The EU has laid out plans to raise €140bn (£121bn) by capping revenues for non-gas energy suppliers as part of a radical effort to halt the escalating crisis.
Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President, said the funds would come from capping revenues for producers of low-cost power such as renewables and nuclear.
She told politicians in Brussels: “In these times it is wrong to receive extraordinary record revenues and profits benefiting from war and on the back of our consumers. In these times, profits must be shared and channelled to those who need it most.”
Not going to work out well, is it?
Especially if it’s the EU doing it – they’ll not give up a revenue stream of €140 billion a year if they ever do get their hands on it.
BLM – boche lebensraum matters.
Come on “europeans”, the fatherland needs you!
Get the feeling it won’t just be poland asking for reparations in a few years.
This is one of those, “Oh shit, I’m still in the EU!” moments…
I’ll start digging that Copper out of the garden…
Do the EU actually have to power to do this, or will it be another of their power-grabs that’s legitimized afterwards?
I thought the £170bn of “excess profits” that gets quoted was across the entire world? Just how is the EU going to tax Statoil or Saudi Aramco or wind farms in Texas or the Gobi?
I’m missing something, can someone explain how this works?
How does capping the revenue of x (certain businesses) lead to raising money for y (the EU)?
Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato. Or, “all your profits are belong to us”.
Ah, so the EU will take all revenue above a certain level, and then distribute the money?
Sounds complicated.
Removing the financial incentives for people to provide you more energy at the exact same moment you desperately need more energy is a brilliant idea, isn’t it Ursula?
The Union is great.
All hail the Union.
May it last a thousand years.
Really makes Trussy’s plan (which is back of a fag packet stuff that will probably cost us more than World War 2) look sensible in comparison.
We don’t want fiendishly complicated schemes to be administered by proven incompetents, we want simple schemes that are difficult for bureaucrats to fuck up and/or permanantise.
The Guardian critiques the German fool’s energy master plan:
But the obvious drawback is that the EU hasn’t designed its measures on a fuel-by-fuel basis. A cap at €180 squeezes coal plants whose input costs have also risen, but it is still extremely generous towards nuclear plants and windfarms, whose costs are fixed and substantially lower. Member states can set lower thresholds if they wish, but that’s for the future.
In a sane world (ie not the West), we’d probably be building more coal plants right now (I assume the longest lead time items are steam turbines, would that be about right? Beats waiting a couple of decades for new reactors.) and discouraging further wasted investment in unreliables. But we do live in the West, so…
The UK’s non-windfall tax approach, remember, is to negotiate with nuclear, wind, solar and biomass generators to secure lower wholesale energy prices quickly
In a sane world, this would be a historic opportunity to get rid of the insane Year Zero plan, royally and deservedly fuck over the Gummers and the Goldsmiths, and unleash the beast of British productivity via the miracle of hydraulic fracturing. By 2032 we’d all be laughing and high-fiving in our flying Deloreans, rich as Lords and happy as Diane Abbott in a lock-in at KFC. And if King Charles and his tomatoes don’t like it, well, we’ve solved King Charles shaped public policy problems before.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, eh? I wonder if Newcomen, Watt and Smeaton are looking down on us from Engineering Heaven, shaking their heads in disappointment.
wonder if Newcomen, Watt and Smeaton are looking down on us from Engineering Heaven, shaking their heads in disappointment
Nah, they occasionally make the universal sign for wankers to us, then go back to their heavenly pursuits.
Steve
Be careful, old bean – the Ukrainian Pravda wing that frequent these parts will be after you in short order wondering where your ‘funds from Putin’ are being stashed.
VP – I’ve been wondering the same thing. Mrs Steve has all my money, online banking might as well be the oven because I don’t know how that works either 🙁
Some interesting analysis here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vnfzgf0ENQ
. . . they’ll not give up a revenue stream of €140 billion a year if they ever do get their hands on it.
*cough* carbon tax
Damifino what sort of political clout the lignite miners have. But they always seem to be able to dodge the German bullshit.
. . . the Ukrainian Pravda wing that frequent these parts . . .
♫ It’s all gone quiet over there . . . ♫
Jimmers – Isambard Kingdom Brunel is probably smoking a cigar, judging us Victorianly
“I assume the longest lead time items are steam turbines”
I assume that the longest lead time is on planning permission.
From “Action this day” to “Action next decade” in only 80 years.
Dm – Sure, but planning permission something we can conceivably solve pretty quickly (it’s amazing how fast rules can change when there’s a will to change them). The capital investment stuff is probably less hurriable, given that steam turbines and whatnot are massive, complicated, precision machines hand-built to order by a few specialist firms?
If we were serious about solving the energy crisis, coal would be a major part of the short-to-medium term plan, pending a major transition to next-gen nukes. We are not serious yet, Mrs Truss has hastily applied the most expensive sticking plaster in history to our economic shotgun wounds. But it’s early days yet in the new government – plenty of time for them to find new and exciting ways to let us down.
