To think we cannot afford to support Ukraine anymore

He should really take a leaf out of that humble lad Putin's book and only live off his modest state salary.

The money were are spending on Ukraine wouldn't make one iota of difference to the NHS.

It may however just help to stop Russian aggression. You let Putin win and this is only the start. Eventually someone will drop Putin especially given that Russian billionaires seem to be having a LOT of not suspicious at all fatal accidents but in the meantime we have to support them.

I think we can all agree that @Saysomething1234 has absolutely no interest in genuine discussion and that this entire thread was started for no other reason than to spread disinformation and hate. Thanks though to all the posters with their very interesting and knowledgeable posts on issues such as energy.

Perhaps you should employ a better accountant.

People on low incomes are the ones who give the highest percentage of their income to tax.
Council tax for eg is as much as 20% of take-home minimum wage in many parts of the country.

They're probably pretty bothered about all of this stuff same as everyone else.

And toddling off to visit Putin in the summer and even in August pushing for Nordstream 2 to be opened and blaming Siemens for the Russian shutdowns of NS1...

Poor Gerhard. Being Chairman of Nord Stream AG probably isn't such a lucrative berth any more...

(The Rest Is History did a great bit on him as part of their German chancellors episodes.)

It's all just politicking anyway.

Zelensky has got plenty of cash. Trot on down to the Cayman Islands lad and sell a yacht or two. Wanker.

The Germans ignored warnings about over reliance on Russian gas from the Americans and others for years.

Frankly Gerhard Schröder should face a corruption trial for the way that he went straight from Chancellor to Gazprom shill.

Aye, that would be a bastard (as would sabotaging our own pipelines) but their LNG capacity increase has been impressive.

There's no way back for Germany now - with both Nord Streams gone, and the humiliation of Merkel's legacy going down the drain with such speed, their energy policy can only go in one direction now.

Make voluntary additional contributions do you? Or do you just resent paying more than 20p in the pound?

Impressed with Jassy's expertise and patient contributions to countering Russian misinformation on this disingenuous thread.

The guardian article was interesting @JassyRadlett

In the short term I think the Russians might try to sabotage the gas pipeline from Norway to put more pressure on Germany. Luckily it sounds like they have a lot of storage.

But I don't think that would make the Germans stop supporting Ukraine or go back to using Russian gas now. They have made up their minds about Russia.

It's quite something. I think the entire renewables and storage pipeline is now greater than the whole of the current electricity generation installed capacity. That's not including the (neglected) nuclear pipeline which will also be important.

Obviously we need that and more as we replace fossil fuels, some older nuclear comes offline and we drastically increase demand as we electrify transport and heat. But the change in cost and technology over the last decade is amazing.

@JassyRadlett glad to hear the UK is making some progress with pivoting away from gas.

I think we all do.

You mentioned the NHS upthread. My own view is that the annual enduring loss in GDP and therefore tax revenues due to Brexit (estimated at £40bn in the year ending June 2022) would have been much better spent on the NHS or education. It's not really relevant, though, is it as government spending is made up of a wild array of things and subject to political whim.

It feels odd that you're targeting short-term military and humanitarian costs as 'unaffordable' (we've established that our energy bills would be more or less the same whether or not the UK is actively supporting Ukraine) but not other more enduring costs that could be reprioritised to the same ends.

Why is Ukraine unaffordable, but Brexit isn't?

Regardless of what the UK might do or think it would be madness for Europe to go back to relying on the Russians for gas and they know it.

The Germans ignored warnings about over reliance on Russian gas from the Americans and others for years. They have been shocked that the Russians didn't honour their commercial agreements. The Russians blew up their new pipeline as well. They are just weaning themselves of Russian energy dependency now and they will not go back. Not while Putin is in power anyway.

Best bet for gas prices is for Ukraine to win with our help and Putin's regime to fall. However I am not holding my breath on the latter. The uk needs an urgent pivot to renewables, for the environment as well.

I would rather see money spent on solar panels and heat pumps and wind farms rather than energy subsidies. I also would like us to be able to produce solar panels ourselves rather than have to rely on Chima.

However the energy subsidies are not money spent by the UK on helping Ukraine and its disingenuous to suggest they are.

Thank you! It has been a particularly interesting year to work in energy... a lot of things that were previously incredibly niche and only a very small number of people would have any depth of expertise in them are suddenly important and mainstream. I've learned an enormous amount.

Not a humble brag. Just pointing out that this is something about which you clearly know very little, and I'm quite comfortable saying that I know a fair amount about it and how it works in practice. You can insult me all you like; it doesn't alter the fact that every single one of your confident statements about energy have been so far off base as to be almost comic.

Or are you one of those who has had enough of experts and prefers their own facts?

Thanks for your posts about energy Jessy, I've found them really enlightening

(At some point you may wish to accept that on energy, I really do know what I'm on about. I don't work for Cornwall but this is a sector I know particularly well.)

it takes years to pivot energy sources. yes we should pivot but this is a long term project not 1-2 years. in the interim it will cost a bomb.

You haven't seen Germans building LNG terminals. They're fucking EPIC.

Guardian link

In the UK we're lucky in that we have a huge amount of non-gas electricity already in the pipeline. The pivot away from gas was already part of plans; accelerating those plans doesn't take nearly as much time and effort as starting from scratch. And the reforms through REMA should decouple our gas electricity production from cheaper sources when it comes to the cost to the consumer, which is a hugely important step in bringing down bills. The architects of the current system totally failed to foresee a situation where variable-cost electricity (fossil fuel) would be the highest marginal cost in settlement. REMA will deal with the nuclear and renewable windfall issue we're currently experiencing.

The forward gas prices speak for themselves. The weather is obviously pro-Ukraine and is also helping significantly with the transition, particularly in Central Europe.

Would this negotiated settlement require Ukraine to hand over annexed sovereign lands so that Putin can save face and go home with a 'win"? Or do you also support a referendum in said annexed lands where half the people have been displaced or killed?