{"id":133642,"date":"2024-09-10T09:10:51","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T06:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/fi\/news\/europes-new-normal-high-energy-bills-fading-industry-and-one-chance-to-fix-it\/"},"modified":"2024-09-10T09:10:51","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T06:10:51","slug":"europes-new-normal-high-energy-bills-fading-industry-and-one-chance-to-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/news\/europes-new-normal-high-energy-bills-fading-industry-and-one-chance-to-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s new normal: High energy bills, fading industry and one chance to fix it"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <p>You are unauthorized to view this page.<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-login-form-wrap\">\n            \n<div class=\"mp_wrapper mp_login_form\">\n                  <!-- mp-login-form-start -->     <form name=\"mepr_loginform\" id=\"mepr_loginform\" class=\"mepr-form\" action=\"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/login-2\/\" method=\"post\" data-trp-original-action=\"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/login-2\/\">\n            <div class=\"mp-form-row mepr_username\">\n        <div class=\"mp-form-label\">\n                              <label for=\"user_login\">Username<\/label>\n        <\/div>\n        <input type=\"text\" name=\"log\" id=\"user_login\" value=\"\" \/>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"mp-form-row mepr_password\">\n        <div class=\"mp-form-label\">\n          <label for=\"user_pass\">Password<\/label>\n          <div class=\"mp-hide-pw\">\n            <input type=\"password\" name=\"pwd\" id=\"user_pass\" value=\"\" \/>\n            <button type=\"button\" class=\"button mp-hide-pw hide-if-no-js\" data-toggle=\"0\" aria-label=\"Show password\">\n              <span class=\"dashicons dashicons-visibility\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span>\n            <\/button>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n            <div>\n        <label><input name=\"rememberme\" type=\"checkbox\" id=\"rememberme\" value=\"forever\" \/> Remember Me<\/label>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"mp-spacer\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n      <div class=\"submit\">\n        <input type=\"submit\" name=\"wp-submit\" id=\"wp-submit\" class=\"button-primary mepr-share-button\" value=\"Log In\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"redirect_to\" value=\"\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133642\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mepr_process_login_form\" value=\"true\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mepr_is_login_page\" value=\"false\" \/>\n      <\/div>\n    <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"trp-form-language\" value=\"en\"\/><\/form>\n    <div class=\"mp-spacer\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n    <div class=\"mepr-login-actions\">\n        <a\n          href=\"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/login-2\/?action=forgot_password\"\n          title=\"Click here to reset your password\"\n        >\n          Forgot Password        <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n\n      \n    <!-- mp-login-form-end --> \n  <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"smart_content_wrapper\">\n<p>German manufacturers are being strangled. The EU is feeling the pinch. Mario Draghi on Monday warned the EU may be staring at \u2018slow agony.\u2019 You\u2019ve never heard of Hans Keim Kunststoffe, but you\u2019ve almost certainly come across one of its products. They\u2019re protecting museum paintings, covering MRI machines during a hospital visit, forming a mobile caravan\u2019s sunroof and even hanging over the seats of an amusement park ride in China.<\/p>\n<p>These plastic parts are all made in a corrugated iron factory ringed with carefully planted shrubbery on the edge of Zimmern ob Rottweil, a small town nestled in Germany\u2019s Black Forest region about a half-hour drive from the Swiss border. It\u2019s a small but energy-intensive business: The company runs eight ovens that heat up and mold plastic sheets into whatever the customer requests. The largest oven is the size of a small room, with enough space to fit several people doing jumping jacks.<\/p>\n<p>Running those furnaces has gotten a lot more expensive since Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. Before the war, the annual electricity bill was about \u20ac80,000. It&#8217;s nearly doubled since then, said managing director Christoph Keim, son of the company\u2019s founder, a chemist who got his start after World War II with a company making disinfectants. Prices for customers rose, while profit margins shrank.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, costs receded. Relief came. But things didn\u2019t return to their pre-war level. Instead, Keim entered a troubling new normal, where energy prices are double those of overseas rivals.\u00a0That reality is slowly eroding thousands of similar companies across Europe\u2019s industrial heartland. Germany, Europe\u2019s manufacturing powerhouse, has fallen into a recession expected to extend through the year\u2019s end. Even global German stalwarts like Volkswagen, a name almost synonymous with the mighty Das Auto itself, are staring at unprecedented plant closures.<\/p>\n<p>More broadly across the EU, output from key energy-intensive sectors like chemicals and steel is declining. Plants are shutting down. Industrial champions are announcing layoffs.\u00a0This low-wattage economy has policymakers issuing existential warnings \u2014 if things don\u2019t change, they say, European industry will shrink to irrelevance. On Monday, Mario Draghi, the EU economic guru and former European Central Bank chief, offered a similarly dire message, using elevated energy bills to make his case for a massive overhaul of how Europe does business. \u201cThe moment is really worrisome,\u201d he said while presenting his report. \u201cWe cannot ignore it any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a diagnosis EU officials in Brussels, who ordered up Draghi\u2019s assessment, fully endorse and are already infusing into their policy work. Ursula von der Leyen, the EU\u2019s top executive, called Draghi\u2019s pitch to accelerate Europe\u2019s green industry \u201cbasically the same idea we\u2019re pushing forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But time is short. While cheaper renewable energy is coming, it will take years to create structural change. In the meantime, Chinese overproduction is eating into Europe\u2019s market share at home and abroad, and new, power-hungry technologies like electric vehicles and artificial intelligence will strain local power networks. \u201cFor the first time since the Cold War,\u201d Draghi said, \u201cwe must genuinely fear for our self-preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By the time an underwater explosion that detonated off the coast of Germany critically damaged the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022, the flow of pipeline gas between Russia and EU countries had reduced to a trickle. The severed connection underscored an emerging truth: There was no turning back.<\/p>\n<p>Europe escaped the immediate energy shock that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine better than expected. Prices shot up, but reserves didn\u2019t run out. Countries found new fuel sources. Households, on the whole, kept the heating on, helped by selective industry shutdowns.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, energy prices have fallen. But they remain higher than they were before 2022, and crucially, higher than those of competitors. The International Energy Agency estimates that in 2023, power in Europe cost twice as much as in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/europe-energy-bills-germany-brussels-pipeline-prices\/\">Read more&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source: <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/europe-energy-bills-germany-brussels-pipeline-prices\/\">Politico<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/vaufien\/europes-new-normal-high-energy-bills-fading-industry-and-one-chance-to-fix-it\/\">Europe\u2019s new normal: High energy bills, fading industry and one chance to fix it<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\">Vastuullisuusuutiset.fi<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[16048,606,607,608],"class_list":["post-133642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-europes-new-normal","tag-vau_viikkokatsaus","tag-vauen","tag-vaufien"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tietopankki.crnet.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}