> Natural gas is a commonly used as a feedstock to produce two nitrogen-based fertilizers – ammonia and urea – in large quantities.
> In the production of ammonia or urea, natural gas is processed at an upgrading plant together with nitrogen (taken from the air). During the process, 80% of the gas is used as feed¬stock for fertilizer, while the remaining 20% is used for heat and electricity production. The two main end products, ammonium nitrate and urea, are then mixed with other ingredients—mainly phosphorus and potassium—to manufacture a range of synthetic fertilizers for use on farms.
Now that Russia is the world's biggest wheat producer, it seems that Russian food will be neither scarce nor expensive. And also seeing that it produces a good proportion of the world's fertiliser, it seems that food grown elsewhere will be scarce and expensive.
They'll be fine, I expect no prolonged famine, if any. Population growth will continue as expected. Ignoring western sanctions in exchange for food is a good idea if it comes to that.
If you used heat pumps, you'd get 5x cheaper (or whatever CoP you get).
This is true, and it's why sanctions are dumb. Another example is Belarus. My understanding is for years they played the West against Russia, and their authoritarian government retained some independence as a result. Then the West slapped sanctions on them, which pushed them into the suffocating arms of Putin, and it became a staging area and accomplice to Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The West probably needs some more realpolitik. Not the fuck your friends and bow down to your enemies kind that seems to be a bit in vogue, but the kind where you admit distasteful allies into your alliances against your stronger adversaries.
> And the loser? Average joe, again.
The real losers are the Ukrainians who are getting their country conquered by invaders.
Contrast that with Finland and Sweden seriously considering joining NATO, NATO putting more weapons and soldiers in to the Baltic and Eastern European states, Germany and other NATO states increasing military spending, and moving much faster towards energy independence.
These consequences are evidence of a major miscalculation on Putin's part, who certainly would never want to see any of that happen.
Not to mention the world edging ever closer to WW3, in which everyone would be the loser.
If this was some middle eastern country, destroyed by the americans, this would be a "peacekeeping" occupation.. i mean operation.
The prices and the financial losses of individuals around the world would be remembered more.
Sad, but true.
On the other hand, europe will freeze without russian gas, and oil prices will make everything even more expensive worldwide.
The winner of all of this? China, with cheap russian gas (that russia will be forced to sell them, because they have noone else to sell it to) and more products/gardgets/stuff sold, with eu/usa imports stopped.
And the loser? Average joe, again.