Chapter 546 Dominos Fall
The Balkan region, which is at a relatively low latitude in Europe, is already experiencing heavy snow at this time, not to mention the Nordic region, which is at a very high latitude.
The peaceful kingdom of Northern Europe.
The capital is Stockholm.
The streets and alleys are covered with silver, but behind this beautiful scenery lies a very terrible danger.
In the past, the winters here were not cold. Even though the latitude of Stockholm is around 59 degrees north latitude, the winters were still not cold.
But this year it is not winter yet, it is only autumn, and the temperature has dropped to between minus 15 degrees and minus 30 degrees.
Without the natural heating system , the whole of Northern Europe would basically be equivalent to Siberia, after all, the two countries are at similar latitudes.
White Pine's headquarters is located in Stockholm.
The company's CEO, Braden, looked at the report in his hand with a very grim expression.
Yeke, the business manager at the side, explained helplessly: "President Breeden, the massive decline in business this year is not our fault, but the weather has had a huge impact."
“What did the insurance company say?”
Taylor, the vice president in charge of this work, said angrily: "They refused to pay, saying that the insurance terms stipulate that winter is from November to February of the following year. What a bunch of damn bastards!"
Braden was equally furious, but what was the use of being angry now?
These financial companies are all vampires. When they trick people into buying financial products, they often make grandiose claims, but when something goes wrong, they desperately look for excuses and loopholes and simply refuse to pay.
Now even if Baisong Company takes the other party to court, the other party can delay time, not to mention that the legal department of this group of financial vampires is also very powerful.
Breeden was in a great headache: "We must find a solution, otherwise we can only lay off employees and sell assets on a large scale."
"But..." Ye Ke hesitated.
What else can they do now? The core business of their Baisong Company is logging, wood processing, furniture and papermaking.
It seems that this industry is not greatly affected by the weather.
In fact, many people have overlooked an important issue, that is, modern industry is no longer the small workshops of the past. Industry requires electricity and heat.
Baisong Company's forest farm can supply timber, but the hydropower station in Anning Kingdom has stopped operating.
In previous years, autumn was the peak season for hydropower generation in the Kingdom of Anning. However, as soon as autumn came this year, rivers and lakes froze over large areas, and hydropower stations are most afraid of freezing.
45% of the Kingdom of Anning's electricity comes from hydropower, 45% from nuclear power, and other sources of electricity account for a relatively small proportion.
The Kingdom of Anning generates approximately 7 to 7.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from hydropower every year. They are also one of the electricity exporters in Europe, competing with France all year round.
However, this year, the terrible snowstorm dealt a heavy blow to the Kingdom of An Ning.
37% of the hydropower stations have been completely shut down, 41% of the hydropower stations have generated less than half of their power compared to the same period last year, and the remaining 22% can barely maintain 70% to 80% of their power generation capacity.
Now, let alone exporting electricity, the internal electricity is not enough.
The chain reaction brought about by ultra-low temperatures has further increased the electricity consumption of enterprises and residents. After all, factories need heating and residents' homes also need heating.
On the one hand, power generation fell by about 20%, and on the other hand, demand skyrocketed. Under the double attack, the power supply in the Kingdom of Anning was not only seriously insufficient, but also the price skyrocketed.
Baisong Company's paper mill needs water, and hot water, otherwise the equipment will freeze and the pulp cannot be operated. Although there are emergency diesel generators, the electricity required by the factory is still too high.
Like Baisong Company, Anning Kingdom Papermaking Company is facing the problem of insufficient power supply.
As for adding nuclear power plants, the largest power company in the Kingdom of Anning, the Cascade Group , is indeed planning to build five new nuclear reactors to fill the gap in future hydropower.
The problem is that building a nuclear power plant takes time!
Due to population and market reasons, the entire industrial chain in Europe and the United States is very fragmented. This decentralized industrial chain has many problems, such as coordination and transportation.
The Kingdom of Anning does not have the ability to build a nuclear power plant independently, and they must cooperate with companies from France, Germany and America.
The characteristic of European and American companies is their slow efficiency. To put it nicely, it is "slow work and fine work", and to put it bluntly, it is "slacking off".
The five nuclear reactors planned by the Cascade Group are still in the paper design stage and even the parts have not been produced.
Obviously, this is like distant water cannot quench immediate thirst.
Other power generation systems, solar and wind power generation depend on the weather, and natural gas and coal power generation, the Kingdom of Anning does not have abundant natural gas and coal resources of its own.
And building a new power generation system also takes time.
Faced with the power shortage, the Kingdom of An Ning had to call on residents to reduce electricity consumption. For example, villas of several hundred square meters used to have 24-hour heating, but this is no longer the case.
In fact, there is no need for an official call from the Kingdom of An Ning, as the people can no longer afford the high electricity bills.
Many residents only use heating in their bedrooms and dare not turn on the heating 24 hours a day.
In the past, a family would use thousands of kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, but now they have saved a little bit and only use about 500 kilowatt-hours.
As a blessing in disguise, Seris' electric blankets and thermal sleeping bags became popular.
Without 24-hour whole-house heating, many people started cursing and some even went to Stockholm to cause trouble. Obviously, not everyone can tolerate this kind of gap.
The spoiled Nordic people, especially the new generation who have never experienced hard times , simply cannot accept this low-quality life.
For example, a little environmentalist princess who has gained three times more weight has been walking around the streets of Stockholm like crazy.
However, these street artists did not realize how severe the deteriorating weather was in Northern Europe at this time.
If it's just ice and snow, then it's not a big problem. At worst we can just consider it as wintering early.
But as time went on, another situation emerged.
The seasonal ice sheet moved all the way south from the northern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Without the neutralization of the North Atlantic Current, the howling, fierce north wind swept across Northern Europe like a long knife and entered Western Europe and Central Europe.
November 2, Xinghe year 2.
The seasonal ice sheet pushed southward from the Pele Sea east of the Kingdom of Anning, freezing the Gulf of Bothnia and the Sea of Serkes, and then entering the core waters of the Baltic Sea.
It’s the winter solstice in December.
The entire Baltic Sea was frozen, with the ice thickness in the northern waters reaching 3 to 4 meters.
In the central sea area near Stockholm, the ice thickness is about 1 to 2 meters.
This situation directly caused the Baltic Sea to lose its normal shipping value. Even if Russia transferred nuclear-powered icebreakers from the Arctic, there was still no way to guarantee the shipping lanes in the Baltic Sea.
The ice on the Baltic Sea cut off maritime traffic between Northern Europe and Western Europe, which put the Northern European region, which needed to purchase a large amount of supplies, into a dilemma where it had money but could not buy anything.
Moreover, due to the impact of the snowstorm, air transportation was also seriously affected.
At the same time, a crisis also emerged in the North Sea, that is, icebergs.
Icebergs floating down from the Arctic Ocean have begun to appear in the North Sea, which has seriously affected the safety of shipping in the North Sea.
This winter solstice, the entire mid- and high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere are covered in white, and both seasonal and semi-permanent ice sheets are expanding southward.
