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Germany began shutting down its three remaining nuclear power reactors on Saturday as part of a long-planned shift to renewable energy. The international community was keeping a tight eye on the shutdown of the reactors Emsland, Neckarwestheim II, and Isar II, which was agreed to more than a decade ago... ***snip*** The country was caught in a bind as it tries to enact the 2011 resolution by former Chancellor Angela Merkel to make a nuclear exit by the end of 2022, but was starting to reconsider in the face of threats to the stability of the energy supply.Europe’s largest electricity...

Germany will shut down its three remaining nuclear plants on Saturday, betting that it can fulfil its green ambitions without atomic power despite the energy crisis caused by the Ukraine war. The cloud of white steam that has risen since 1989 over the river in Neckarwestheim, near Stuttgart, will soon be a distant memory, as will the Isar 2 complex in Bavaria and the Emsland plant in the north. At a time when many Western countries are ramping up nuclear power in their transition to greener energy sources, Europe’s biggest economy is resolutely sticking to its plans — though not...

I’m old enough to remember the German post-World War II “economic miracle.” (Their term was “Wirtschaftswunder.”). After more than ten years of government direction of the economy under the Nazis, followed by the devastation of the war, Germany after 1945, under economics minister Ludwig Erhard, adopted the model of low taxes and light regulation. The economy boomed for decades on end. But Germany then gradually turned away from Erhard’s prescriptions. Today Germany is twenty or so years into the most aggressive green energy “transition” of any country with a large economy, with the government firmly in charge of picking the...

But banning oil and gas too soon would be technically and financially unrealistic, the industry believes. "We can't bet on an all-electric solution, which would require an urgent and crazy-sum power network expansion," A ban would also close the door to hybrid systems that could gradually introduce more home-produced solar thermal and photovoltaic energy, and fill existing gas pipelines with renewable-derived gases, he added.

Legislative select committee opens inquiry into high energy bills.. Colorado’s high energy costs are partly due to a high-stakes regulatory "game" being played largely outside of the public’s view, said the official advocating for customers before the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. A joint committee hearing on high energy costs at the statehouse Wednesday provided insights into the regulatory process that determines how much money investor-owned utilities make and how much utility consumers have to pay. “I would say if a rate payer is deciding between paying their heating bill or paying their prescriptions this month, then yes, something is wrong,”...

PJM Interconnection sounds the latest alarm that fossil-fuel plants are shutting down without adequate replacement power. The political class yawns. ... The warnings keep coming that the force-fed energy transition to renewable fuels is destabilizing the U.S. electric grid, but is anyone in government paying attention? ... The PJM report forecasts power supply and demand through 2030 across the 13 eastern states in its territory covering 65 million people. ... Fossil-fuel power plants are retiring much faster than renewable sources are getting developed, which could lead to energy “imbalances.” That’s a delicate way of saying that you can expect shortages...

Often I focus on bureaucratic regulation of energy because the ability to restrict use of energy is the ultimate societal control. Once they have obtained the ability to restrict use of energy, bureaucrats could, if they choose, take away most of our freedom to enjoy life and return us to the income levels of the Stone Age. Will they stop before going that far, making reasonable tradeoffs to enable the people to flourish economically? Or will they instead pursue environmental purity without concern for the well-being of the populace? So far all indications are that bureaucracies — and environmental bureaucracies...

Germany is becoming less attractive to top foreign talents, according to a new Bertelsmann/OECD study that will worry Olaf Scholz's government, which is trying to get more foreign skilled workers to fill labor market gaps. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) "Indicators of Talent Attractiveness," released on Thursday, shows Germany slipped from 12th place in 2019 to 15th this year among the 38 OECD countries. The analysis is based on seven "dimensions" that foreign talents are said to value: Quality of opportunities, income and tax, future prospects, family environment, skills environment, inclusiveness, and quality of life. The study...

A Duke Energy Corp. subsidiary for North Carolina electric customers has asked state regulators to let them raise residential rates by 16.6% in the coming months largely to recover their fuel costs, which it said soared mainly from natural gas prices last year. Duke Energy Carolinas serves about 2 million households and businesses in western and central North Carolina. It said Wednesday that if the request is approved by the state Utilities Commission, the typical residential customer's monthly bill would increase from $115.01 to a little over $134.11. The Charlotte-based utility emphasized such approved requests don't widen anticipated profits, but...

