It's Going To Be A Long Cold Winter
This winter will be remembered as the start of the bad times
Through mismanagement and perhaps malfeasance people in America and Europe are facing one of the starkest winters we’ve seen in generations. No one will be prepared for how bad things are going to be.
In England the NHS is saying they expect at least 10,000 Brits to freeze to death due to fuel shortages:
NHS Chiefs have warned that more than 10,000 Brits could die this winter as they turn off heaters because of rocketing bills.
The NHS Confederation, a group representing trusts across Britain, wrote to Nadhim Zahawi today, pleading with the Chancellor to do more to tackle eye watering bills.
The group warned Britain faces a “humanitarian crisis” if struggling families are forced to choose between food and heat.
Next April annual energy costs could hit a staggering £5,300.
Around 10,000 people die each winter from causes related to the cold.
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, warned that number could tragically rise because of spiralling inflation.
He said: “Many people could face the awful choice between skipping meals to heat their homes and having to live in cold, damp and very unpleasant conditions.
“This in turn could lead to outbreaks of illness and sickness around the country and widen health inequalities, worsen children’s life chances and leave an indelible scar on local communities.”
There are two things to note in the above story. The first is that in supposed first world England 10,000 people freeze to death in regular times and now that fuel shortages are truly here they expect even more deaths. The second is this article is actually from August. Governments have known about global fuel shortages for months.
Remember that.
Europe’s panicky attempts to conserve natural gas in the wake of that news seemed to help the situation according to the business news:
Europe is suddenly sitting on a glut of natural gas, sending prices lower and easing fears of winter fuel shortages and rationing as the continent weans itself off Russian energy.
Just a few months ago, officials, executives and analysts worried that as Europe pivoted from Russian gas in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine — and as Russia throttled exports in retaliation for sanctions — the continent wouldn’t have enough fuel for winter.
They urged consumers and companies to conserve fuel, warned of mandatory rationing if they didn’t and bought massive amounts of shipped gas from places like the U.S. and Qatar.
Those measures — coupled with a blast of unseasonably warm weather recently — have resulted in vast supplies of gas in storage onshore and in tankers floating just off the coast.
But that doesn’t explain this:
The world’s largest chemical producer is permanently downsizing in Europe.
BASF cited rising energy prices in Europe as the reason.
Chief executive Martin Brudermüller added that “the European chemical market has been growing only weakly for about a decade.”
BASF has said it will have to downsize “permanently” in Europe, with high energy costs making the region increasingly uncompetitive.
“The European chemical market has been growing only weakly for about a decade [and] the significant increase in natural gas and power prices over the course of this year is putting pressure on chemical value chains,” chief executive Martin Brudermüller said on Wednesday.
BASF, which produces products from basic petrochemicals to fertilisers and glues, spent €2.2bn more on natural gas at its European sites in the first nine months of 2022, compared with the same period last year.
Brudermüller said the European gas crisis, coupled with stricter industry regulations in the EU, was forcing the company to cut costs in the region “as quickly as possible and also permanently”.
So a multi-billion dollar corporation can’t afford Eurozone energy prices but poor people can? Does that make sense to you?
And Europeans are still basically clear cutting local forests to harvest firewood:
Tudor Popescu swings his ax down on a log, then feeds the split wood into a stove that heats his home in the capital of Moldova. As the nights turn chilly, the stack of firewood has been growing higher around him — his provisions for the coming winter.
In the past, Popescu relied on natural gas to keep warm in the mornings and firewood in the evenings. But gas is now in shorter supply, creating a crisis in his small Eastern European country.
"I won't use gas anymore, so it's going to only be wood," Popescu said. "But what I have isn't enough."
Europe's energy crisis, triggered by Russia slashing natural gas flows amid its war against Ukraine, has forced some people to turn to cheaper heating sources like firewood as the weather gets colder. But as more people stock up and burn wood, prices have skyrocketed, shortages and thefts have been reported, and scams are emerging. Foresters are putting GPS devices into logs to track the valuable stocks, and fears are rising about the environmental impact of increased air pollution and tree-cutting.
In the former Soviet republic of Moldova, leaders worry that this winter could be devastating for many of its people because of the high cost of electricity and heat, with European natural gas prices roughly triple what they were in early 2021 despite falling from August's record highs. Europe’s poorest country, with pro-Western aspirations but part of its territory controlled by Russian troops, has seen Russian energy giant Gazprom slash natural gas supplies by 30% recently and threaten more cuts.
The clamor for firewood is not limited to poorer nations like Moldova but has surged across richer regions of Europe, too. Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic's state-owned forests are seeing much stronger demand for the limited amounts of firewood they sell as part of their sustainable forest management.
Often it's coming from people who have never ordered firewood before and seem unaware that it needs to be purchased two years ahead so it can dry out enough to be burned in wood stoves, according to the forest service in southwest Germany's state of Hesse.
At this point people are beginning to fight over firewood. The above article is from the 27th of October.
Here in America we’re already seeing panic by officials over fuel shortages:
Heating oil suppliers in the Northeast and New England have begun rationing the key fuel ahead of winter, after stockpiles dropped to a third of their normal levels.
Concerns are rising that supply shortages and soaring prices will leave families in the cold this winter, particularly in New England, which is more reliant on heating oil than other parts of the country.
Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, told Bloomberg recently that heating oil wholesalers are beginning to limit allocations for retail suppliers.
The rationing measures, intended to prevent panic buying and hoarding, are in turn being imposed on consumers, limiting the amount of heating oil they can purchase, said Herb.
Heating oil, which is chemically similar to diesel, is primarily used in New York, Pennsylvania and New England, where most distribution is handled by small, family-owned businesses.
This year, New England's inventories of stockpiled heating oil are about 70 percent lower than their average level since 1993, government data show.
Supplies are lower this year due to the same factors impacting world oil markets, including the failure to rebuild production capacity following the pandemic, and disruptions from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
According to Bloomberg, heating oil stockpiles have also been affected by a pricing structure known as 'backwardation', in which prompt deliveries are priced at a premium over deliveries in the future.
'There's just no incentive to store large amount of product,' Michael Ferrante, president of the Massachusetts Energy Marketers Association, told the outlet.
Speaking of diesel:
The Biden administration says it is keeping a close watch on diesel inventories and working to boost supplies following news that reserves have been depleted and could run out in less than a month if not replenished, sparking fears of shortages and rising prices.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported this week that, as of Oct. 14, the U.S. had only 25 days of reserve diesel supply, a low not seen since 2008. National Economic Council Director Brian Deese acknowledged to Bloomberg that the level is "unacceptably low," and "all options are on the table" to address the situation.
The EIA also said that distillate fuel includes heating oil inventories and is about 20% below the five-year average for this time of year. But areas in the Northeast are already rationing heating oil as temperatures drop, driving concerns that energy costs will surge further.
That report is about a week old so we’re closer to disaster than you think. Imagine not only not being able to heat your home but you can’t even get food into supermarkets.
The media is just starting to take notice of all of this - but mostly the opinion news. many of your friends and family will be left high and dry in a few weeks if nothing happens to stop what’s coming, and if something does happen it’s only going to prolong the inevitable. Energy prices are going to drive people to poverty, food prices will go up and crops are not going to get fertilized. Things will devolve quickly in many areas if this happens.
Stock up on warm clothes and food. If it is possible to have an alternative heating source for your house get the firewood or whatever now.
I’m also ordering anything that is delivered by trucks now in case a diesel shortage materializes and creates more supply chain issues.