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Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by vogre on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @08:31AM (#31666292)
It's easy for small country like Lithuania, but completely impossible for country like Germany. There is not enough gas without Russian one to feed its industry.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by ChuckNorris89 on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @08:36AM (#31666342)
>but completely impossible for country like Germany. There is not enough gas without Russian one to feed its industry.

Huh, if only they could have invested enough in their local energy sector, through I don't know ... NUCLEAR!, to keep their industry energy independent of Russia, and not shut down its few remaining nukes in the middle of an energy crisis just to appease an outdated political ideology like an absolute dunce, causing energy prices across EU to further skyrockets as Germany had to compensate its internal deficit by buying from the rest.

There's a reason people undeservingly vented their frustration on Germany at Eurovision this year.

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by Archelaos on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:28AM (#31667011)
> NUCLEAR!, to keep their industry energy independent of Russia

The world (EU and US included) is heavily dependent on Russian nuclear imports and technology. Here is an in-depth article on why this is so difficult to overcome:

https://thebulletin.org/2022/05/five-reasons-that-russias-nu...

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by foverzar on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @08:45AM (#31666439)
You assume that oil and gas are only used as energy components, but they are also raw materials required in industry.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by fpoling on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @08:59AM (#31666601)
If energy usage is removed, then surely there is enough oil and gas in other countries to supply Germany.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by rjzzleep on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:18AM (#31666864)
People like you look at these things as if you just shift numbers around on an excel sheet. There is still physics and geography involved here. German industry is already hardly competitive in terms of price, what do you think happens when those raw materials are 10 times more expensive?

Now there is a price crunch for LNG tanker charters further pushing up prices. Also it's so disingenuous. Indians are now refining Russian oil, selling it back to Europe but Eurocrats and lying politicians get to pretend they're going off hydrocarbons.

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by fpoling on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:54AM (#31667380)
With oil the solution is trivial. Switch to electrical cars while generating electricity for them with modern efficient coal plants using German coal. Not only it will be cheaper and reduce geopolitical risks, but it will drop CO2 emission as well.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by ben_w on Thursday June 09, 2022 @06:59AM (#31679711)
This is clearly a new and exciting definition of the word “trivial” that I was previously unaware of.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by vogre on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:31AM (#31667059)
Don't forget that LNG market is mostly short-term, and Russian pipes work under long-term contracts.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by vogre on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @08:48AM (#31666481)
Why would they do it? Russia never failed delivering cheap gas.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by ssk169 on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:46AM (#31667268)
Really? So Russia just didn't stop gas exports to Finland?
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by vogre on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:52AM (#31667358)
It did after Finland refused to pay.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by ssk169 on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @10:09AM (#31667591)
Let me complete that sentence for you.... after Finland refused to pay in rubels because the signed gas import-export contract specified other currencies.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by capdeck on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @11:55AM (#31669265)
Didn't EU freeze all Russian dollar accounts? That basically means Russia never gets those dollar payments. Why would it keep delivering gas for free? Does that "contract" even mean anything then? By switching to rubles Russia actually helped EU nations with a legal way to keep paying for gas.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by ssk169 on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @03:08PM (#31672458)
No, EU has not sanctiond _all_ Russian banks. IIRC the reason was that some counties in the EU still needed to keep paying for gas.

If you fuck up and get your bank account frozen that does not mean that you don’t have to pay your morgage or that you can pay it with monopoly money.

Also there is a big difference between freezing access to a bank account and taking ownership of the funds.

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by vogre on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @05:38PM (#31674647)
> there is a big difference between freezing access to a bank account and taking ownership of the funds.

No it’s not so big, because freezing can be unlimited in time and you can’t use that money. What point of having money on account if you can not use them? These are just numbers on the screen.

If your account can be frozen any time by the bank, it means you don’t really own the money, and the bank is not trustworthy.

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by vogre on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @10:37AM (#31668004)
That changes nothing. Finland refused to pay.

Most of the European companies adopted the new scheme within their current contracts, so it was a technical thing. Russia just needed to be paid in currency that can not be stolen by some lunatic government.

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by ssk169 on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @02:53PM (#31672248)
It was not just a technical thing... it was unilateral change of a legal contract and blackmail by Russian regime that yet again demonstrated clearly that contracts and treaties mean nothing to it.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by vogre on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @05:32PM (#31674554)
Actually all the sanctions from the west are unilateral change to thousands of contracts, and expropriation of russian assets is straightforward stealing.

Even freezing of central bank accounts is basically the unilateral unlawful change of contract.

Finland broke the contract with russian railroads, with russian electric providers, it cancelled the contract with RosAtom.

Additionally it started the process of joining NATO, which effectively breaks the peace treaty of 1948.

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by efrafa on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @06:54PM (#31675470)
Who are you? Some russian troll?
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by Cthulhu_ on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:34AM (#31667099)
Are you a nuclear power lobbyist? How much do you get paid for this post?
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by fpoling on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @08:57AM (#31666582)
It is possible within few years. Most of the gas is used for heating. Switch that to heat pumps. Then for electricity to run those pumps upgrade the existing coal power stations to the latest technology that gives 45% efficiency from the existing stations with 30-35%.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by at0mic22 on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:12AM (#31666783)
Is it possible to use heat pumps for office buildings or factories for instance?
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by fpoling on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:38AM (#31667162)
The only problem is retrofitting older buildings. That is somewhat expensive, but entirely possible especially with ground source heat pumps.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by at0mic22 on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @09:45AM (#31667256)
But does it require big (or deep) fields for heat exchange?

I mean, lets take a 20-story building, the amount of heating energy it consumes is really high, especially during winters. So you probably would need a soccer-field size heat exchanger in order for the heat to be extracted from the ground.

I bet it will also use quite a lot of electricity to compress the transporting liquid.

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by fpoling on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @10:07AM (#31667559)
With tall buildings an option is to drill to 300 meters or deeper, https://hvac.okstate.edu/sites/default/files/pubs/papers/201...
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by at0mic22 on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @10:25AM (#31667825)
Thanks for the article!

As I understood, drilling deep is quite expensive and, comparing to centralized heating stations working with gas for instance, the thermal output does not allow building heat factories. In example they state that they needed 8 500-meter holes for 4 houses and only 64 apts. So they are talking about typical Scandinavian 4-floor buildings, which are as well A-class insulated.

It stands nowhere near to typical buildings of East Berlin for instance.

Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by fpoling on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @11:15AM (#31668573)
The article mentioned Akershus hospital in Norway. It is a big 6-floor building. For taller buildings deeper drilling is required, but still should possible. But I guess for really toll buildings one should focus on improving isolation as presently it may not be cost-effective just to install heat pumps.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by rjzzleep on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @08:36AM (#31666352)
It's completely possible for Germany, if you accept that it will completely impoverish your population and irreparably destroy the Mittelstand(which is most of Germany's industry), which stands at the crux of the German welfare system.
Re:Estonia clocks fastest inflation in the Eurozone at 20.1 ... by vogre on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @08:56AM (#31666565)
And make Germany completely dependent on US, of course.