Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's an argument here that this war is a step in the transition from wars over "oil" (read: energy supply) to wars over water. There's a little bit of both here, and it's made the war difficult for outsiders to read.
Not sure if it’s a water war the way I would consider it but you may be right. Freshwater is typically the object of hypothetical water wars, and in this case Russia wants warm (salt) water for naval power projection. This is probably more of a coastline/harbour war.
Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
81–90 of 156 posts
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#82I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy was to their military / political thinking. If others are interested, this video has a great overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE
Update: I just saw he's published a newer book as well, https://www.amazon.com/New-Map-Energy-Climate-Nations/dp/159... "The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations" which I haven't read, but probably just updates the story as it evolved over the past 10 years.
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#83Looking at the data, I am wondering why the invasion is triggered now, as reserves are about to start being refilled, instead of earlier. From the graph ( https://agsi.gie.eu/#/graphs/DE ) it seems like the storage starts being refilled as the weather warms near the end of march. IE Putin looses some bargaining power. What am I missing?
Putin’s and his inner circle’s plan was that it will take 1-4 days to take Kiev and two weeks to take most of Ukraine. Minimal resistance was expected. The window of opportunity with this expectation is from mid-December until end of February. They picked a date with this plan.
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gas and oil is all they have to trade and they have a lot of it.
They also have significant market share exporting certain commodities like Nickel, Palladium &c. -- but not close to gas/oil, true. Since new investment into fossil fuel projects will go to nearly zero from here (and old equipment becomes defunct unless it is replaced), expect there gas/oil exports to decline significantly in the next years/decades. Putin didn't only mess up Ukraine now, he also wrecked his own count…
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#85Without natural resources Russia GDP would be lower than Polish. I think the whole reason for this war is the green transformation of the world. Military dictatorship played the wrong game and didn't mange to reform the country (it seems to be a case for all countries run by military). This is Proxy war with US/Nato to get a trade deal in exchange for balancing China with military power (last card they've got). Franc…
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#86What i didn't realize until very recently was that natural gas can be liquefied and sold on an open market like a barrel of oil. With that in mind, these pipelines are not as critical. Additionally, pipelines operate by contracts which offer very generous discounts years in advance; Liquefied gas, on the other hand, is a commodity and is sold at market prices. Seems logical to assume that Russian gas will still be so…
While natural gas can be liquefied, the infrastructure for LNG is much less mature than for gas pipelines. You still need to have the LNG terminals to be able to import the gas (and also at the export terminals as well). Historically, LNG import terminals are concentrated in East Asia, which is generally too far away from major gas producers for a pipeline to be worthwhile to build but the energy consumption was high…
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#87Without natural resources Russia GDP would be lower than Polish. I think the whole reason for this war is the green transformation of the world. Military dictatorship played the wrong game and didn't mange to reform the country (it seems to be a case for all countries run by military). This is Proxy war with US/Nato to get a trade deal in exchange for balancing China with military power (last card they've got). Franc…
North stream 2 was in reach. If this is what they wanted why start this proxy war?
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/european-commission-declares-nuclear-a...
[2] https://time.com/6139049/europe-natural-gas-green-energy
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes you wonder if one side or the other will “accidentally” damage those pipelines. Like obviously they can’t overtly do it but you know, stuff gets damaged every day in combat zones… it would certainly immensely hurt Russia’s strategic position to have their gas exports cut off.
Why would Russia damage it? They can just shut it off voluntarily on their side and use that for leverage.
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
There will be no blackout due to gas issues. Power generation from gas is not a problem. Heat generation from gas could become one though. Luckily Germany will likely mandate a switch to electricity driven heatpumps for all buildings soon.
Direct electricity radiators in the short term will be used instead of gas to heat, so ye, there might be blackouts.
Now, if I go back to the generation of my grandparents and to some extend even my parents when they were in their childhood, that was unheard of. You would only heat the main living room during cold winters, and the family would gather. For sleeping you wore pyjamas plus socks etc, and you took a tin with hot potatoes to bed. Showering was not a thing, you would wash daily and maybe bathing on Sundays.
Now that annoys me a little about the whole "Germany needs gas from Russia urgently!" narrative. If you cut out gas for heating/boiling (not electricity), not a single german will die this winter, or next winter. We will lose a lot of comfort, and might have to change our habbits, but we do not have siberian grade winters where having no heating means having to freeze to death.
Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
More convinced that the only thing stopping wars will be energy abundance not reliant on fossil fuels. Countries will still fight over natural resources, but probably less
There's an argument here that this war is a step in the transition from wars over "oil" (read: energy supply) to wars over water. There's a little bit of both here, and it's made the war difficult for outsiders to read.