Benchmark prices dropped as much as 8.8% on Monday, extending last week’s decline. Germany, the U.K. and others plan to spend billions to ease their reliance on Russian imports, rescue local energy companies, and cap prices to alleviate pressures on businesses and households.

With European energy prices at acute levels, there are huge risks that could destabilise the whole social, economic, and political fabric of Europe.

The US federal government’s effort to force the transition of the US energy economy from a mixed-fuel economy to an “all-electric everything” energy economy based on renewable electricity generation and storage is becoming a brutal and explicit combination of incentives and disincentives.

Benchmark futures fell as much as 9.6%, following extreme volatility this month. Rising gas stockpiles and ample supplies of liquefied natural gas have pulled prices back from August records, but they’re still more than seven times higher than the typical levels for this time of year.

Benchmark futures jumped as much as 12%. The European Commission’s radical intervention plan includes raising 140 billion euros ($140 billion) for consumers from energy companies’ earnings, as also mandatory curb on peak power demand and boosting liquidity.

The plan is expected to raise €140bn, including €117bn from the temporary revenue cap on inframarginal electricity producers and €25bn from the temporary solidarity contribution based on taxable surplus profits made in the fiscal year 2022 on energy undertakings in the oil, gas, coal and refinery sectors

The risks of shortages drove gas prices higher for a third day. The European Commission this week unveiled radical intervention plan including raising 140 billion euros ($140 billion) for consumers from energy companies’ earnings, mandatory curb on peak power demand and boosting liquidity.

Renewable generation sources include conventional hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. In the United States, most renewable electricity generation comes from hydropower, solar, and wind.

So far, in 2022, spot electricity prices are five to ten times higher than in previous years. On August 22, the daily spot market price for Germany exceeded 600 EUR/MWh, 15 times the average of the 2010s.

The Brent crude oil spot price averages $98 per barrel (b) in the fourth quarter of 2022 (4Q22) and $97/b in 2023.

Benchmark energy futures fell after jumping on Monday, with Dutch front-month gas losing as much as 13% and German year-ahead power falling 11%.

Europe and North America are sanctioning the Russian economy, including its energy exports, while Russia is retaliating by cutting key resources, in particular natural gas flows to Europe. This is massively disruptive

That should help to make future decision making easier. But it is not going to help keep us warm this winter or indeed even in winter 2024.

The economy will face additional challenges, beginning immediately but growing most rapidly in the period from 2035 to 2050 as all remaining fossil-fueled end uses are transitioned to electric end uses.

First, nuclear is “dispatchable.” That is the term for the power you can rely on; power that will be there when you need it, and you can dispatch it.