【Article/ Observer Network Columnist Kong Fan】
Today, my friend cohen, an OECD expert, sent a message: "The MG electric vehicle you recommended to me (SAIC's main brand in Europe) has not yet arrived, and the Price of Electricity in France is about to rise." The ending also comes with a bitter smile.
One sentence, two messages: global supply chain (such as chips, etc.) crisis; Europe's energy crisis.
The global supply chain crisis, we have talked a lot, today we will talk about the European energy crisis.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Europe closely following the United States, sanctioning Russia, it can be said that at all costs. The people of Europe now finally understand that the original "price" is them.
The original idea of the Europeans was that Russia was "out of gas", we still have electricity, especially the French, and the electricity bill should not be too cheap. I heard that many landlords are now changing natural gas heating equipment to electric heating. The electric heater is very dry and uncomfortable, but it is also better than no heating.
However, they did not expect that the electricity bill in Europe would also rise sharply.
Some French people said on Twitter that President Macron encouraged us to buy electric cars, in fact, we are already ready to raise electricity bills, right?
Rising electricity bills should be most affected by enterprises. French energy company Engie said Gazprom notified another cut in gas supplies to France from August 30. France's Engie promised customers that it would secure the supply of natural gas needed, and French Prime Minister Borny urged companies to accelerate energy savings.
See the logic of the French government. Russia's "gas outage" first made the people prepare for a tight life, but they were afraid that the people would make trouble, so they put the burden on the enterprises and urged them to save energy.
The problem is that the efficiency of the enterprise cannot go up, the salary cannot be paid, and the people cannot use it! This dead knot in France is really hard to open.
This situation is the same in all European countries. Germany was even more miserable because Merkel had shut down most of its nuclear power during her tenure and suggested that France do the same. Fortunately, France only stopped a few old nuclear power plants, not all of them.
In recent weeks since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Gazprom has drastically reduced its gas supply to many European countries, including France, although France is relatively less dependent on Russian gas, importing about 4% of France's gas consumption in July.
In order to reduce the dependence on Russian gas, French Prime Minister Borny urged companies to be prepared for faster energy conservation and green transition on August 30, otherwise the government will limit the supply of natural gas and electricity, and enterprises will be affected first.
At the same time, the French government is also preparing some measures to support enterprises that may be seriously affected by power curtailment.
Isn't that contradictory? The French government requires enterprises to save electricity and gas, otherwise they will cut electricity and gas; Then, the government itself had to fund some of the businesses. This circle goes around...
It can also be seen that in the face of the energy crisis, the French government has been in disarray. However, the people could not see it, so the government put on a posture and went to the friendly countries to find anger.
French energy company Engie confirmed on Aug. 29 that it negotiated with Algeria's state-owned oil company on Aug. 29 to increase gas imports from the former colonial nation, and if a deal is reached, Algeria could increase gas supply to France by 50 percent.
To put it mildly, this agreement is not so easy to reach.
Macron arrived in Algeria on August 25 for a three-day visit, and the French newspaper Le Monde stressed that there was a long and unpleasant history between Macron and Algeria.
France's relations with Algeria experienced a cold snap in September 2021, when Macron criticized Algeria's "political-military" system for continuing to benefit from the commemoration of Algeria's war of independence. This time, Macron's official visit to Algeria hopes to move toward "youth and the future" and "rebuild" bilateral relations.
A correspondent from The Le Monde, an Algerian correspondent, said the news of the French delegation's visit in the streets of the capital, Algiers, was far less enthusiastic than Macron's first visit five years earlier. The reason is that the remarks made by the French head of State in the column of Le Monde about a year ago about the Political System in Algeria, especially about the existence of the "Algerian nation" before French colonization, were controversial. Despite the subsequent expression of "regret" by the French president, Algerian public opinion did not turn the page completely.
Therefore, Macron's African "gas finding" plan is destined not to be achieved overnight. This could also affect Algeria's gas supply to Europe. Natural gas from Algeria currently accounts for between 8 and 9 percent of France's natural gas imports. Although France has not officially announced how much it expects Algerian gas exports to France to increase, a more reliable estimate would be a 50% increase. That's big enough.
