence,
| since his goal is "obviously" to kill as many Ukrainians
| as possible? Washington showed it was possible in
| Baghdad.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > This simply isn't happening.
|
| It's hard to believe you are arguing in good faith with
| claims like this, and it's trivial to find examples of
| attacks on civilians.
|
| The Putin regime would counter with something like 'but
| genocide in the Donbas region', as though that (dubious)
| claim would make it ok.
| bluGill wrote:
| Russia's economy is in very bad shape. They can pretend
| otherwise, but the west is hurting them. It isn't as
| obvious as the results of military action, but it still
| hurts.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| >Russia remained a stable producer. It was the Western
| reaction, i.e. sanctions & sabotage, that did the real damage.
|
| _What_ sanctions? Russian gas was basically the only thing the
| EU wouldn 't touch. _Gazprom_ was the one that pulled the plug.
| The closest we got was refusing to insure oil tankers if Russia
| sells over $40 /bbl, and that was months after Russia cut off
| European gas.
| pphysch wrote:
| > _What_ sanctions?
|
| Sanctions on Nord Stream AG, for starters.
|
| Price caps are also a soft form of sanctions (you can't buy
| this _unless_ you grossly underpay).
| boomskats wrote:
| I'd say it's beyond fascinating. Maybe it was fascinating to
| start with, but we're knee-deep into just tragic now.
|
| The falling number of people who actually notice or pay
| attention to that tone is just as tragic.
| boomskats wrote:
| I know this is hyperbole, but at least in Britain's case, the
| fact that so many people had to choose between heating their
| homes or feeding their kids really isn't something to celebrate.
| Let's not pretend this was some kind of collective decision or
| green victory.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| In what way did people have to make this choice? I take your
| point I'm just not familiar with how people we're actually
| affected.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| For every percent that utility prices go up (or really: non-
| optional bills), A larger and larger slice of people simply
| cannot make it work and have to sacrifice something.
|
| There's an important point: how much of this was non-optional
| vs. luxury? I keep my home at 22, but if I had to, I could
| probably set it to 19 and tell everyone to wear a sweater in
| the winter. So not everyone, but definitely some slice of the
| population probably went from 19 to 16 or lower.
|
| In Canada this can be a serious issue. My gas bill literally
| doubled for the same volume compared to last winter. This can
| be a sudden $100-200 extra monthly expense. Luckily it's
| illegal to ever cut anyone off from gas in the winter... but
| that doesn't fix the financial catastrophe.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Wait, you are not wearing a sweater inside during winter?
|
| 19 is like, the temperature we set during off-peak hours,
| otherwise it's more like 18 (and we let it coast down
| during the evening).
|
| Admittedly, it's quite cold when not moving around, so I
| spent most of the winter with at least 3 sweaters, a hot
| water bottle, and a blanket (and 2 layers of pants,
| usually).
|
| When moving around, 17-18 is quite comfortable though, a
| long sleeved shirt or light sweater is usually enough.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Wait, you are not wearing a sweater inside during
| winter?
|
| He's Canadian. Over there electricity costs 0.044 EUR /
| kWh
|
| https://www.hydroquebec.com/residential/customer-
| space/rates...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| My monthly gas bill was $350 in January. It's a luxury I
| enjoy given how pedantic my dad was about the thermostat.
|
| Also my hydro is closer to 9 cents.
| onion2k wrote:
| The price of energy went up _and_ the price of food went up,
| so people who don 't have much money had to choose one or the
| other.
| gambiting wrote:
| Electricity prices have literally tripled or quadrupled for
| some people - and for poor people the effect was even worse
| because the poorest groups are on prepayment meters which are
| on the most expensive tariffs of all.
|
| So yes, there were people for whom the choice was "well I
| have PS5 for today, either it's going in the meter so I can
| put heating on for a few hours and stay warm, or I need to
| use it to buy food to feed my family". This isn't some
| theoretical edge case scenario - this was a dilemma that many
| British families were faced with this winter.
