Topic: Germans are looking to firewood for energy as natural gas prices soar - page 7. (Read 4216 times)

Can someone please explain, why Germans are so worried about gas and are looking for alternative ways to keep warm this winter, but the rest of Europe, lets say Italy, France, Switzerland for example, are rather silent about similar problem. As if Germany is the only one who is dependable from Russian gas? Why other countries are so silent? They dont care or scared to talk? They have alternative to gas heating (doubt that)? If yes, could Germany take their experience ?

I live in Russia, in the Urals (about 2000 km from Moscow). As for the economic situation, I can say the following:
1. Utilities (electricity, gas, heating, etc.) have risen in price by about 5% over the past six months. Gasoline at gas stations has not risen in price. Basic foodstuffs have not risen in price, there was a surge in prices in early spring, then prices rolled back after the strengthening of the ruble.
2. Significantly more expensive cars, a significant drop in sales, friends who wanted to change the car abandoned this idea.
3. Recently, the price of food for Royal Canin cats, which ate my cat and cat (British and Scottish breed), has noticeably increased (by about 50%). Many types of new pet food made in Russia have appeared on the market. I consulted with a familiar veterinarian, she advised a good domestic food, my pets approved of it. In terms of money, food is slightly cheaper than Royal Canin before its sharp rise in price, that is, my budget for keeping animals has not changed.
4. I smoke cigarettes from farm tobacco, I used to buy French paper and filters for cigarettes from Mascotte. Recently, they have also risen sharply in price (by about 50%), I switched to Polish filters and Chinese super-thin paper, at a price they are about three times cheaper than French ones. The quality of the paper is the same, Polish filters are slightly worse than French ones, but not fundamentally.
5. Apple equipment, which is now imported into Russia under the parallel gray import scheme, has risen in price very much. But there are options, for example, a macbook pro on an m1 max chip with a 1TB ssd costs about 800 thousand rubles (about 12 thousand dollars) in Russia, a friend recently bought a new unpacked macbook pro for 250 thousand rubles, which was made for the UK market and imported into Russia through the United Arab Emirates. Laser engraving of a Russian keyboard costs 1,000 rubles.

In general, the economic situation is stable, if some European goods rise in price sharply due to sanctions, there is a quite adequate and budgetary replacement. It looks as if Western manufacturers are losing the Russian market due to their own sanctions, and their place is being taken by domestic or Chinese goods. My opinion is that the Europeans believed too much in the power of the brand.

There are no protest moods in Russia, Putin has a very large credit of trust among the population. There is no systemic opposition in Russia.

And this will result in more deforestation which will be another crisis

Economic situation in Russia doesn't look bad enough to cause major discontent in my opinion but only someone who lives in Russia can answer this, the information that the rest of us (specially those who are from Ukraine) are receiving is mostly unreliable and propaganda coming from both sides.

The chaos the nations are creating for eachother is deadly - do you agree?

That's simply not true. Russia is one of the largest exporters of Oil and Natural Gas. It's also one of the major exporters of industrial metals, and fertilizers. That's why the current inflation we're experiencing is unique because it's both caused by the demand side and the supply side.


What's your estimate of an internal coup happening in the coming days/weeks/months?

Plus who in Bitcointalk is actually living in Russia right now? Is there support for Putin, or are the people becoming discontented by the economic situation?

The fact is that nothing depends on Russia. Believe me, what Russia is doing now is premortal convulsions. Russia has chosen for itself the path of an outcast country, this is half the trouble. But she is an international terrorist, and she will not be forgiven for this ... Remember "Greater Germany. Great Reich" ... But Russia is a pathetic parody of Germany of that period. The "Second Army of the World" is now running with tantrums and crap pants, throwing equipment, documents, wounded and killed, from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. There was complete confusion at the headquarters, there was no army left as such, capable. And a large territory, 100 million bodies degraded and damaged by total false propaganda, the weapons of the last century - if not greatness, this is a collapse ...

PS Also, I do not exclude that in the coming days, weeks, months, there will be an internal coup, I do not exclude that the military, the generals. It is their idiot Putin and his girlfriend Patrushev who are trying to make them guilty for the failure of the "special operation". And the generals will be glad that Russia is cut into small pieces, and they are put in these pieces as "temporarily exercising power." They will introduce external control, for example, the USA / Britain / Ukraine. And all the resources of "great Russia" will go to pay reparations, and will cost a penny.

