Europe Plans “Emergency Intervention” In Power Market As All Hell Breaks Loose
Tue 11:19 am +01:00, 30 Aug 2022
ER Editor: It is linked to below, but Poles recently gave TPTB a stark reminder of what citizen concern over possible energy cuts looks like. Poles, by the way, still burn a lot of coal domestically. Of note (Zerohedge):
Several weeks ago we reported that amid Europe’s mindblowing gas and electricity prices, Deutsche Bank predicted that a growing number of German households will be using firewood for heating, a forecast which appears to have become self-fulfilling as German google searches for firewood (“brennholz”) had since exploded off the charts.
But while Germans are still “searching” merely in the virtual realm, for countless Poles the search is all too real.
According to Reuters, with Poland still basking in the late summer heat, hundreds of cars and trucks have already lined up at the Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka coal mine, as householders fearful of winter shortages wait for days and nights to stock up on heating fuel ahead of the coming cold winter in queues reminiscent of communist times.
Artur, 57, a pensioner, drove up from Swidnik, some 30 km (18 miles) from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tonnes of coal for himself and his family.
“Toilets were put up today, but there’s no running water,” he said, after three nights of sleeping in his small red hatchback in a crawling queue of trucks, tractors towing trailers and private cars. “This is beyond imagination, people are sleeping in their cars. I remember the communist times but it didn’t cross my mind that we could return to something even worse.”
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Europe Plans “Emergency Intervention” In Power Market As All Hell Breaks Loose
With even Zoltan Pozsar warning that Europe faces an apocalypse of sorts now that the Eurussia divorce is complete and energy prices in Europe are hitting fresh daily record highs every single day – just today, German 1Year forward baseload electricity rose above €1,000, or 10x where they were a year ago, before easing after European nat gas prices plunged the most since March after Germany said its gas stores are filling up faster than planned ahead of winter…
… moments ago the European Union appears to have finally realized that it faces an armed revolt this winter, or worse, when millions face freezing cold without power and heat (see “This Is Beyond Imagination”: Polish Homeowners Line Up For Days To Buy Coal Ahead Of Winter“), and announced that it was planning “urgent steps” to push down soaring power prices, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday.
“The skyrocketing electricity prices are now exposing, for different reasons, the limitations of our current electricity market design,” von der Leyen said in a speech at the Bled Strategic Summit in Slovenia, pointing out what has been obvious for years to those who warned repeatedly that Europe should probably not take make its energy policy based on the idiotic ravings of a self-absorbed, petulant, Scandinavian teenager. “It was developed under completely different circumstances and completely different purposes.”
Ah yes, it’s the “circumstances and purposes” that are at fault, not Europe’s catastrophic “green” push over the past decade that left the continent at the mercy of Putin, very much as one Donald J Trump warned would happen… and speaking of Putin, maybe Europe can impose a few more self-destructive sanctions on Russian energy exports. But we digress…
Ursula then added “that’s why we are now working on an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the electricity market”, one which would look roughly like this.
ER: Breaking Bad
The unprecedented spike in power prices, which have soared almost 10-fold in the past year, has fueled inflation, increased the economic burden on businesses and households recovering from the pandemic, and forced the ECB to aggressively hike rate in hopes of crushing demand into what is now a definite recession if not a depression. One could say that Putin couldn’t have planned his revenge on Europe better.
With Russia squeezing gas deliveries, power-plant outages further sapping supply, while droughts and lack of wind make a mockery of “green” energy sources, the pressure is growing on EU leaders to act quickly or risk social unrest and political upheaval. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala is seeking backing for his price-cap plan and plans to discuss possible limits with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
