Gas price increase as of 1.1.2022

Today we are very much in favor of saving energy but always without loss of comfort or giving up habits.

I find that extremely aptly described. A certain part of the necessary energy savings only becomes necessary because the energy was previously consumed at a standard that I consider excessive. Certainly exaggerated, but it always reminds me of the thing with cruises and plastic straws. The life lived today as a standard is almost an explosion compared to a life from 25 years ago. Of course, I live it my way just the same, but I often do not perceive it as standard, but as a luxury that I have to either turn down the flow temperature for or pay for expensively. Especially noticeable is today's heating behavior or the permanently assumed comfort temperatures in all rooms, down to warm feet appropriate to the time of day.

What is lived today as the standard of life is almost an explosion compared to a life 25 years ago.

Phew... really? 25 years ago my old building here consumed 10,000 liters of oil per year. Two years ago it was 1,500. Now it's 5,000 kWh (500 liters). And that despite (or rather because) the floor is now warm AND every room is heated.
This surely didn't only happen to my old building. New buildings are - regardless of the standard - about three times more economical. You’d have to eat a lot of meat and buy a lot of junk from China to achieve an "explosion" compared to 25 years ago.
Yes, flying is terrible, but there aren’t that many people who fly a lot.
I would rather say the explosion was between 1950 and 1980. From then on, saving slowly started and roughly balanced out the gain in comfort. The latter is more a feeling though - I haven’t looked up reliable statistics.

Yes, we also have gas. We even have two increases within 2 months.. one on 1.10.21 and now another on 1.1.22… grrrr :confused:

I am holding the same two notes in my hands :D

Our newly built two-family house with 6 people consumed about 2700 liters of heating oil in 1990, as far as I can still remember. Of course, devices today operate much more efficiently, but imagine if the heating or energy consumption behavior of people remained the same, but with modern heating technology added on top... that would certainly be a significant and possible saving. I have to say that as a child of displaced persons or war returnees, I experienced the practiced frugality but did not always like it. On the other hand, it is still in me and I keep turning off the light or only turning on the heating when I really need it. Finally, I lived in an apartment with underfloor heating and constant temperature control, and it was usually too warm for me there. The upbringing by my parents seems to have a deeper effect than I thought.

You have to eat a lot of meat and buy nonsense from China to achieve an "explosion" compared to 25 years ago.

Of course, I don’t have any reliable statistics on this either; what I want to say is rather that today’s high resource consumption is being or should be curbed by increasingly optimized technology, which could be much more easily achieved by slightly scaling down the lifestyle that is taken for granted; however, this is often perceived as a loss of comfort or quality of life.

You are right about that overall. Consumption, especially by us people in the First World, has to go down. However, I find that almost more difficult than the rest of the energy transition part... At least for me personally, it is much easier to build another photovoltaic system and optimize my heating system and mobility behavior (I even enjoy that) than to give up a nice PC, meat, or ultimately an air-conditioned place. And purely in terms of CO2 equivalents, my consumption behavior is already the smaller lever.

I see two alternative futures here: Either the new government screws up just like the old one and we don't manage the energy transition on our own. Then our prosperity will soon be ashes and we won't be able to consume that much anymore. Also a kind of problem solution. Or we manage to keep our export and industrial country status and can compensate the steady luxury by savings elsewhere. It will probably remain exciting.

Or we jeopardize our prosperity with wrong measures and set the worst possible negative example for other countries. By the way, if there is a call to absolutely pass on the climate costs to the products, we should urgently start doing so comprehensively and implement the CO2 price in all other goods as well. Even if they were produced abroad. I am curious what the "wealthy" medium-sized business owner will say when the leased vehicle, clothes, furniture, and all other daily necessities suddenly become more expensive... On the topic: electricity and gas run until 01.04. As of today, the basic supplier would still be the cheapest with a 30% surcharge compared to my current contract.