| youngtaff wrote:
| What's worse is they still get charged the standing charge
| so if the meter has been empty for days, then adding credit
| to it may just get swallowed up by paying the standing
| charge due for those days
| kvdveer wrote:
| > Let's not pretend this was some kind of collective decision
| or green victory.
|
| It wasn't just that, but there definitely was a collective
| shift toward energy saving, also among those who could've
| afforded the high energy prices. (at least here in NL)
|
| I agree we shouldn't celebrate the decision of the poor to be
| energy-frugal, they had no choice in most cases. But those wo
| had a choice, still chose to conserve energy, often
| structurally. We should celebrate that for the environmental
| win it is.
| boomskats wrote:
| > But those wo had a choice, still chose to conserve energy,
| often structurally. We should celebrate that for the
| environmental win it is.
|
| This is interesting. Can you point to the data on this? Do
| you guys run some kind of tracker study?
| gambiting wrote:
| Well, in a weird way it does make sense though. As a different
| example, if you want to cut fuel consumption nationally just
| double the prices - you will see how much less fuel people will
| use because they will just drive less. Will it impact poor
| people disproportionately? Ensure that some people won't be
| able to go shopping or to see a doctor? You bet. But the
| overall green goal will be achieved - the problem isn't the
| increase in prices(as such), it's the fact that the social
| safety net wasn't there to help those truly in need. No one in
| this country should have been choosing between heating or
| feeding their families - but I know people were.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > Will it impact poor people disproportionately? You bet.
|
| Sane countries roll out a mini-UBI to account for this.
|
| Canada has a system of quarterly payments for every tax payer
| to make carbon taxes revenue-neutral (in theory). The belly-
| aching whining is truly extraordinary.
|
| https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-
| famil...
|
| Now, if we could convince the government that cutting labour
| taxes would increase supply of labour during a "labour
| shortage", we might be getting somewhere.
| pseudo0 wrote:
| It isn't UBI and it isn't revenue neutral. It's a revenue-
| generating tax that makes most families poorer.
|
| > "When both fiscal and economic impacts of the federal
| fuel charge are considered, we estimate that most
| households will see a net loss," PBO Yves Giroux said in a
| statement following release of the report. "Based on our
| analysis, most households will pay more in fuel charges and
| GST--as well as receiving slightly lower incomes--than they
| will receive in Climate Action Incentive payments."
|
| https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/guilbeault-defends-carbon-
| pr...
|
| > In provinces where the fee is levied, 90% of the revenues
| are returned to tax-payers.[4]
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Canada
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Which means the grants should be increased. But for some
| reason you'll mostly hear from the anti-carbon-tax lobby.
|
| But if you want to see who's truly a net winner or loser,
| if the rich lose more than the poor lose, the poor are
| still be better off if they're net recipients of
| government services.
| iamthemonster wrote:
| Your quote is referring to modelling from 2030 when the
| carbon tax rises to $170/tCO2e. That's a reasonably high
| carbon tax and I'm not surprised that it would be costing
| households on average. It would be much cheaper to just
| burn fossil fuels unabated, but only if your modelling
| doesn't include a dollar figure on the negative
| externalities of CO2 emissions.
| malermeister wrote:
| Brexit, on the other hand, which is the root cause of a lot of
| economic hardship in the UK, _was_ a collective decision.
| youngtaff wrote:
| Only a collective decision for 52% of those who voted... an
| there were many people e.g. EU citizens living in the UK who
| were allowed to vote
| dangwhy wrote:
| They need charge for electricity based on income like tax
| rates. Flat rate model doesn't make any sense.
| dijit wrote:
| Britain is a special case unfortunately. While energy costs
| going up will have an impact on everyones bottom line, if they
| are already so close to the edge then any price increase in
| anything essential is going to force people into those
| positions. People are already cutting all non-essentials, there
| is no more financial slack and it doesn't matter which
| essential thing is going up: housing, food or energy.
|
| The only reason I would even suggest that higher energy prices
| are _good_ for ecology would be that businesses started
| genuinely doing things to cut consumption, like turning off lit
| advertising and office lights.
