Satirical review of energy events (14.05.2024)

Who is afraid of the „Green People?”

We probably remember the game of „Black People” from our childhood. The game has its roots in Germany (nomen omen) and refers to the old days of the great plague. „The Black Folk” – a menacing figure no one knows who, who came from no one knows where stands in front of a group of children and at some point (including after an exchange of „Who is afraid of the Black Folk”) begins to chase them. Whoever is touched joins his team and, in the next turn, also catches and infects them. With the advancement of medicine, this once popular game has lost some appeal, but it seems it will soon be reactivated again – in the „Who’s Afraid of the Green People” variety. Friday’s demonstrations, the cursory occupation of the parliament on chairs, and the entire campaign ahead of the next parliamentary elections have only one horror figure to fear – „The Green Deal.” Our new fear came in 2019 – when the vision of the Green Deal was adopted (also by Poland) in the EU. However, it seems that until now, no one (at least of the politicians) has read or thought about what the Green Deal is all about, but that’s even better because it turns out that thanks to this, we can blame it for all the woes. Inflation, energy and gasoline price hikes, coal mine declines, job losses, competition from Chinese producers, bad harvests, quality requirements, waste problems that we can’t throw away for ourselves, and strange bans on burning garbage are all Green People.

On top of that… it catches and infects. The Green Deal throws in more directives, resolutions, regulations and bans driving diesel, shuts down gas stoves, tells us to thermalize buildings, brings in some weird solar panels, builds up our fields with windmills and raises the price of parking old cars downtown. It also restricts the dumping of fertilizers on fields and directs our attention to vegetables and, God forbid, the consumption of crickets and earthworms. So, one must run! Politicians eagerly draw the line – on this side, we defend our freedom and will not let ourselves go green. The joyful idea of gaining a few percentage points in the elections has already shattered our approach to the European Union and, in a moment, will produce another (as with the English Brexit) skewed image of the European Union (there, the norm of crooked bananas was dealt with). We don’t know exactly what we are afraid of, but a subconscious fear is gripping more areas of society. An assault on our freedom, traditions, and home may be a bit grubby and leaky with an old coal stove, but it is free and healthy (according to us) and far from green. So … let’s run away!… just thinking about it like this is whether by running away, we fall into the arms of the „Black People” again. I wanted to write that maybe instead of running away, it is worth reading something after all and thinking about it, but I suddenly realized that as children, we preferred to run around in the backyard than to do science. This will continue to be the case now – after all, politicians like it best when we run scared from one side to the other.

Who builds the value of energy concerns – the stock market on a swing?

One sentence of the Ministry and 10% of the value of the concern up or down…

The theory is that the value of companies on the stock market is built by their financial performance, charismatic and stable management with a long-term strategy, continuous cooperation with customers and thoughtful investments. In Polish conditions and the energy industry, it is not. In our case, the most essential factor in building value is … one sentence, Ministry of Industry. Investors and funds follow the sentences with bated breath, and the course behaves like a roller coaster. To begin with, the Ministry’s interpretation (in press interviews) showed that coal assets in the concerns stay (the idea of NABE falls), and we may still add mines to them, but we will select distributions instead. The odds are 5-10% down. Last – radical change – the state will take over coal assets (something like NABE is coming back, though, without details). The price is 10-15% up. We are waiting for more interviews and for the sine wave of changes in the value of companies (each per cent is billions in valuations) and follow the quotes with tension. The Financial Supervisory Commission is considering regulations on how to put secrecy clauses on journalists doing interviews because it is known that they can use information for „insider trading” before publication.

Interestingly, on the streets, we protest against the green. Still, several times repeated sentences about how accelerating the energy transition will cause the WIG-Energia index to double – another example of the unexplored soul of the Pole – we are against it because it limits our freedom. Still, we are happy to make money on it, and we would add our savings there. In addition, we all know how the story will end anyway and that the coal assets will somehow be spun off from the concerns; the only question remains – when? So, if the Ministry would like to do another interview on the topic, I would love to hear it beforehand and provide a proven way to multiply savings.

The vicious circle of energy problems – you have to „look in the heart.”

The problem with what reason won’t solve – which is shown often on X (formerly „Twitter”) and concerns the possibilities of the Polish mining industry.

Riddle

1) Germany closed all coal mines but left coal-fired power plants that were still working (until 2035-2038).

2. Germany imports hard coal.

3. Poland is a producer of hard coal, which is our national treasure.

4. does Poland export coal to Germany?

Solution

1) No, Poland does not export coal because the cost of mining coal is much higher than that of other producers from other countries. This is primarily due to the method of mining (open-pit) and the efficiency of production.

2. The Polish mining industry sells its production only to domestic power plants, which cannot import (or are restricted from doing so) coal from other countries and, therefore, produce electricity more expensively than German power plants.

If already, the Green Deal philosophy is also something that can only be heart.

Riddle

1. Poland imports fuels (mainly oil) for 100 billion zlotys annually.

2. Poland spends about 4 billion zlotys on coal imports every year and 7-10 billion zlotys on subsidies for the mining industry.

3. We also pay for gas—if prices are low, it’s about 30 billion zlotys, and if prices are high, it’s even 80 billion zlotys a year.

4. energy transition replaces the production of RES (localized in the country) fuel consumption.

5. do we have the money and the willingness to transform and invest in green technologies, e.g. PLN 30 billion a year?

Solution

1) No, because we are protesting against the Green Deal, which aims to destroy the existing way of consuming fuels and dependence on imports.

2. we want to reject regulations that seek to replace (in the long term) internal combustion vehicles with electric ones, and we want to maintain production from coal.

3. By not implementing the energy transition, we will lose the economy’s competitiveness (higher energy costs because RES technologies will be cheaper) and have no industry, but we will continue to import fuels (as well as coal) for fat money.

One can continue to multiply, but in the end, we all know what is the point of rationalism and regular discussion when, as the bard used to say, „have a heart and look into the heart” … the problem, unfortunately, only afterwards