I believe it won't if Russia doesn't stop. The cause of all the destabilization is the effect of Russia's war against Ukraine, and the U.S.A's reaction with the help of Germany and other European countries. The next action by the U.S. and its allies to await for is if they declare a broad embargo on Russian oil, gas, and other energy exports. If you read history, what started World War II was an embargo by the U.S. on German Oil.

Everyone calm down, everything will stabilize. And oil and gas started a downward trend!

Dynamics of natural gas prices at the TTF gas hub:

It can't be the first time since the first time already happened:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-miners-in-texas-shut-down-operations-as-state-experiences-extreme-heat-wave

And it was clear in the hashrate
From the start of June at 216.54 EH/s it dropped to 198.15 EH/s only to recover at full speed the moment the heat wave was over by growing to221.72 EH/s the last adjustment.

And you can read about that directly from riot:
https://www.riotblockchain.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/135/riot-blockchain-announces-july-2022-production-and

I highly doubt it. High gas prices are still largely a local phenomenon in Europe. Americans may complain about their 30% rise, but I expect hashing power of new miners to go up enough to make up for the small increase in electricity cost to keep increasing the hashrate.
The looming worldwide recession may lead to a lower demand for energy, which can lead to lower prices. I don't dare guess how that's going to influence Bitcoin's price, but I expect the Bitcoin price to have a bigger influence on the hashrate than the lowest global electricity prices.

I believe the probable consequences from the decisions that they're going to make from the current energy crisis will be more than just "for the votes" for the next election. If an equilibrium/balance isn't found, it could put their countries into a situation of chaos, and possibly anarchy.


That's the point! There's going to be higher power prices everywhere during the winter.

It is worth knowing that those who invented democracy defined it as "convincing people that dogshit tastes like candy".

Perhaps you are right, ordinary people are not responsible for the decisions of their elected politicians. Even in the best democracy there is a gulf between the layman and the ruling elite.

Well, it's a conundrum.

On one hand we have western regimes that propaganda and attempts at regime change is among their smallest crimes. They have been on a murdering spree for decades around the world and have supported terrorism like US or have even become a sanctuary for terrorist cults like Albania and Sweden.
(We also haven't forgotten the chemical WMDs Germany made to be dropped on our cities in 1980's.)

On the other hand we have regular people who have no idea what is going on in the world or in their own country for that matter. They can't even point to Russia on the map! All their information comes from the propaganda machine that is brainwashing them every day in the name of democracy, while they work 8-10 hours a day until they are 65-70 years old.

The regular people are paying the cost as they are caught up in 3 wars (economy, food and energy) their governments started. Nobody can be happy about that.

EU no doubt uses this to push their "consume less energy" agenda. It's even weirder in that sense that many European countries have now lowered energy taxes or are even subsidizing energy for companies. High prices are a great way to reduce energy consumption, but also a great way to make voters unhappy. They must be torn between their ideals and their popularity

Unlikely. Not much hashing happens in areas with high power prices.

A friend also told me that there was also an announcement that traffic lights would also go through a rotational black out? This winter, the joke about turning off Christmas lights as a means to stop the wasteful use of electricity, and as my favorite debate against "wasteful POW electricity usage", is going to become true. I believe for the first time in Bitcoin's existence, we will see the total mining/hashing power scale down.

Don't confuse the media for the people. I'm not celebrating when Russian people are suffering because of sanctions. It's the normal people who suffer, even though they have nothing to do with the current situation.

Why is this bad? Let Europeans take to the squares more actively, rallies, protest and storm city halls. Isn't that what European politicians wanted with sanctions, so that the Russians went to rallies and overthrew the Putin regime? If you don't like double standards, you need to be consistent about it.

That's one of many double standards that exists in the "West" and I'm afraid with the new world order we are going to see a lot more of it until the transition completes.

That's just as bad though. It's the regular people in Europe who suffer and they don't give a shit about Ukraine, Russia or their own government and their policies. All they care about is stability in their lives. Which is why we are seeing increasing protests all around Europe for the past 6 months against their own government, European Union and even NATO.