The EU seems even more delusional than the UK, at least we’re sort of ambling vaguely in arguably the right direction and might even get a few wins out of the Truss Age. The EU’s plan looks a lot like what Henry Morgenthau wanted for Germany, writ on a continental scale. But maybe that’s what they deserve.
Bitches don’t know they’re poor yet, but they’ll learn the hard way.
PJF
the tunes might change when the rationing and rolling power cuts start (should be in Germany by November I am hearing) but hey – let’s get playing those tunes!
Van_Patten
The joke about predictions and the future is tedious but true. Your scenario is quite possible, but so is one where a new Russian government is pursuing a policy of rapid hole undigging.
VP – RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA TIME
I think PJF is getting excited because our Greatest Ally and the Frontline of Freedom and Democracy itself (eh, Ukraine) is in the news again after stunningly – and bravely – capturing a swathe of villages in the north.
(Btw it’s easy to snark, but let’s hope the newly liberated villagers aren’t currently being tortured and murdered by the Good Guys for ‘collaborationist’ activities such as treasonously accepting food and water rations from Russians).
The MSM is positively ajizz at this exciting development, which is surely The Beginning Of The End for Putler *this time* (all the other Beginnings of the End don’t count). The Ghost of Kiev may yet fly from his grave in a spectral MiG-29 to defeat the evil Asiatic horde, secure Trans Rights in the Chernivtsi Oblast and make sure people appreciate Jeff Bezos’ horrible Lord of the Spades TV show.
Unfortunately, stacking a few thousand more Ukrainian corpses in a proxy war fought on Ukie territory that Russia can massively escalate at any time of its choosing doesn’t help Ukraine very much beyond its next fundraiser, and doesn’t help us at all with the small problem that we’re now bankrupt and have no idea how to stop the wave of mass unemployment, poverty and social unrest coming our way.
This is what’s known as a shite state of affairs, Tommy.
At the start of World War 3, the West assumed the Russians would escalate rapidly and take Kiev. We offered Zelensky the typical retirement package of a safe haven in the West for him and his suitcases full of money. We’d have been better off if he’d taken that deal, or indeed the one Boris flew in to stop back in April. We also assumed the sanctions regime would quickly destroy the Russian economy – that was the stated goal, repeatedly emphasised by Mr Blinken and co. before they realised their mistake and changed the rationalisation for the sanctions.
None of the West’s plans have panned out. We’ve successfully turned what should’ve been a minor regional dispute into an emerging global conflict with no defined and achievable win condition and sanctioned ourselves to penury, while Russians laugh at us in Cyrillic and turn their central heating up just because they can.
It’s all a bit Sicilian Expedition, but with more guns and the same amount of pederasty. Athens lost that one, but despite the effeminacy of modern Western society our foreign policy is more like Sparta’s: an inbred ruling caste of cult-like lunatics offering unceasingly arrogant aggression against everyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths. It didn’t work out for Sparta in the long run, and the long run has already arrived for the collective West.
No flowers.
TRANSMISSION ENDS. HAIL STALIN!
. . . (eh, Ukraine) is in the news again after stunningly – and bravely – capturing a swathe of villages in the north.
(Btw it’s easy to snark . . .
Yup, if we want snark, you’re the go to guy. General analysis not so much.
What the Ukrainians have done is remove the threat to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, certainly this year and probably for good, and removed Belgorod as a logistics hub for the Donbas. By taking Kharkiv Oblast up to the Oskil river, they’ve put the railway lines through Luhansk Oblast out of action (the roads are hopeless). The Russian campaign will now have to be supplied from the south. The Russians have effectively abandoned greater Luhansk Oblast, concentrating defence on the Lysychansk flank of the LPR. Their (re)stated war aim of “liberating” the Donbas is a bust.
I don’t know if the Ukrainians have the resources for another attack. If they do, I suspect it’ll be Zaporizhia Oblast.
. . . a spectral MiG-29 to defeat the evil Asiatic horde . . .
Adapting their MiGs to work with HARM missiles has been as important as HIMARS. They can use the missiles in monitor mode to “see” the Russian force disposition, giving them a local tactical electronic surveillance capability. Plus destroy and suppress Russian air defences and communications.
. . . stacking a few thousand more Ukrainian corpses in a proxy war fought on Ukie territory that Russia can massively escalate at any time of its choosing doesn’t help Ukraine very much . . .
Still yearning for Russia’s massed battalion tactical groups to emerge out of hiding and sweep all before them, presumably just as soon as Russia’s cunning plan to make themselves look like third world twats completes (from second best army in the world to second best army in Ukraine). You’re going to be disappointed.
Meanwhile, Putin is throwing his military under the bus, which may not work quite as easily as throwing his other opponents out of windows. That’s a domestic space worth watching.