[rolnor]

OK, that figures, I thought of butane, propane.  There is talk now that we can manage without russian gas for one year in Europe, how is this, do we have large stored amount of gas? Also US are going to ship gas to us, but thats smaller amounts?
For long time ago we used gasified carbon, "stadsgas" in swedish homes but stopped because of CO-danger, also we got electricity. It was a "popular" way of commiting suicide, putting you head into a owen and turn on the gas. As I understand, this is a good way to die, non-painfull? I think submarines carry a canister of compressed CO-gas that can be used for suicide if the boat sinks and can not be rescued.

[Enthalpy]

Today, the US have stopped all imports of gas and oil from Russia. The UK announced the end of Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. The EU announces a 2/3 reduction of Russian gas imports by the end of 2022.
  bbc.com - bbc.com
Their mix of solutions resembles what I suggested in the discussion.
  n-tv.de - n-tv.de

Some claims are for 2030 or 2050, pretty much useless in the present crisis. Either the politicians asked the wrong persons, or it's a way to reassure the citizens that CO₂ goals still matter, since the solutions for 2022 (coal!) will increase the emissions.

A part of the answers is to import gas from other countries. Nobody knows the situation in Autumn 2022, but the alternative suppliers have limitations.

• Qatar produces already at full capacity I believe. If its other customers must turn to Russia, no use.
• Algeria has decent relations with Russia.
• Egypt relies on Russia for food. Food is already scarce, and if we lack the Ukrainian production, the worldwide situation will be catastrophic. Even if no Arab spring removes the Egyptian gov, Egypt will want to please Russia.
• Azerbaijan exports through Georgia. During the last war, the Russian troops advanced in Georgia exactly to the pipeline, and then Nato went silent.

The new German terminals for Liquefied Natural Gas might prolong the use of fossil fuel, they say... unless said terminals can handle liquid hydrogen too, immediately or with limited modifications.

[Enthalpy]

[...] There is talk now that we can manage without Russian gas for one year in Europe, how is this, do we have large stored amount of gas? Also US are going to ship gas to us, but that's smaller amounts?

No significant amount of gas stored in the EU presently. The capacity would be around 2 months, and it's nearly empty, because deciders never-ever consider bad scenarios. The idea is to consume less in Summer but continue importing the 60% from the other suppliers, store the excess to fill the capacity before Winter.

For long time ago we used gasified carbon, "stadsgas" in Swedish homes but stopped because of CO-danger. [...]

I don't want to distribute any CO to the homes. At most within the power plants, over a few metres between the coal gasification and the burner or the next reactor.

[rolnor]

OK, thanx Enthalpy. My Uncle killed himself by CO-gas in a oven. Eletricity is very expensive here in Sweden now, it was around 150öre/kWh before the war now its 300öre/kWh. Its fluctuating a lot but seems to stabilize much higher and if all gas to Europe from Russia is cut it will probably be much higher. We dont use gas here but the electricity follows the gas price. I have bought a lot if wood so I save hundreds of dollars now each month by using my fireplace. The sunlight is getting stronger also so now in spring we need less energy to heat homes.

[Enthalpy]

The amounts are big: 40% of Europe's consumption, or 400×10⁹m³ in 2021, come from Russia.

Which means: 155km³/year = 424hm³/day = 4910m³/s came from Russia in 2021.
That's (at 273K 101325Pa) 6.93Tmol/year = 19.0Gmol/day = 220kmol/s, or 115×10⁹kg/year = 315×10⁶kg/day = 3.64t/s,
or 6.25EJ/year = 17.1PJ/day = 198GW upper calorific value, may provide mean 80GW electricity.
  diva-portal.org p15 - unitrove.com

[Enthalpy]

[...] Electricity is very expensive here in Sweden now[...]

Powerwall to buy at night price and consume during the day? Solar cells?
You certainly have LED lamps everywhere, tuned the idle modes of the Cpu and the graphics card, have curtains at the windows, and so on.
Produce the hot water from wood or sunlight, send the warm used water to a heat exchanger to pre-warm the cold water...

[Enthalpy]

26×10¹⁰kg/year (gas from Russia) weigh as much as 5.5M barrel/day crude oil. Among OPEC members, only Saudi Arabia produce more.

Corrected: 11.5×10¹⁰kg/year (gas from Russia) weigh as much as 2.4M barrel/day crude oil. Half a dozen OPEC members produce more
  wikipedia

[Enthalpy]

Maybe the C₃-C₄ fraction can replace a higher proportion of natural gas in the network if supplemented with N₂ or CO₂ or both, so the burners adjusted for methane still provide a good proportion of oxygen.

Air can be added too, in proportion small enough to stay non-flammable. This can help to match both the mixture ratio and the calorific value of natural gas.

The same adjustments can help distribute ethylene, obtained from other sources like crude oil or palm oil.

[Enthalpy]

As all sorts of energy become scarce, Law could stop the mining of cryptocurrencies to save electricity.

I can imagine that the present scarcity of chips too results from mining, but I didn't check the figures.

[rolnor]

[...] Electricity is very expensive here in Sweden now[...]

Powerwall to buy at night price and consume during the day? Solar cells?
You certainly have LED lamps everywhere, tuned the idle modes of the Cpu and the graphics card, have curtains at the windows, and so on.
Produce the hot water from wood or sunlight, send the warm used water to a heat exchanger to pre-warm the cold water...

Absolutely, sometimes electricity is 30öre nighttime and 300öre daytime. I have thought about covering windows nighttime, this could save 20% of heatingcost I think. I am currently building a system where I store heat in a watertank at night and use this daytime, also connecting my fireplace to my centralheating with a heatexchanger. Its fun work and it can save a lot if money. We dont know how long this war and sanctions will last.

[Enthalpy]

The worldwide production of latex was 1.3×10¹⁰kg/year in 2020. Significantly less than the mass of natural gas Europe imports from Russia, and we still need rubber.
  nasdaq.com - statista.com

Turpentine is much less: 0.025×10¹⁰kg/year.

[Enthalpy]

The foliage of deciduous trees makes an interesting mass. Figures for Germany:
  nabu.de - uni-hohenheim.de
Deciduous trees make up 40% of Germany's 11Mha forests, and they drop 1.1kg/m² foliage a year, of which 40% is dry mass. This sums to 20×10⁹kg/year for Germany alone. The 7 biggest forest countries in the UE cumulate 12× the German forest area.

Foliage can convert to heat and electricity, supposedly to methane, maybe to fertilizer.

How to harvest this widespread foliage, at least in Autumn 2022, at affordable cost and without wreaking havoc to the biotope? Err, it's your turn to bring ideas.

Coppice makes intuitively more mass than the foliage and seems easier to harvest.

[Enthalpy]

[...] the C₃-C₄ fraction is still available at gas and oil wells [...]

Gas and oil wells seem to separate and sell the C₂-C₃-C₄ components presently, so how much is available remains to see.

The variable proportion is like 15%wt of the methane at "wet gas" wells, wow.

[Enthalpy]

As all sorts of energy become scarce, Law could stop the mining of cryptocurrencies to save electricity.

I can imagine that the present scarcity of chips too results from mining, but I didn't check the figures.

The EU failed to restrict cryptocurrencies yesterday.
  aljazeera

[rolnor]

Not easy to upphold that law, how do you know if somebody is mining?