|
| That people are essentially priced out of living healthy is
| nothing to be celebrated of course, but there is a small silver
| lining and it should be discussed.
|
| that people cant afford to live is a pretty massive failing of
| the UK and its policies. That's been talked to death though.
| nasmorn wrote:
| The weird thing is Britain is not that cold. Insulation is
| often atrocious though.
| nradov wrote:
| There was a highly publicized case in the UK where an elderly
| woman rode the bus all day to stay warm because she couldn't
| afford to heat her home.
|
| https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-living-utterly-shameful-t...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Does the UK not have people riding the $PublicTransit all day
| because they don't have a home?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Because it was (and still is) very expensive and we were cold.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Still is? The going rate for electricity here is 70.10 EUR/MWh
| and the peak figure for today was 118.10 EUR/MWh. So that's
| 7-12 cents per kWh. That's not what I'd consider "very
| expensive".
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Yes, still is. Prices for individuals have not decreased yet
| here in the UK, probably because they were capped to start
| with, and the government's direct subsidies have just ended.
|
| I have just paid my monthly bill to the end of March and it
| still came to PS230 for electricity + gas. That's for a
| period when use of heating had started to drop because of
| spring in addition to our self-imposed restrictions because
| of high prices.
| mantas wrote:
| And winter was mild.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Overall yes, which obviously helped, but here (Southern
| England) it dipped to the coldest in about 10 years during a
| few days/nights.
| ragebol wrote:
| Sure was expensive. Prices for gas are coming down luckily. We
| put our thermostat at 17degC and wore an extra sweater, had a
| fluffy blanket during WFH. After a year long wait, we finally
| got the heat pump installed last week.
|
| Too late to help with the winter and to take the worst of the
| gas prices, but better overall.
|
| Can't self-generate gas, electricity at least a bit even in
| winter.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > Can't self-generate gas
|
| Oh, you can! But maybe only enough for cooking (when it's
| warm enough in your reactor) not residential heating.
|
| https://www.up-to-us.veolia.com/en/energy/produce-biogas-
| hom...
| ragebol wrote:
| Fair enough, not enough gas can be self-produced. But then
| again, neither can I currently generate enough electricity.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Europe drastically cut its energy consumption this winter
|
| This "winter" was not really a winter. And nobody did any energy
| cut.
|
| Why not do propaganda when you can.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| The goal should not be to make grandmas bundle up and be cold in
| their houses. That's a reduction in standard of living. We need
| to decrease the cost of energy while making more of it. Cheering
| that less energy was used is like cheering that we went backwards
| in human development - some people wish we go back to living in
| huts, but I'm not one of them.
| MoSattler wrote:
| So things like better insulation is a step backwards in
| development then?
| monero-xmr wrote:
| That is efficiency gains. But merely cheering that less
| energy is generated is incorrect. Standard of living heavily
| correlated to total power generated. We should generate more
| energy, cleaner for sure, but having to bundle up is
| terrible. We should all be warm and comfortable - that is
| called "standard of living".
| ipqk wrote:
| Less energy use doesn't have to mean "grandmas bundle up and be
| cold in their houses". There's many levels of in-between that
| and current usage.
| lostlogin wrote:
| In addition to your other replies, you can get more with less.
| Eg a heat pump versus a furnace.
|
| Using more energy is a a pretty terrible goal.
| uoaei wrote:
| On the contrary, maybe it's time to acknowledge that some
| economies may have over-extended in their promises about what
| standards of living we can come to expect.
|
| Rich western countries still depend heavily on other parts of
| the world being cheap. The last 100 years were the result of
| the riches extracted from previous centuries of plunder and
| occupation, and the rush to modernize after the largest
| government spending projects in history (WWs I and II) induced
| an unsustainable march toward technological "progress" that
| could not continue without some later shock and consequent
| regression due to the inevitabilities (some refer to them
| merely as externalities) borne of dependence on finite
| resources. We are currently living through that shock.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| No, that's the nocive and ridiculous ideology that is
| destroying Europe.
|
| The issues the continent has been facing are purely due to
| inept policy. There is no problem with producing enough low
| emission/zero emission energy to maintain living standards.
