Power and gas prices in Germany more than doubled in just two months, with year-ahead electricity at a blazing 570 Euro per megawatt-hour. Two years ago, it was 40 euros. It’s summer but electric heaters sales are already up 1000 percent and online searches for Firewood are running hot. In the UK — householders are facing bills in the order of £5000 a year — (like $10,000, after tax) people are described as being in “pre-panic mode” already. Some are starting to turn off freezers, giving up toast and showering every second day. Shops and Pubs are closing, consumer confidence is at an all time record low, the most depressed in the last 48 years consumer confidence has been measured for.
European Power Smashes Records as Energy Crisis Intensifies
by Todd Gillespie, Bloomberg
This week’s prices are “unbelievable,” analysts at Energi Danmark wrote in a note. “The rally on the gas and coal market and the very high spot prices we see this week have given the already elevated market further momentum.”
German year-ahead power, a benchmark for Europe, is on a nine-day rising streak. The contract rose 6.1% to a record 570 euros ($573) per megawatt-hour, with French futures jumping as much as 2.8% to 720 euros. Europe year-ahead coal futures hit a record $311.50 a ton, while carbon-emission permits traded at all-time highs.
For obvious reasons, Germans are worried about winter already:
Germany’s Growing Energy Supply Uncertainty: Electric Heater Sales Up 1000%…In The Summertime!
Already the media are reporting that electric heaters are flying off the store shelves at an unprecedented rate – in the summertime! For example, online daily The Hamburger Abendblatt here reports: “Electric heater online retailers and DIY stores report explosion in demand – increases of up to 1000 percent.”
Germany Risks a Factory Exodus as Energy Prices Bite Hard
Welcome to the Clean Green Future in London, 2022
The Victorian lifestyle is making a comeback.
Power off, panic on in British energy crisis
By Jacquelin Magnay, The Australian
People in Cornwall have been turning off their freezers, to the alarm of health officials warning of food poisoning. In Newcastle, food charities have been flooded with requests for non-perishable items that don’t require turning on the stove.
And in London at my house, the hot water has been off for the past month with showering scheduled for immediately after a sweat-inducing run in the park. A neighbour has given up toast and community groups advise people to vacuum the backs of their fridges to ensure they work as efficiently as possible and to shower every second day.
A pre-panic mode has struck households across Britain as a cost-of-living crisis approaches uncharted territory.
Easy to see why people might be jittery at these prices. How many houses will burn down when people cook by candlelight?
Energy industry analyst Cornwall Insight forecasts that the British price cap will skyrocket and the average annual bill will reach £3582 ($6177) in October. By January, it predicts it will be £5000 a year. That is close to $10,000, after tax, for an average bill.
Consumer confidence in the UK is at the lowest level since 1974 when it was first measured:
Record-breaking gloom grips Britain ahead of ‘nightmare’ winter
Louis Ashworth and Tim Wallace, The Telegraph
A record-breaking economic gloom is gripping Britain as households brace for a “nightmare” winter of soaring costs.
Consumer confidence has plummeted to its lowest ever level as the Bank of England increases interest rates to counter rocketing inflation, according to a closely watched survey from the data company GfK.
GfK blamed acute concerns over the cost of living for a drop in its confidence index to -44, the lowest it has been since launching in 1974.
The GWPF, of course, saw all this coming: Don’t say you haven’t been warned: See 2017 GWPF Energy Manifesto: Climate policies, electricity prices and the energy price cap