By Michael Kern of OilPrice.com
The surge in wholesale natural gas prices is set to pass through the retail and electricity inflation in the Eurozone faster than in the past, the European Central Bank (ECB) said in its Economic Bulletin on Monday.
While the pass-through is faster and can manifest in the inflation numbers within one to three months for most Eurozone members, the pressure on electricity prices has been lower so far in 2026 compared to 2022, partly due to the higher shares of electricity generated from renewables, the ECB’s economists wrote.
“The impact of wholesale gas prices on wholesale electricity prices – which is typically strong with gas prices being the marginal price-setter for electricity prices – was dampened by a shift towards electricity generated from renewables,” they noted.
Natural gas prices have doubled since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, while oil prices have increased more modestly, by about 40%.
For Europe, soaring energy prices have rekindled inflation fears in Europe mostly due to the spike in wholesale gas prices.
The Iran war and the intensified competition for spot LNG supply from Asia came just as Europe was trying to build in the spring and summer natural gas inventories for winter.
The ECB, which in June raised the key interest rate for the euro area for the first time since 2023, raised the rates once again in September, by 0.25 percentage points, as inflation at over 3% is running well above the long-term ECB policy target of 2%.
“The outlook remains highly uncertain, with risks to the upside for inflation and to the downside for economic growth,” the ECB said in its monetary policy decision on September 10, the day on which Saudi Arabia’s onshore oil pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz was attacked with drones.
“The pass-through of wholesale prices to retail prices has sped up for gas prices overall, but the broad pattern of lagged and uneven transmission remains for both gas prices and electricity prices,” the ECB economists said today.
An ECB survey of central banks in the Eurozone showed that changes in wholesale gas prices are expected to be passed on to consumer gas inflation within 1-3 months in more than half of the euro area, within 4-6 months in around one-tenth of the euro area, and within 7-12 months in around one-third of the euro area – all higher than in 2022.
“Notably, the share of countries to report a slow pass-through within 13-24 months has decreased from around 40% to around 5% since 2022,” the ECB noted.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 06:30The Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEI) newly released 2026 Future of Nuclear Power survey captured American nuclear energy ambitions across 21 utility companies covering 95 commercial reactors. Reactor owners find themselves planning new reactors to meet the AI-juiced electricity demand of the future, along with the added demand from increased domestic manufacturing and electrification.
More than 97% of the units surveyed are considering or pursuing approval to operate for at least 80 years. It goes to highlight the long lifespan of reactor plants, with some owners now planning for operations out to 100 years from initial construction.
NEI estimates that uprates, restarts, longer refueling cycles, and other improvements could collectively add more than 7 GW of nuclear generation from the existing fleet over the coming decade. That's more than the power you would get by building six new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors.
That includes roughly 2.2 GW from restarting the previously shutdown plants at Palisades, Three Mile Island, and Duane Arnold.
Between the 21 utilities surveyed, the report states those companies are planning for 33.6 GW of new nuclear generation over the next 15 years. Roughly 28 of those GWs are concentrated in 2035-2039.
New capacity is broadly split between large reactors and small modular reactors, while respondents reported no microreactor plans.
As we noted when covering The Nuclear Company's South Carolina reactor plans, America's “nuclear renaissance” still has to make the transition from announcements to actual construction.
Interest in supplying power to specific loads sheds some light on what the utilities are looking at powering with their growing nuclear ambitions. Over a dozen respondents are looking to provide energy for data centers. However, this is the first year that has seen zero interest in powering hydrogen generation plants.
2024 saw about a dozen respondents interested in behind the meter setups for powering hydrogen production facilities. After Congress changed up the tax credits for hydrogen applications to expire in 2028, interest from the utilities dropped down to only three respondents in 2025, leading to zero for this year.
Despite the incredibly rosy future being painted by the nuclear segments of America's utilities, the stock market holds a different opinion on the nuclear sector's constituents.
With SPY up about 12% this year and XLE up over 40%, the nuclear sector has trailed behind significantly. Of the three main nuclear-themed ETFs, none of them currently hold positive returns since the beginning of the year.
The uranium-heavy URA and the industrial/services-heavy NUKZ are down about 2-3%, while the more concentrated NLR is down about 13% YTD.
After multiple reactor developers, including Oklo and NuScale, had explosive runs in 2024 and 2025, multiple names in the nuclear corner have fallen over 50% in recent months as the nuclear theme is still tightly tied to the momentum and AI infrastructure trade.
The sector has a chance of being taken more seriously if grid-scale construction can finally start getting announced at scale, but for now, everything still seems to be in the talking stage, which is exciting absolutely no one.
The microreactor space has seen an increase in interest on the private side, with recent funding rounds for microreactor developers pushing over $1 billion. These reactors have some different application opportunities outside of the scope of traditional utilities, such as national defense applications and remote community power.
