The establishment media are suspiciously silent about the energy crunch facing Europe in general and the UK in particular.  In October, when the wholesale gas price spiked at 400 percent above its January 2021 level, energy prices were headline news.  So too was the sight of energy supply companies falling like dominoes.  But then, perhaps because energy supply problems couldn’t be blamed on Brexit, the news moved on to MPs sleaze and the Prime Minister’s Christmas parties.  Most Brits today are entirely unaware that our energy situation has become far more precarious.

It falls to the business pages of the American press to spell out what UK outlets refuse to consider.  For example, Anna Shiryaevskaya, Jesper Starn, and Elena Mazneva at Bloomberg explain that:

“Temperatures are forecast to fall below zero degrees Celsius in several European capitals this week, straining electricity grids already coping with low wind speeds and severe nuclear outages in France. To make matters worse, Russia is limiting natural gas flows through a major transit route to Germany…

“Energy prices have spiraled this year, with European gas surging more than 600%. The region’s benchmark gas contract climbed as much as 8.8% Monday and closed record-high, while German year-ahead power, a benchmark in Europe, rose as much as 5.7% to a record 256.25 euros ($289) a megawatt-hour. The French contract jumped 9% to an all-time high.”

The energy crunch has been exacerbated by the political games being played out by the new German government and Russia – the former refusing to finalise the Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal, and the latter choosing to store gas reserves for its own population rather than pump it over to Western Europe.  One consequence for the UK – which is now at the end of the pipelines from Russia – is that the price of gas spiked above £3.70 per therm this afternoon (20.12.2021):

 

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