QatarEnergy, the world’s largest producer of natural gas, just got bombed.
Y’know, usually the markets price things in well before they happened, but there was a whole lot of hopium this time that somehow a large-scale Middle Eastern war would not effect fossil fuel production and shipping.
Good. Fuck being dependent on dictators for our energy. Renewables is the only way forward. Eurpean energy for Europeans.
Economy is imploding because people don’t want to pick between switching to green energy and not murdering brown people.
Wait. Why is that a choice? Wouldn’t switching to green energy mean less fossil fuel related wars, meaning we can have BOTH?
Not really the issue at hand, but sure. This is less about getting to kill brown people than about Iranians. And their government lacks public support and is not just willing to do mass killings in the streets and executions to maintain their grip on power but is actually doing that too.
The civilian death toll is probably going to be much lower than in the January protests. But that does not mean that a military intervention is right or resolves the participants from doing nation building afterward.
If only we had some way of generating energy independent of oil and fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, we don’t, because those take a long time to build and we keep putting it off.
And the other option requires batteries that take a long time to make, and we only just started on that.
Edit: why am I getting downvoted for complaining about how pretty much every western government isnt doing enough to transition to other power sources?
A more modern and interconnected grid would do a lot already and greatly reduce the demand for batteries. There are many things one can do. But you are right in the sense that they are largely not done. That doesnt mean there exists no way though. We know how to do it but we dont.
We’ve had hydroelectric, wind, and nuclear energy for a long time.
Nah. All it takes is investment and commitment to treating electricity like a utility beyond the profit imperative. Look at what China is doing with sodium-ion batteries.
‘Nuclear takes too long to build’ has been an argument against nuclear for several times longer than it takes to build even the most stringently safe nuclear power plant… its depressing.
What do you mean you don’t? Has everything I heard in Cuba, China and Africa been a lie?
China is building a load of nuclear plants, it’s working very well for them and moving very quickly. They’re also building numerous solar farms and coal plants because they need whatever they can get.
Many places in Africa are doing great on Solar power, but they have requirements orders of magnitude lower than most western countries.
I don’t know much about Cuba.
It seems to me that every major conflict (Russia, Middle East) spikes oil prices, relatively unpredictably (if you can call this unpredictable).
Maybe the world should look for alternative sources of energy, which are abundant, cheap, and can be deployed non centrally?
No. No that’s insane.
Yeah, but power sources that don’t spew fumes are for limp-wristed queers. /s
The pedofile parasite class says no
These prices are literally controlled by price-fixing cartels.
But Europe is investing hundreds of billions in North Sea wind farms to generate hydrogen for heating, it was initiated by Putin’s actions.
Now we just have to hope that people dont dig up this bullshit idea of using hydrogen to heat your own house.
🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵
The Gang Heat Their House With Hydrogen
There’s really nothing wrong with generating hydrogen when power costs are negative.
Except that only happens like 500 hours a year.
And hydrogen will leak from any tank.
And it turns metal brittle.
And I wouldn’t trust my neighbor with a propane tank, let alone hydrogen.
And its nearly impossible to transport through existing infrastructure.
But other than that, its great!
Wow! so glad we have clean coal now!
You forgot about the part where the possibility of generating hydrogen cleanly from electricity later is used as an excuse to build infrastructure and fuel-cell cars for it now, even though hydrogen now is dirty hydrogen produced by cracking fossil fuels.
I have no confidence that the second phase of switching to electrolysis would actually happen, and that “the hydrogen economy” isn’t just a greenwashing scam perpetrated by natural gas producers.
What’s that? I couldn’t hear you over the nonstop greenwashing of gas cracking plants.
I always love the stupidity of this idea: You were able to generate pure hydrogen at high costs… Now what should we do with it? Well lets just do what we did since the middle ages and burn it!
Hydrogen has one of the highest energy densities by mass. It’s a very reasonable energy storage
Well, there are useful appliances for hydrogen, where you just burn it. Burning it to heat your own home isnt one if them.
But think of the fireworks! /s
Gas is not oil.
Why is this downvoted? This guy is technically correct.
Because Lemmy. Facts lose to feels.