As we've detailed at length with the DOE's Reactor Pilot Program, this class of reactor capacity is actually showing tangible progress towards commercialization.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 05:45Submitted by Thomas Kolbe
Friedrich Merz does not make it easy to interpret current economic data correctly. The debt king from Brilon is not only distorting the statistics with his “special (debt) assets”: More than 320 billion euros in direct and indirect state subsidies are flowing, according to Freiburg economist Lars Feld, through subsidy channels that are penetrating ever deeper into the German economy. Artificial economies are emerging there, economic homunculi that will remain permanently dependent on the taxpayer.
What Is Still Growth, and What Is Debt-Financed Illusion?
In July, the Federal Statistical Office reported a strong increase in orders for German industry: Real order backlogs rose by 2.5 percent compared with the previous month, and by as much as 10.9 percent year-on-year – a figure of Olympic proportions.
Behind the statistical facade, however, it quickly becomes clear where the wind is actually coming from: Above all, the Other Transport Equipment sector increased its order backlog by 3.9 percent compared with the previous month – the billions in debt for the defense industry are creating a positive mood at Rheinmetall, Hensoldt and Co.
What a contrast to the real economy! The automotive industry, still the backbone of the German economy, can no longer escape its downward spiral: In July, carmakers once again recorded a decline in their order volume, this time by 1.7 percent compared with the previous month.
Adjusted for debt-financed defense orders, it becomes clear that the trend is still heading south. The fact is that with every additional month of the current policy, the economy is losing ground to foreign competitors. Who is surprised, given the sky-high energy costs and Brussels’ increasingly aggressive regulatory agenda?
The election campaign team of the Federal Chancellor had barely finished celebrating the good news from industry when the band of illusions snapped and reality came rushing back like an arrow.
A current assessment of the actual situation in the engine room of the German economy gives reason to fear the worst for this year: On Thursday, the German Engineering Federation VDMA reported a real decline in production of 4.1 percent for the first seven months compared with the same period of the previous year.
That is a horror figure, descending on the Federal Chancellor like a media guillotine. The outlook is dark: Since 2018, the sector has lost almost one-fifth of its production activity.
This dramatic development is not part of a typical economic cycle. Germany is caught in a spiral of deindustrialization that even historically unprecedented government debt programs will no longer be able to slow down. The parties of eco-socialism bear responsibility for this disaster, above all Merz and the CDU.
Confused, yet firmly committed to this political ideology, the Chancellor steers his government through the fog. At the ceremony marking the 150th birthday of Konrad Adenauer, Merz emphasized his unwavering commitment to reform and was met with icy silence.
He had only one of 630 votes in the Bundestag, Merz said. His authority to set policy guidelines did not extend beyond the cabinet either. After that, he said, one found oneself on the high seas of the Bundestag.
It is always the same game: A commitment to reform and an awareness of the problems are staged for the cameras. In reality, the government remains committed to the joint strategy of the CDU/CSU and SPD: the debt-financed expansion of the state economy.
It seems almost comical when Friedrich Merz resorts to nautical metaphors in his hour of need. Is he not himself the captain who, to put it somewhat pathetically, is steering the state ship straight toward the iceberg visible to everyone?
Where is even the attempt at reform? Why does Merz not dare to break with the destructive climate policy and begin a serious path toward consolidating public finances, one that includes a remigration program, encompasses an end to the senseless development aid, and also includes a rejection of the taxpayer-funded NGO establishment? A return to diplomacy with the Russians would also be the order of the day.
Of course, it would mean the end of the coalition. Merz would have only the AfD left as an option. Yet Merz remains trapped inside the firewall cocoon. Despite the visible crisis, the Chancellor shows no progress in understanding the situation and refuses any willingness to reform. Politically speaking, Merz is a globalist who firmly believes in the success of his military Keynesianism. It is supposed to support the collapsing economy and, if necessary, at the price of geopolitical risks in relations with Russia.
Yet the collapse of the economy is moving faster than he is. How far exactly was described by consulting firm Roland Berger, which in its analysis of the automotive industry drew a definitive line under the Chancellor’s hopes for a rapid recovery. In the coming years, Berger forecasts, another 200,000 jobs will be cut in this sector. A catastrophe is taking shape that everyone can see, yet which is not leading to a political change of course.
Within a few years, only around half a million people will still be employed in the former German key industry, according to Berger. A development with drastic consequences for the entire sclerotic German economy.
Volkswagen alone counts around 63,000 individual companies in its global supply chain – more than 10,000 of them in Germany.
The true significance of the decline of this industrial powerhouse is almost impossible to grasp amid the current dynamics. It is telling that the media mainstream attempted to consistently exclude this historically unprecedented collapse from this year’s election coverage.
The fact remains, however, that the CDU in particular bears a considerable share of the responsibility for Germany’s deindustrialization. Whether it was the nuclear phase-out, largely decided by the Union, the aggressive policy of CO₂ taxation, or ever stricter climate regulation – the CDU has created facts both in Berlin and in Brussels together with its green socialist partner parties.
And against this secular trend, the Federal Chancellor’s military Keynesianism will not be able to hold out for long.
* * *
About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a graduate economist, has worked for or over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 05:00