|
| Now, globally living standards _have_ to drastically
| _increase_ to get rid of poverty. That means drastic increase
| in consumption as well. The problem that noone is keen to
| acknowledge is the global population level.
| ChoHag wrote:
| [dead]
| gnat wrote:
| Interesting to see The Economist doing modeling. Curious that
| they see no problem in it being utterly unauditable. Unlike a
| research paper that would cite specific datasets and model
| parameters, this is just "here are some numbers we're taking as
| true because model". They don't even appear to have done any
| validation on their model (holding back a few years from the
| training set to see how well it predicted them).
|
| > We trained our model to predict the daily average gas demand
| per person for 26 countries (Britain and all EU member states
| except Malta and Cyprus, which use little or no gas), for each
| winter month between January 2013 and February 2022. After the
| model had learned the relationship between temperatures and gas
| demand, we gave it real temperatures from this winter and asked
| it to predict how gas usage might have played out had Russia not
| sparked an energy crisis.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yeah, they've had a few swings & misses already with their
| modeling.
|
| They released some model around estimated covid deaths that was
| just completely wrong around China for the time.
| dsaavy wrote:
| Welcome to the majority of "journalism". All it takes is a look
| one or two levels down into the "facts" presented to realize
| they're wildly and poorly extrapolated to fit a narrative by
| whoever is paying the bills.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _Welcome to the majority of "journalism"._
|
| welcome to the majority of "modeling".
|
| tuning a model to a statistical sample of the past doesn't
| give as much assurance about it's predictive power as people
| think.
|
| then, only in the future do we find that the model failed to
| predict, by which time they tell us, "yeah, but we have a new
| model", to which the only appropriate answer is "yeah, but
| you had the same certainty about your old model _that did not
| work_ "
|
| I'm not saying that there's no point in modelling: you learn
| a lot about the dynamics of the system when you are working
| on the model; but that's not what the resultant model
| conveys.
| contingencies wrote:
| Sounds like a reasonable point at which to defer to the
| internet's pithiest meditation on communicative
| subjectivity. https://youtu.be/QsogswrH6ck?t=3
| MoSattler wrote:
| https://github.com/orgs/TheEconomist/repositories
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I can't tell if this is facetious or not.
| theteapot wrote:
| Looks like they are effusively talking about a linear
| regression "model". We did those in high school. You can
| basically look at the graph or points and fit line to audit it.
| baq wrote:
| Rentech also does linear regressions. They have phds picking
| and preparing dimensions though.
| alephnerd wrote:
| They'll push it on Github shortly. They have a fairly active
| and open Github -
| https://github.com/orgs/TheEconomist/repositories
| gumby wrote:
| At least they were explicit about it.
| runarberg wrote:
| Interesting indeed. Isn't a machine learning model kind of an
| overkill for this kind of data analysis? Wouldn't linear
| regressions suffice in this instance? Don't you risk
| introducing unknown biases or even overfitting by using such a
| powerful technique when a simpler one is available?
|
| This kind of reminds me of when some journalist on twitter used
| machine learning to find hate-speech against British
| politician. Of course the journalist found exactly what they
| were looking for. There was more hate speech against
| conservatives... Of course, the journalist was only an amateur
| in statistics, and used a flawed model, that could have yielded
| anything they wanted
|
| disclaimer: I didn't read the article because paywall, and
| waiting for an archive to be posted.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Do you have a link to the research that found conservatives
| were targeted with hate speech more frequently?
| suralind wrote:
| Somehow I don't see this, I thought that here in Poland they
| would react by e.g. disabling lights in storefronts where these
| are closed, or turn of lights in places which are not visited at
| night, or just turn off billboard lights to save even tiniest
| bits of energy. Nope, none of that happened. Instead the
| electricity costs skyrocketed.