A Russian state television host complained that "Europeans didn't freeze" this winter after energy prices on the continent skyrocketed due to international sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine war and President Vladimir Putin's army attack on the country's critical energy infrastructure. After experiencing stalled progress on the battlefield, Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure for several months. Russia on Thursday launched fresh missile strikes on critical infrastructure in Lviv, in western Ukraine, away from the frontlines in the east.

Brent Eldridge had heard that prices for natural gas were high this winter, but nothing prepared him for how bad it could be. When he opened the envelope from Long Beach’s utility department, he couldn’t believe the total: $907.13, nearly eight times higher than his bill at the same time last year. “It made me want to puke,” said Eldridge, 48, a pastor. Household budgets in the Golden State, already stretched thin as prices soar for everything from rent to eggs, are being pummeled by monster gas bills. Southern California Gas Co. and Pacific Gas & Electric began warning customers...

Alabama Price of Natural Gas Delivered to Customers

Conserve Energy: Extreme Cold Causing Gas Supply Shortage Due to frigid temperatures and an increased demand on interstate pipelines, Con Edison asks natural gas customers to help conserve supplies Posted on: December 24, 2022 - 9:49pm This message is being sent on behalf of ConEdison as it is of community wide interest. Please conserve energy as we face a heating gas shortage across the Northeast. Simple things can make a big difference. Set your thermostats lower than usual if health permits Postpone using major electric appliances such as stoves, dishwashers, and clothes dryers until other times Turn off non-essential lights,...

A bitter and dangerous blast of arctic air is charging its way across almost the entire nation this week, dropping wind chills to as low as between negative 50 and negative 70 degrees across the Northern Plains and 30 below zero in the Midwest, triggering rare Hard Freeze Warnings along the Gulf Coast, and helping fuel a monster winter storm that will bring frigid temperatures across the Great Lakes and Northeast. ... Thursday morning temperatures will be as cold as negative 29 degrees in Casper, Wyoming, with 23 degrees below zero likely in Billings, Montana – likely the city's coldest...

It's a great time to be a candlemaker in Germany. "Candle demand is very strong right now," says Stefan Thomann, Technical Director of the European Candle Manufacturers Association. The candle boom began during the pandemic, after the government imposed lockdowns and Germans began spending a lot more time at home. The industry expected the boom to end once the nation opened back up, Thomann says. "But then the war (in Ukraine) started." Prior to Russia's invasion, Germany was getting more than half of its natural gas from Russia. It was Russia's biggest natural gas customer in the European Union, and...

They never had a chance. Fumbling blindly through cratered farms, the troops from Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade had no maps, medical kits or working walkie-talkies, they said. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been factory workers and truck drivers, watching an endless showcase of supposed Russian military victories at home on state television before being drafted in September. One medic was a former barista who had never had any medical training. Now, they were piled onto the tops of overcrowded armored vehicles, lumbering through fallow autumn fields with Kalashnikov rifles from a half-century ago and virtually nothing to...

Natural gas has crashed by about 25% over the past week, from $7 to $5.38, and has been practically cut in half since $10 since Aug/Sept. What happened? Nothing unusual, producers got off their butts and overproduced while prices were high and killed the shortage. But the shortages in NE are due as much or more due to the lack of transport infrastructure to that region than actual shortage of the commodity...which is measured at salt dome/storage in TX and the midwest, NOT at the end of the pipe in Billerica, MA. This is a perfect example of the folly...

European natural gas inventories fell by -163 BCF over past week. EU nat gas storage 86% full. Current inventories at 3304 BCF.

Germany’s gas reserves are emptying at record speed: 1% per day as the current wind/solar energy lull means more gas gets burned for electricity, heating. Pleiteticker.de here reports how Germany’s natural gas reserves “are emptying at record speed” because wind and solar power have been on the scarce side over the past few weeks. This means gas turbines have had to jump in to pick up the slack in electricity production – not one the German government had hoped as it wrestles with the heightening energy crisis. “Germany is converting gas into electricity in record quantities,” pleiteticker.de reports. “Thanks to...

A giant aquarium containing a million litres of water in the lobby of the Radisson Blu in Berlin has burst, flooding the hotel and nearby streets. The "AquaDom" - home to 1,500 fish - is 15.85m high (52 ft) and was described as the largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium in the world. Two people were injured by falling glass after the blast. Police said there had been "incredible" damage. Video showed an empty tank with water pouring into the hotel lobby. Guests have been moved out of the hotel following the incident at 05:50 (04:50 GMT). A spokesman for Berlin's fire...