Yes, then we will fight over Rare Earths.
I mean sure but if you already own an electric car then a spike in battery price doesn’t particularly affect your day to day like a spike in gas prices would.
Much of Europe uses gas for heating their houses. Much of industry uses vast amounts of gas for heating all sorts of materials from asphalt to bread.
Yeah fair, it’s mostly useless in my state, but very prevalent in other states I just forget it exists. But also swapping a stove, water heater, and AC is still a lot cheaper than a new car. (I mean the AC is the only one that’s even close) are there other things people use gas for I’m forgetting?
I think bombs dropping on heads will still affect daily life.
Sodium ion batteries are already in production. They’re not quite at the energy density of lithium but it’s close and also irrelevant for grid storage.
Are they? I haven’t really been able to find any being offered.
Cool! I kinda meant “can I buy the cells”, but if they’re being produced in car scales, it’ll probably be a yes pretty soon.
After a little more digging, yes you can!
https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/catl-sodium-ion-battery-cell.html
Rare earths are not geographically rare. There is just a lower % of them per sample.
They also are used in ICE catalytic convertors in every vehicle. But, unlike ICE, EV rare earths can be recycled.
You can recycle catalytic converters though, that’s really not the big problem for combustion engines…
not very efficiently. There’s a reason crackheads steal newer ones.
Yes, it is more so the efficient processing and refining that is rare.
You can make a T-shirt anywhere, but if you have to first build your own cotton farms and factories locally, construction will take years and your shirts will cost 10x more.
And the German government wants to end the sales ban for gas boilers. 55% of German gas consumption is used to heat buildings. So this is a key part of reducing consumption. Another case of a conservative government hurting Germany badly.
I’m laughing because I went with Habeck’s advice and installed a simple heat exchanger in my house that is hooked up to a centralized community heating system that runs on sustainable heat sources. Because Habeck, imperfect as he may have been, had a realistic view on things that was rooted in scientific data.
Fuck the CDU and fuck the SPD, fucking class-traitor scumbags.
We buy the much more expensive US fracking gas. That spike is a minor blip to Europe.
The European Commission has a website listing the top gas suppliers to Europe
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/where-does-the-eu-s-gas-come-from/Our main suppliers are, as of 2025:
- Norway - 31.1%
- United States - 25.4%
- Russia - 13.1%
- North Africa - 12.8%
- United Kingdom - 4.3%
- Qatar - 3.8%
While Qatar doesn’t provide a huge proportion of European gas, it’s not insignificant either. A disruption in the supply of Qatari gas could very easily cause prices to go up by a lot.
Edit: It’s almost as if we should do everything in our power to rid ourselves of the dependency on fossil fuels.
It’s almost as if we should do everything in our power to rid ourselves of the dependency on fossil fuels
Also not the 13.1% Russian share. This is the last year Russian LNG imports are allowed and imports using short term contracts are banned in two months.
It’s not just about where european countries buy, there’s a global market, it’s about who bought gas from Qatar and where they will buy their gas now. AFAIK Qatar exports a lot to asian countries, if they can’t get gas from Qatar anymore they’re going to buy from other countries, for example from the USA. That’s going to raise the price for US fracking gas and will affect Europe.
Exactly. India buys from Qatar. Qatar stops supplying, India starts buying from the US, just like us.
Oh dear. Please drive a bit slower or take a train…
It’s natural gas, not petrol.
Ok, yes. Oil prices are surging as well though.
Too many innocent people will be affected by this so I can’t say “leopards eating face” without reservations, but still, those leopards will be eating good tonight.
In democracies there are no innocent people. Everybody is complicit in not shifting energy sources since the 1970ies.
Including the people who voted for green parties?
Including them. They can feel less guilty, but democracy means that the people decide and they are part of the people.
If they don’t agree with the vote they have to look for means to convince the rest and change the vote.
This is a really dumb take I wasn’t even alive in the 70s
Then it’s a dumb take that you are responsible since 1970.
But since you have been an adult, as a member of a democracy, you are responsible for what the democracy does. That’s the deal. The election decides. If the majority decides something bad, bad luck, that’s still shared among everybody.
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That’s why the price surged.
