Chup

That is just a big fat lie.

Russia supplied about half the natural gas in 2021 and from 2022 on it went to zero anyways. Why would you make up such crap that everyone can just Google that it's a lie?

Germany is currently planning to add 25 GW of new gas plants for electricity generation to enable the coal exit and still have capacities for bad renewable days. Gas consumption for electricity generation will increase immensely. Especially when thinking about the topics you mentioned regarding other gas usage that is going to get replaced by more electricity usage.

Just look at bad renewable days with not much wind or sun, e.g. week #4 this year: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=04 (Lemmy is breaking the link, just click on the right side on week #4 to change the display)

Both coal types together run at about 30 GW on such days, with gas adding another ~12 GW to the fossil load. Even with adding more renewables over the next years, there needs to be a solution for bad renewable days - which will be the new gas plants. The plants are still in an early funding stage so this will take years to get them up an running. But time is ticking when looking at the early coal phase-out date.

Every country just needs something they can turn on when there are bad renewable days. And as you are saying, for many other EU countries that is already natural gas. So it will stay on the menu for decades, as it also works great together with daily load balance and renewables. Flame on - flame off, most flexible plants.

There are 2 different things going on.

Last year natural gas spiked in price due to Russia invading Ukraine. Because of the shortage and high price, there were successful attempts in various sectors and countries to reduce gas usage immediately. Hopefully some of the reductions measures will stay for longer and not just 1-3 years until the supply situation stabilised again.

Gas is planned to use in long term for a lot of EU countries and there are also huge investments planned. There is an absolute dependency on the resource for years and probably decades ahead. With markets exiting coal due to high CO2 prices, gas will become even more prominent to regulate the grid/demand across the day or as emergency plants for bad renewable days. In some EU countries, gas is the major source for electricity generation and overall it's more looking to get higher than lower in the next 10 years. Even though LNG is more expensive, that price will be paid and of course forwarded to the end user. But that higher price will also help to push for renewables harder than with cheaper pipeline gas.

Just some numbers regarding the importance of natural gas for electricity. So not even accounting for the vast industrial/chemical use or heating (district & detached houses) purpose.

Gas TWh Public net electricity generation 2022

• Belgium 20 TWh (22.6%) with nuclear (42 TWh) phase-out ahead and no coal plants
• France 42 TWh (10%)
• Germany 45 TWh (9%) with coal (161 TWh) phase-out ahead
• Greece 19 TWh (48%)
• Italy 117 TWh (48%)
• Netherlands 36 TWh (36%) with 80% fossil generation
• Portugal 16 TWh (40%) with no coal plants
• Spain 77 TWh (29.5%)
• [UK 2020, 95 TWh (40%) with barely coal or hydro]

You should clarify that it's getting off Russian gas and oil. Overall gas and oil will stay, just from other sources.

Gas pipelines bind end points together. The buyer is depended on the supplier, the supplier on the buyer. With Europe buying way more LNG now to replace Russian gas, the seller can be across the Atlantic Ocean. For oil this has always been the case with oil tankers.

Buying happens now on the international market instead of the pipeline end points (in Russia).

Finally released on TCB Scans as well:

https://tcbscans.com/chapters/7465/one-piece-chapter-1090

This post is obviously not meant serious.

To the right of the damaged section we can see a thread indicator, so there is maybe around 1 mm thread on the right shoulder. Therefore the centre part was below legal limits.

Before changing tyres, the owner of that bike decided to kill off the old tyre completely by doing a burnout. We can see the flat centre piece all around on the tyre, typical for a burnout.

I would not call that a U-turn:

Instead, the government pledges to meet the 2 percent target on average over a five-year period, as already set out in the recently published National Security Strategy.

Seems more like the same direction, just on a parallel lane.

On the one hand debatable, as it doesn't come 100% in line with the wording of the NATO guideline. On the other hand a practical course to measure across 5 years, as in some years there are larger procurements required than in others and overall the 2% are still met.

The ship can be tracked again and it's out of Ukrainian waters!

https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9605243

We can also track the ship's route (ignore the red line, it's just the shortest/direct line to the destination port)

https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9605243

It's an exciting technological race with the wind turbines. Just last year China opened a wind farm with another record holding wind turbine:

Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Goldwind and China Three Gorges (CTG) Corporation held a ceremony in the Fujian offshore wind industrial park on 13 October as Goldwind rolled out the nacelle for its first 13.6 MW turbine that will have a rotor diameter of 252 metres.

While Vestas’s and Siemens Gamesa’s currently largest offshore wind turbines have a capacity of 15 MW and 14 MW, respectively, more than Goldwind’s new giant, their rotors stand at “only” 236 metres.

According to the recent update from Siemens Gamesa, its SG 14-236 DD rotor has a 43,500 m2 swept area, which is approximately the size of 6.1 standard football pitches and, according to China Daily, Goldwind’s GWH 252-13.6MW has a swept area of about 50,000 m2 which is “equivalent to 7 standard football fields”.

Source: https://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/10/18/goldwind-new-offshore-wind-turbine-smashes-rotor-diameter-record/

So different manufacturers have different concepts regarding height, diameter, swept area and of course electricity output. With the tallest and the most swept area not being the one with the highest electricity production.

Gas plants are typically selected to supplement renewable energy. They are not just kept running, like in this case. To allow the transition to renewables, they are even newly build. Gas plants can quickly be turned up and down, faster than any other fossil power plant, so they are perfect as cold reserve for emergency situations. It also allows local balance depending on grid, population and industry distribution compared to landscape and weather.

Gas plants are (unfortunately) part of the many steps towards renewable and independent energy.

Original title:

Spain and Portugal could finally be getting a high-speed train link

Would be nice to not change the title, which also changes the statement.

Spanish rail operator Renfe’s plans for expansion could mean trains direct to Lisbon and Porto from Madrid

The designs for all the plans need to be finalised and approved, but still, it all sounds pretty exciting.