Quote (Black XistenZ @ Nov 19 2022 10:39pm)
Of course the fracking industry is a boom and bust type of industry, and of course it went through a bust period during covid. But with the soaring prices, it was in position to rebound tremendously since the spring of 2021... if not for the Biden admin, and the decarbonization movement in general, creating a political environment in which nobody is willing to invest in fossils anymore. Note that fracking is relatively quick to get online, it would already be alleviating global gas prices right now if not for political roadblocks.
For the German Greens, nuclear energy is not part of the green agenda. Also, the French neglected their nuclear power plants for years, leading to a lot of them having to be shut down for maintenance this summer. Talk about bad timing...
More broadly speaking, the vast majority of European industries and businesses would be fine if the price of natural gas doubled from where it was in 2019 - slightly higher energy costs than in the US or some places of Asia doesn't spell doom for European competitiveness. (There are ofc a handful of exceptions in particularly energy-intense industries.) What they can't cope with in the long run is when gas prices are 4 or 5 times as high as elsewhere.
We will see where they settle in the long run.
You underestimate investors desire to put heavy capital somewhere, which at the whims of opec+ can be dismantled, as happened before. What is it 70?per barrel to break even?