As the Balkans region with a relatively low latitude in Europe, it is snowing heavily at this time, not to mention the Nordic region, which has a very high latitude.
The peaceful kingdom of Northern Europe.
The capital city is Stockholm.
The streets and alleys are covered in silver, but behind this beautiful scenery, there is a very terrible danger.
In the past, the winter here was not cold. Even though the latitude of Stockholm is near 59 degrees north latitude, the winter is still not cold.
But winter has not yet entered this year. In autumn alone, the temperature has dropped to between minus 15 degrees and minus 30 degrees.
Without the natural heating system of the North Atlantic Warm Current, the whole of Northern Europe would be basically equivalent to Xianbelia. After all, the two have similar latitudes.
The headquarters of White Pine is in Stockholm.
The company's CEO, Breeden, looked at the report in his hand with a very ugly face.
The business manager on the side, Yeck, explained very helplessly: "President Breeden, the large-scale decline in business this year is not our fault, but the weather has had a great impact."
“What did the insurance company say?”
Taylor, the vice president in charge of this work, said angrily: "They refused to pay compensation, saying that the winter specified in the insurance terms is from November to February of the following year, these damn bastards!"
Breeden was also furious, but what's the use of anger now.
These financial companies are all vampires. When they try to trick people into buying financial products, they often make fantastic claims, but when something goes wrong, they try their best to find excuses and take advantage of loopholes, and they just don't pay compensation.
Now even if Baisong Company takes the other party to court, the other party can still delay the time, not to mention that the legal affairs of these financial vampires are also very powerful.
Breeden had a huge headache: "We must find a way, otherwise we will have to lay off employees on a large scale and sell off assets."
"But..." Yeke hesitated.
What else can we do now? The core business of their White Pine 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 workshop of the past. Industry requires electricity and heat.
The White Pine Company's forestry farm can supply wood, but the hydropower station in the Anning Kingdom has stopped operating at this time.
In previous years, autumn was the peak period for hydropower generation in the Kingdom of Anning. However, as soon as autumn entered this year, large areas of rivers and lakes were frozen, and hydropower stations were most afraid of freezing when generating electricity.
45% of the power source of the Kingdom of Tranquility is hydropower, and 45% is nuclear power. Other power sources account for a relatively small proportion.
The Kingdom of Tranquility's hydropower can generate approximately 7 to 7.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year. They are also one of the electricity exporters in the Europa region and compete with France all year round.
However, this year, the terrifying snowstorm directly dealt a blow to the Kingdom of Tranquility.
37% of hydropower stations were completely shut down, 41% of hydropower stations generated less than half the power of the same period in previous years, and the remaining 22% could barely maintain 70% to 80% of power generation.
Don't talk about exporting power now, the internal power is not enough.
The chain reaction brought about by ultra-low temperatures further increases the electricity consumption of enterprises and residents. After all, factories need heating, and residents also need heating in their homes.
On the one hand, power generation fell by about 20%, and on the other hand, demand surged. Under the attack from both sides, the power supply of the Kingdom of Tranquility not only suffered from serious shortages, but also experienced skyrocketing prices.
Baisong Company's paper mill needs water, and hot water, otherwise the equipment will freeze and the pulp will not be able to operate. Although there are emergency diesel generators, the power required by the factory is still too high.
Like Baeksong Company, paper companies in the Anning Kingdom are facing the problem of insufficient power supply.
As for adding nuclear power plants, Waterfall Group, the largest power company in the Anning Kingdom, is indeed planning to build five new nuclear reactors to fill the gap in hydropower in the future.
The problem is, building a nuclear power plant takes time!
Due to population and market reasons, the entire industrial chain in European and American industries is very fragmented. This dispersed industrial chain has many problems, such as coordination and transportation.
The Kingdom of Tranquility itself does not have the ability to build nuclear power plants independently. They must cooperate with companies in France, Germany and America.
The characteristic of European and American enterprises is that their efficiency is slow. To put it mildly, it is called "slow work produces fine work", but to put it worse, it is "slow down work".
The five nuclear reactors planned by the Waterfall Group are still in the paper design stage at this time, and even the parts have not been produced.
Obviously, water from far away cannot quench near thirst.
Other power generation systems, solar and wind power generation depend on the weather, and natural gas and coal power generation. The Kingdom of An Ning does not have abundant natural gas and coal resources.
And building a new power generation system also takes time.
Facing the shortage of electricity, the Kingdom of Tranquility had to call on residents to reduce their electricity consumption. For example, in the past, villas of several hundred square meters had to be heated around the clock, but this is no longer the case.
In fact, without the official call of the Kingdom of Tranquility, the people can no longer bear the high electricity bills.
Many residents only supply energy in their bedrooms and no longer dare to turn on the heating around the clock.
In the past, their family used thousands of kilowatt-hours of electricity a month, but now they have saved a little bit, only using about 500 kilowatt-hours.
As a blessing in disguise, Siris's electric blankets and thermal sleeping bags have become popular.
Without round-the-clock heating, many people yelled and even went to Stockholm to cause trouble. Obviously, not everyone can tolerate this gap.
The pampered Nordic people, especially the new generation who have never experienced hardship, simply do not accept this low-quality life.
For example, a little eco-friendly princess who has gained three pounds is already doing crazy things on the streets of Stockholm.
However, these street artists did not realize how serious the deteriorating weather in Northern Europe was at this time.
If it’s just ice and snow, then it’s not a big problem. At worst, we’ll have to spend the winter early.
But as time went by, another situation emerged.
The seasonal ice cap moves southward from northern Scandinavia. Without the neutralization of the North Atlantic warm current, the howling north wind is like a long knife, sweeping across the entire Northern Europe and entering Western and Central Europe.
Xinghe Year 2, November 2nd.
The seasonal ice sheet pushed all the way southward from the Perai Sea to the east of the Kingdom of Tranquility, freezing the Gulf of Bothnia and the Serke Sea, and then entered the core waters of the Baltic Sea.
It’s the winter solstice in December.
The entire Baltic Sea is frozen, and the thickness of the ice in the northern sea reaches 3 to 4 meters.
In the central sea area near Stockholm, the ice thickness is also about 1 to 2 meters.
This situation has directly caused the Baltic Sea to lose its normal shipping value. Even if Lucia transfers nuclear-powered icebreakers from the North Pole, there is still no way to guarantee the Baltic Sea's shipping lanes.
The ice in the Baltic Sea has cut off maritime traffic in Northern and Western Europe. This has put the Nordic regions, which need to purchase a large amount of supplies, into a dilemma where they cannot buy things even if they have money.
Moreover, due to the impact of the snowstorm, aircraft transportation has also been seriously affected.
At the same time, there is also a crisis in the North Sea, that is, icebergs.
Icebergs drifting down from the Arctic Ocean have begun to appear in the North Sea, which has seriously affected shipping safety in the North Sea.
During this winter solstice, the entire mid- and high-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere are covered in white, and both seasonal and semi-permanent ice caps are expanding southward.
Thank you for your support (ω｀), please subscribe, collect, monthly votes and recommendation votes.