EU Energy: What is the EU doing to cut energy consumption and avoid blackouts this winter?

Energy saving measures across the country are in line with the EU’s plan to gradually reduce the demand for gas and avoid blackouts this winter. The aim is to bring down energy consumption by 15 per cent by next <br><br>This reduction would enable countries to keep the lights on in the worst case scenario if Russia were to totally cut off suppli <br><br 

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is the EU doing to cut energy consumption and avoid blackouts this winter? | Euronews

Britain heads further down the Brexit rabbit-hole – by Paul Mason

At my local petrol station a cadre of young men have suddenly appeared, in high-visibility jackets, to instruct car drivers in the fine art of the jammed-nose-to-tail refill. Each pump has three nozzles, for diesel and petrol—with some careful driving, and shouted instructions, two cars can use one at the same time.

That doesn’t stop the queue backing up 30 metres into the roadway, hazard lights flashing. After a while the jacketed men flip the makeshift sign, from ‘no petrol cans’ to ‘no petrol’, and the commotion ends. This is what happens when a country runs short of 100,000 truck and tanker drivers and the government says ‘don’t panic’.

In the supermarket next door there are rows of empty shelves. Fresh vegetables are a problem, fruit is a bigger problem and the remaining flowers look sad and wilted. The primary cause of the food shortage is said to be the absence of carbon dioxide for processing—itself a side-effect of the soaring price of natural gas.

Read more at: Britain heads further down the Brexit rabbit-hole – Paul Mason

NATO nations agree to stockpile medical equipment to prepare for second pandemic wave

Defence ministers from NATO nations agreed today to stockpile medical equipment — and to ask member nations to contribute to an emergency fund to buy even more supplies — as the alliance braces for a second wave of the pandemic.

Preparations to respond to future pandemic waves preoccupied the ministers during their two-day teleconference meeting, hosted by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels. The COVID-19 crisis even overshadowed what, in normal times, would have been headline-grabbing disagreements among the allies.

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NATO nations agree to stockpile medical equipment to prepare for second pandemic wave | CBC News

USA: Putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank: Trump gets help from Kushner and rails against new 'witch-hunt' at coronavirus briefing

Donald Trump sparked fresh criticism on Thursday by deploying his son-in-law Jared Kushner at a White House coronavirus taskforce briefing and accusing Democrats of launching a fresh “witch-hunt”.

Kushner, a senior adviser to the US president who is married to his daughter Ivanka, made a surprise appearance on the podium and said Trump had instructed him to “break down every barrier needed to make sure the teams can succeed”.

Kushner added: “The president also wanted us to make sure that we think outside the box, make sure we’re finding all the best thinkers in the country, making sure we’re getting all the best ideas.”

But by way of example, Kushner said Trump became concerned about supply shortages after hearing about them “just this morning” from “friends of his in New York” – implying the president responds to anecdotes rather than the state governor or public health officials.

“We went to the president today,” Kushner continued. “And earlier today, the president called Mayor [Bill] de Blasio to inform him that we are going to send a month of supply to New York public hospital system.”

The vice-president, Mike Pence, later said there would be 200,000 masks sent to New York.

Kushner said: “We’ll be doing similar things with all the different public hospitals that are in the hotspot zones and making sure that we’re constantly in communications with the local communities.”

Media reports have suggested that Kushner, a property developer with no medical expertise, is running a “shadow taskforce” – a rival power base that conflicts with the official task force led by Pence.

Read more at: Trump gets help from Kushner and rails against new 'witch-hunt' at coronavirus briefing | World news | The Guardian

USA: ‘Wartime President’? Trump Rewrites History in an Election Year - The New York Times

With the US economy faltering and the political landscape unsettled as the coronavirus death toll climbs, a stark and unavoidable question now confronts President Trump and his advisers: Can he save his campaign for re-election when so much is suddenly going so wrong?‘

After three years of Republicans’ championing signs of financial prosperity that were to be Mr. Trump’s chief re-election argument, the president has never needed a new message to voters as he does now, not to mention luck. At this point, the president has one clear option for how to proceed politically, and is hoping that an array of factors will break his way.

The option, which he has brazenly pushed in recent days, is to cast himself as a “wartime president” who looks in charge of a nation under siege while his likely Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., is largely out of sight hunkered down in Delaware. This gambit, however, requires a rewriting of history — Mr. Trump’s muted approach to the virus early on — and it’s far from clear if many voters will accept the idea of him as a wartime leader.

Then there are other variables that he and his allies hope will fall in their favor: that the outbreak of the virus will slow and, in the warmer months, dissipate; that the states will get it under control; that the federal government’s steps taken so far will flatten the curve; that Mr. Biden and the Democrats will look impotent and inconsequential by comparison; and that enough voters will move past his initial efforts to play down the virus’s dangers

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Wartime President’? Trump Rewrites History in an Election Year - The New York Times

Puerto Rico: The Trump Administration Is Making the Puerto Rico Tragedy Exponentially Worse

Seven days. That’s how long it’s been since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, yet many communities are still stranded and waiting to receive any aid from the outside world.