Algeria is Africa's largest exporter of natural gas, and it meets nearly 11 percent of Europe's gas needs. Macron said he didn't go to Algeria to "find gas", purely for face. Macron faces the challenge of securing supply in the domestic market, where the French market is actually preparing to impose energy consumption limits.
Not to "find gas"? The BBC report will not give the French face
Regardless of whether the agreement between France and Algeria can be achieved, France will definitely have to deal with enterprises and prepare to limit gas and electricity. What impact will this have?
Taking the Carrefour Group, which is most contacted by the French, as an example, we know how difficult it is for the government to accelerate energy conservation and carry out green transformation. Not long ago, Carrefour signed an agreement with the French power grid management company (RTE), promising to reduce electricity consumption if necessary this winter.
The agreement stipulates that after receiving the alarm of power shortage from the power grid management company, Carrefour Group will reduce or stagger the electricity consumption of its supermarkets and warehouses to reduce the pressure on the power grid and avoid power outages. Carrefour will reduce the intensity of mall lighting, adjust the heating temperature of the mall and stagger the cooking time of cooked foods such as roast chicken, saving up to 10 megawatts of electricity consumption, equivalent to 1% of the capacity of a nuclear reactor.
Pierkazk, head of the grid management company, said France's power system was under pressure and would be even more stressed this winter. The development of new energy can not keep up, some nuclear power plants have been shut down for various reasons, and now it is necessary to reduce the import of natural gas from Russia, if the winter weather is cold, the pressure on the power system will be very large.
Pombal, the head of Carrefour, said that Carrefour's malls are numerous, with thousands of suppliers and millions of customers, so they are obliged to "set an example". However, to reduce the daily electricity consumption of shopping malls, a lot of investment needs to be made, such as replacing energy-saving lamps, such as replacing simple refrigerated shelves with closed refrigerated cabinets, etc., which take about 10 years to recover the cost.
Although the words are beautiful, the French people know that the Carrefour Group is inextricably linked to the government, which must be Macron's "greeting" and giving promises, and Carrefour has spared no expense to respond to the government's energy-saving transformation measures.
The French government wants to make Carrefour a "model" enterprise and let other companies "follow the trend". To be honest, how many rich companies like Carrefour can there be in France? Who will come out and be the wronged boss!
Therefore, the final result as mentioned earlier, most of the French enterprises can not achieve energy saving, green transformation, if the government really "say what it says", limit the gas and electricity to them, or even cut off the gas and electricity, resulting in these enterprises into difficulties, employees will take to the streets to protest, the government can only act as the head of the injustice, subsidize these enterprises, help them tide over the difficulties.
For so many years, France has come this way, and enterprises and workers are too familiar with this routine, basically no rehearsal.
The yellow vest protest of that year was triggered by a fuel price increase, picture source: Al Jazeera
France is this virtue, and the rest of Europe will only make it worse. Some German cities have begun to turn off hot water in public facilities, turn off the lights of landmark attractions, and it is no longer a joke that Germans hoard wood for heating. The impact of the energy crisis on Germany, Europe's largest economy, is imminent: as a global manufacturing power, Germany's manufacturing industry faces the threat of insufficient or even interruption of energy supply.
It is foreseeable that the Energy Crisis in Europe will have a profound impact. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, sanctions and counter-sanctions continue to drive up international oil and gas prices. After the rise in energy prices, the economies of European countries were under great pressure, inflation began to rise sharply, and the pressure on people's livelihood increased sharply.
Why are other energy powers struggling to understand Europe's urgent needs?
After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the European Union decided to significantly increase the purchase of energy sources such as liquefied natural gas from the United States and other countries, but it will take time to establish the necessary infrastructure to receive these energy sources. In addition, the Middle East's oil-producing powers have refused to significantly increase oil and gas production in the short term, which has made oil and gas prices continue to rise.
Europe already has abundant and readily available coal resources and infrastructure, and in desperation, restarting abandoned coal power has become a stopgap measure.
More serious consequences, however, are that the EU may be forced to abandon some of its climate change targets. This means that the global impetus for curbing climate change formed since the United Nations Paris climate agreement may suffer certain setbacks in Europe.
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