Energy Traders Watch the Polar Vortex and La Nina as Winter Nears
With the energy crunch worsening, scientists hunt for insights into how low the Northern Hemisphere’s temps will go.
Nobody controls the weather, and yet temperatures this winter will ripple through every conceivable market, from fuel to food, with a particularly frigid outcome threatening to turn a worldwide energy crunch into a full-blown crisis.
The stakes have never been higher. If the weather’s bad, households and businesses around the world, already facing the heftiest energy costs in years, could face crippling heating bills. Governments struggling to ease fears of inflation could lose popular support. And the clean energy transition, already under fire after low wind generation helped contribute to Europe’s power shortage, could be thrown even further into question.