Fuel has become a valuable as gold in many areas of island, home to as many U.S. citizens as Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and Vermont combined. Residents have been waiting hours in line to get gasoline for their generators after Maria knocked out most of the island’s power grid and crippled the region’s transportation network.

As residents scramble to gain access to fuel trickling into their communities, some have questioned why the Trump administration has decided not to temporarily waive a rule that prohibits foreign vessels from domestic trade routes. The federal government implemented the waiver in the wake of hurricanes Irma and Harvey that ravaged Texas and Florida, which raises the question: Why the double standard?

David Lapan, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told the Associated Press his agency won’t waive the rule because there are plenty of U.S. flagged vessels to handle the operations. Lapan says most of the humanitarian shipments will be carried by barges. Barges however, move significantly slower than cargo ships.

Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a New York Democrat, and seven other representatives had asked for the shipping waiver in order to speed up deliveries of fuel, food, water, medicine and other necessities to the storm-ravaged island.

Note EU-Digest: As a result of considerable pressure from political and public sources US President Trump today has authorized a waiver to loosen shipping rules regarding Puerto Rico that island officials say would be a significant help for recovery efforts from Hurricane Maria. Many local residents are saying, however, "too little, too late".

Read more: The Trump Administration Is Making the Puerto Rico Tragedy Exponentially Worse | Alternet

IRMA: Florida's electric grid system outdated and inadequate to meet natural disaster challenges

Outdated power supply lines into most Florida/US homes

Is it the Category 3 Hurricane Irma that cut the power to more than 3 million Florida Power & Light customers, or an under-invested Florida grid system that caused these unacceptable power outages, with even more outages expected before the storm is done.

Outages stood at 3,636,550 customer accounts just after 5 a.m. Monday September 11, and were expected to increase throughout the night.

Including 492,980 customers whose power was at some point restored, outages have affected more than about 3 million accounts, or 6 million people in FPL’s 35-county territory.

The fact of all this drama is that both America's electrical hardware and software components are still dealing with "a legacy of under - investment."

Annual electrical transmission investment in the U.S. grew only about 24% in the past 15 years.

U.S. electricity reliability to homes is mainly still based on overhead pole supported wired systems, instead of one, like in most civilized countries in the world, which is laid underground.
 
Consequently the U.S. has significantly higher rates of power loss than countries like France (only 53 minutes lost per year on average) or the Netherlands (only 29 minutes)

In the case of Florida, FPL, the nation's fourth largest utility, already came under heavy criticism after Florida's spate of hurricanes in 2005, which exposed lax attention to maintenance issues, like updated power line poles, tree-trimming and what was widely considered an outdated grid system.

The latter may not have allowed for sufficient redundancy, or the ability to adjust to strains and funnel power via different routes.

And while not much has been done about fixing the power grid infra-structure,  many South Floridians have still been socked with bill increases of as much as $100 a month over the past years.

Critics argue that this is totally unnecessary for a profitable utility like FT to do,  since they have an increasing revenue stream, as a result of 125,000 or more new residents entering Florida each year.

But Florida, like the rest of the US has neglected its power infrastructure, and customers, unfortunately, are paying the price for this neglect.

"Isn't it time to do something about this Florida Governor Rick Scott".

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Energy: Russia is starting 2014 in a strong natural gas position - by William Powell

Relations between the European Union and Russia tend to see-saw, with neither side able to maintain its dominance for long. Where natural gas is concerned, the past few years have seen Gazprom on its  back foot.

The European Commission’s probe into Gazprom’s oil indexed contracts, its insistence on the move from border toward hub trading, and the compulsory unbundling of supply from transportation affecting Gazprom’s joint ventures in Europe were all furiously challenged by the Kremlin, but so far with no effect.

As the new year gets under way, though, the picture is looking very different, with Russia winning on several fronts.

First, what promised to be a major coup for the European Union–wooing Ukraine away from the Kremlin’s sphere of influence–turned sour in the closing days of 2013, as Moscow eased Kiev’s main gripe: high natural gas prices.

While protesters were camping out in Independence Square, calling for closer ties with the EU and ultimately visa-free travel to new labor markets, their president, Victor Yanukovich, was unable to ignore the lure of cut-price gas and the prospect of even bigger riots, such as those in the failed Eurozone states. He signed up to what Moscow was offering instead, and explicitly conceded that his country’s goal of diversification of gas supplies was less important than securing cheap gas.

Russia won a second victory en passant, so to speak, by getting the better of one of its customers, Germany’s RWE.

Read more: Russia is starting 2014 in a strong natural gas position « The Barrel Blog