Ukraine
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Level 101-03-22E.ON told the Rheinische Post it had rejected calls to shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. -
Level 2905-03-22
I wonder why?
I have heard on the grapevine in Twitter that approximately 15% of the Eon gas supply is from Nord Stream 1 my point being that approximately one seventh of the representative gas supply is not a large fraction of the pie.
It thus may not necessarily severely compromise Eon/Eon Next (if they did consider forsaking it) would it I wonder?
I believe that it is important on a point of principle to wean ourselves off Russian gas and oil or we will be funding an evil tyranny👹Eon Next Customer
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Level 9108-03-22The proportion of Russian gas going into the European market has been marginally reducing for the past 2/3 years, down from 45% to 35% approximately.. But while little Russian gas is in our energy mix, its a much more significant issue for the European market. And gas is used widely in industry besides residential use. While residential use will decline in the summer months, use by industry will need to continue. The market for Gas is global and perhaps the main reason for the recent spike in prices is demand from the rest of the world where countries are seeking to cut their use of coal and its associated high emissions, to transfer to Gas where emissions are probably half of coal. So while demand is increasing fast supply can't keep up. Drilling for gas is expensive and time consuming, gas for export often has to be liquified (needs big plants) and transported by special tankers - time needed to build more.
So its not an easy process to switch supply routes. It will take time to wean ourselves off of Russian gas. If we can Russia will need to find new markets for its gas and new pipelines and liquefaction plants to deliver it. Its expensive for us and even more expensive for the Russians.
Its possible that accepting a shutdown of both gas and oil imports from Russia now could destabilise Putin. But playing poker with a madman isn't a good idea. -
Level 619-03-22A few points...
The reason for that decision goes back to the late Cold War, before Germany's reunification. West Germany agreed mutually-beneficial gas imports from the USSR to promote 'detente' (peaceful coexistence) in Europe, but also co-operated with the US Reagan-government's arms-race approach in accepting US nuclear cruise missiles etc being based there. The USA and other NATO had combined carrot-and-stick approaches then, especially with Warsaw Pact Soviet-satellites like Poland... the USA sold low-price maize and wheat (that US farmers were subsidised to produce), despite that effectively being economic assistance to the Soviet bloc. Pre-Gorbachev, with Thatcher as PM the UK imported coal from Poland (and elsewhere) as it accelerated the shut-down of domestic coal-mining... imports that were really cheap, even if it was thanks to foreign miners living under a Communist-dictatorship, helped make British mines 'uneconomic'. When Solidarity was growing as an opposition and threat to the Communist government in Poland, a classic joke circulating was "Thatcher hates Unions, unless they're Polish"... they ultimately succeeded, but she'd been happy for British electricity bills to provide some money to the enemy.
Post-unification, that rationale remained for dealing with the Russian Federation after the USSR fragmented, with member-states like Ukraine becoming independent on top of East European countries becoming democracies highly-motivated to join the EU and/or NATO ASAP (like former right-wing dictatorships such as Spain had earlier). In addition, the political strength of Green/anti-nuclear opinion in Germany led to nuclear power being rejected as a kind of 'sustainable', non-fossil fuel generation... which helped make Russian gas becoming truly vital during its transition to carbon-neutral energy.
The result is that instantly shutting down Nord 1 would be an act of economic self-harm, exceeding that of Brexit (characterised as the first experiment in having a country with a globally-significant/relatively-large economy imposing sanctions on itself). Before this Russian invasion of/direct war against Ukraine the UK has imported a relatively small amount of Russian-produced gas on the basis of 'free-market' price/availability/convenience but nevertheless has its government only committing to phasing them out, not immediately banning them. It is entirely possible that that means an effective guarantee that the maximum amount allowed will occur if Russia cuts its price below the going global-market rate to retain foreign/hard-currency income... if the limits are applied in terms of GB£ value (say to minimise an addition to the current consumer price-hikes and/or raising the domestic price-cap before October) the volume imported could actually increase during the implementation of the policy.
In fact, shutting down Nord 1 from the Russian end is something Putin might use as a retaliation against the EU sanctions that Germany has agreed with every other EU member-state, making implementation and compliance with them binding under EU law and subject to oversight/scrutiny by the EU Parliament and Commision (unlike the UK's... subject only to the PM ensuring that they are enforced, as with anti-Covid rules).
Obviously, you're free to personally sanction Germany by switching from Eon, as an indirect sanction against Russia. But don't kid yourself that it will put an end to some of the money you pay for energy reaching Putin's regime to help fund his war of aggression.
To close a very much over-long and rather tedious post, I'll suggest that you (and anyone else considering that option) consider that Germany isn't just a NATO ally and undermining both that alliance and the EU is a big part of Putin's MO. But also directly and indirectly supporting and supplying Ukraine's population, government and military. For some reason that doesn't get as much coverage as the UK's in the media here, but I think you'll find it's also appreciated by Ukraine. Including by those of its population that have become refugees.
I can recognise that the impulse to do anything rather than nothing to oppose Putin's regime is entirely reasonable. I feel it myself. I just think that the rationale behind the action you've proposed doesn't make sense. If you want to switch for other reasons, fine. I'm no shill for Eon, I got assigned to them by Ofgem under the stupid, unnecessarily expensive system we have that is supposed to be all about consumer choice. Personally, I'd be happy if it was made into a customer-owned, not-for-profit operation... or the whole 'supplier' rigmarole was just eliminated through nationalisation... or something in between. -
Level 2920-03-22
Wow, I love that idea; given the circumstances. It would then, unlike housing associations that appear to be run for the benefit of their employees primarily, the focus of benefit would be consumer first. However, nationalisation I am not so keen about because I think this would result in higher taxes. -
Level 621-03-22
Well, one thing about the supply-companies is that they truly are 'middle-men' in the overall industry, whose business consists of buying energy supply to sell to consumers... so they have very little in terms of assets that would need to be bought in the name of fairness to owner/shareholders.
I'd expect bond-issues to raise the capital needed would be very small in the scheme of things, and could be done as 'self-financing' of say public-monopoly, regional-supply businesses at arms-length from local/devolved/national government tax/debt. Presumably commercial-borrowing is part of how they operate now anyway.
Against which, beyond no profit-taking, there's no messing about with switching rewards, levy for 'insurance' against going bust, marketing spending or duplicated admin/management overheads (all being added to bills) as a bonus from shutting down the domestic-supply market.
In short, I'd say the potential net cost/benefit of public ownership makes it look like a reasonable proposition. At least worth serious consideration, in a politically-consensual way.
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