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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

> The article is a bit sensationalistic Germans will put a sweater inside their houses and turn the thermostat down.

Just so the situation is clear, half of Germany energy is imported from Russia. Russia just turned off the taps, so you’re looking at a shortfall of 30-40% for winter (assuming it doesn’t restart).

What does this mean for people on the ground? Energy prices can easily go 10x (so a $300 bill becomes $3000/month). You’d have to drop the heating of your home by 20 degrees and you’ll still be seeing $1000/month bills.

Not to mention, this will force companies to shutdown. Energy costs are too high to maintain production. So you’ll see people losing their jobs AND having crazy bills.

This will impact everything across the board - food, goods, etc.

https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany

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> Just so the situation is clear, half of Germany energy is imported from Russia.

Not energy, but only gas.

> What does this mean for people on the ground? Energy prices can easily go 10x (so a $300 bill becomes $3000/month).

Almost no household pays $300 for heating here. We life in a large flat and paid 120€/month last year (including warming all water for the year).

> You’d have to drop the heating of your home by 20 degrees and you’ll still be seeing $1000/month bills.

If we drop heating altogether our flat cools down to 11°C during winter (found out the hard way because our heating system broke down during winter a few years ago), so reducing heating by 100% means a delta of 9°C. Reducing target temperature to 18°C instead of 20°C would save perhaps 25% of gas. I personally expect increases of about 1000€ for the whole heating season for our household (i.e. about triple costs).

The German depencence on gas is bad for multiple reasons, but your numbers are quite hyberbolic.

Read the links.

Germany gets ~50% of its gas from Russia, ~50% of its oil from Russia and ~50% of its coal from Russia.

Together ~85% of the energy of Germany comes from oil, coal and gas combined Nuclear was just phased out and I assume wind / solar made up for the differential. Wind often stops, particularly in winter. I’m not familiar on the particular turbines in Germany - but Canada mentions this: https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/energy-sources-distribution/r...

So 30-45% of German energy comes directly from Russia. Potentially more during winter.

Regardless, you’re looking at it through the lens of your flat. That may not be representative. For instance, I’d your flat is next to other flats operating at 20C then I’d expect your flat to stay relatively warmer compared to the outside air. If everyone drops, it drops dramatically.

The average $300/month bill may have been a poor basis (let’s take your €120/month), but the magnitude change imo is more likely to 10x still. Energy prices change on the margin, there hasn’t been a crunch yet; but there will be - barring some agreement with Russia.

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