| tpmx wrote:
| I cut my energy (electricity) consumption during this winter by
| about 40% compared to previous years with an investment of 4.5k
| EUR last summer including installation; I think I got a good
| deal. That got me:
|
| - Two very efficient and quiet Mitsubishi Electric "nordic
| climate" version air-to-air heat pumps (MSZ-LN35 and MSZ-LN25)
| replacing 20 year old much less efficient equivalents - those
| couldn't really keep up, so additional resistive heating was
| necessary before the upgrade.
|
| - One very affordable and relatively noisy Chinese noname air-to-
| air heat pump replacing resistive 10C maintenance heating in a
| side area.
|
| I ended up having a higher indoor average temperature in the
| house than in previous years.
|
| (I'm in Sweden.)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Was 4,5k EUR excluding VAT subsidies or other credits?
| tpmx wrote:
| There is a general 30% tax deduction (up to a limit;
| coincidentally also about 4.5k EUR/yr/person) on craftsman
| work that takes place in a home that you own; this applies to
| the installation work. This deduction was about 500 EUR in
| total.
|
| I would have paid 5k EUR without this tax deduction.
|
| The installer handles the accounting/tax agency reporting -
| so the invoice was for 4.5k EUR, not 5k.
| Gys wrote:
| > In absolute terms, the Netherlands, Britain and Germany cut
| back by the most
|
| > Much of this was because of rising costs. [..] Britain, Germany
| and the Netherlands were among the most affected.
|
| Pricing of goods clearly has a strong relation with usage.
| paganel wrote:
| That's what you get when you do stuff like this [1]:
|
| > Half of European ammonia production plant closed
|
| > Spiralling gas prices have caused a decline in European ammonia
| production, thereby aggravating the shortage of fertilisers in
| Europe. CRU Group analysts estimate that around half of European
| ammonia production plant and 33% of nitrogen fertiliser plant has
| closed down as a result
|
| All this will, of course, be reflected in even higher prices for
| basic food stuff further down the road.
|
| [1]
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-00363...
| skybrian wrote:
| The long term effects seem harder to judge. Fertilizer imports
| likely increased. Some farmers likely started using fertilizer
| more effectively because higher prices encourage investment in
| efficiency improvements (reduced waste).
|
| Also, perhaps some factories will reopen.
| paganel wrote:
| > Fertilizer imports likely increased.
|
| Presumably at higher prices, otherwise the European plant
| fertiliser industry wouldn't have been in active the first
| place.
|
| > higher prices encourage investment in efficiency
| improvements
|
| As far as I can understand agribusiness is already highly
| efficient, not sure it can make up for a double-digit
| decrease in availability (or increase in prices) for one of
| its core inputs.
| cortic wrote:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-65173200
|
| https://metro.co.uk/2023/01/19/nearly-50-people-died-from-co...
|
| "..was this a result of sound government planning, or good luck?"
| Jesus, what a question.
| empiricus wrote:
| Interesting how important one degree is. In my home, if I set the
| thermostat to 23 degrees, I can comfortably stay in t-shirts, but
| at 22 degrees it is not comfortable. The cost/energy consumption
| between 22 and 23 is so small.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I find it interesting how all the sudden nobody bats an eye,
| whereas running up to autumn a lot of people were claiming Europe
| will freeze and there will be blackouts and rationing.
| bitL wrote:
| That's more likely for the next winter; this one was very mild
| and gas storage was filled to 90%+ in advance.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| We are _still_ at 60+. We'll absolutely be back at 90+%
| before next winter. And there will be a significant number of
| replaced heaters. On the other hand. This winter was
| exceptionally mild.
|
| But on balance. Next winter should be _significantly_ easier
| to deal with than last (or more likely: with less world-wide
| side effects)
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > And there will be a significant number of replaced
| heaters.
|
| Will there? On a global level, how much can heat pump
| production output go up in 12 months?
|
| Though I could see Europe bid up supply over others.
|
| Wood stoves I could see a quicker boost in production
| capacity.
| lostlogin wrote:
| What do you mean?
|
| It was unusually warm winter and alternative supplies were
| obtained. It was looking rough for a while there.
| wcoenen wrote:
| With the information we had at the time, blackouts and
| rationing were definitely in the cards. The price action on the
| TTF gas futures says it all.
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