Europe has shaken off Putin’s gas embargo

livemint.com:

reality in Germany. Far from falling into an abyss, Europe’s largest economy suffered only the mildest of technical recessions. Some have put this down to luck, notably a mild winter in much of Europe reducing the demand for heating.

In fact, the economists find, the weather was in line with recent years. If anything, other factors compounded the effect of missing Russian gas. French nuclear plants turned out to need unexpected maintenance at the worst possible time, for example.

Rather, millions of firms and people in Europe have turned out to be unwitting heroes of making do. “Market economies have a tremendous ability to adapt to changing circumstances," says Mr Moll, a professor at the London School of Economics. Households turned down the heating, at least in countries where politicians did not cap energy prices in a bid to placate voters.

Factories once dependent on gas found ways to switch to other fuels. The most power-hungry bits of industry, such as those producing paper, cement, aluminium and some chemicals, were sometimes shuttered. Instead, those products were imported: effectively, an alternative way to bring energy to Europe’s shores.

The supply of energy also adapted. New piped gas was found, from Norway, Algeria or Azerbaijan. Given sky-high prices, ships laden with liquefied natural gas (LNG) flocked in.

The installation of a new facility to unload such boats was thought to need years, yet Germany pulled it off in ten months. Mothballed coal-fired plants were revived, and renewables installed. Countries far and wide contributed to Europe’s energy pivot, too.