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Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

reuters.com

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Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#91

Post by adrianN »

HPsquared wrote: post #61
adrianN wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the help of electrolysis and a gas turbine, it can. The problem is that we don't have enough solar panels and not enough electrolyzers.

What's the round-trip efficiency of such a system? There are multiple lossy conversions, you'd be doing well to hit 50% if the gas is simply burned to spin a turbine.

It's of course not particularly great. You can make hydrogen at like 80% efficiency and use it at like 60% efficiency in a combined cycle plant. So 50% is probably in the right ballpark. Batteries are much more efficient, but efficiency is only weakly correlated with cost. I don't know the actual numbers, but from what I've heard hydrogen (or even methane) are the most economically promising storage options when you need weeks or months worth of backup.

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#92

Post by Scarblac »

chess_buster wrote: post #57
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean just the cost of energy but also potential blackouts. But as you say, it's a price worth paying.

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.

That's nice, but it takes many years to install them in all homes, and can the power grid handle so much extra demand?

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#93

Post by Majromax »

Traster wrote: post #56
haughty wrote: post #29

What 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…

This is like comparing buying bottled water instead of using the taps in your house. Yes, technically you can do this, but transporting that bottled water is painful, and at the scale of a whole country doing it, is a huge logistical challenge. You could eventually get to the point where LNG replaced the pipelines, but that's not going to happen overnight, and the European energy grids need to heat homes this winter.

That's not quite it. The bottled water / tap water comparison is still transporting exactly the same commodity. Liquefied natural gas, however, is much denser than its non-liquefied equivalent.

Per Wikipedia, Nordstream 1 can deliver 55 G(m^3)/yr of natural gas. Per a US government source (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50598), the United States has an LNG export capacity of about 12 G(ft^3)/day, or about 120G(m^3)/yr.

I imagine the operational costs of a direct pipeline are lower than the cost of liquefaction, transport, and re-gasification, but from the notice that LNG exists this is probably has an O(1) effect on price, not O(10).

Fortunately, Europe is also beginning to exit "this winter," so the energy situation is less dire than if this invasion had occurred in December going into January.

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#94

Post by fulafel »

jcranmer wrote: post #40
haughty wrote: post #29

What 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…

Europe does have lots of LNG terminals, but no idea about Russia's export side. Here's a 2015 map of the European terminals: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Existing-and-planned-LNG...

(Some regions are sparse because don't really use gas outside specialized industrial uses)

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#95

Post by parineum »

ed_balls wrote: post #75

Without 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…

> I think the whole reason for this war is the green transformation of the world.

I think you're on the right track but slightly off.

NG is "green" by EU standards and Russia does make it's money from NG sales to the EU. I think the piece you're missing is that Ukraine's current government is more friendly to the EU and Ukraine has massive, untapped NG reserves[1]. I have to think that the EU is eyeing Ukrainian NG in order to cut Russia out of it's economy.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#96

Post by exabrial »

Gwypaas wrote: post #45
exabrial wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10000% Nuclear. France just announced a massive Nuclear project, meanwhile in the USA, the NRC bankrupts every project with non-stop delays instead of timely constructive work with designers, builders, and investors.

The nuclear announcement makes nice headlines for nationalistic dreams. What they actually do tells the real story. > France will also increase its solar power capacity tenfold by 2050 to more than 100 gigawatts (GW) and target building 50 offshore wind farms with a combined capacity of at least 40 GW. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/macron-bets-nuclear-... So they are adding ~10 GW nuclear (6 * 1.6 GW) and a…

> The real reason for this is likely continue have an industrial base for their naval submarine reactors by subsidizing a complementary civilian industry.

Interesting, I've never read about that angle. Nuclear is a great complement to Wind/Solar as it provides a steady base load.

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#97

Post by jcranmer »

haughty wrote: post #86
jcranmer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks, this explains a lot; Do you think it's reasonable to assume that due to pipeline closures and Russian isolation, gas prices will keep rising? I'm reading up on this selfishly - as i purchased some natural gas stocks like $OVV and $AR as the conflict was unwinding. Is LNG route open for Russia? Seems like it's their only option at this point. And Pipelines are simply not safe as it should be easy to sabotage t…

In the near term (days to weeks, maybe a few months), I would expect gas prices to be more likely to rise rather than fall. I can't speculate well about longer term because there are too many variables in play: while peak demand could be relatively well-forecasted based on climate change legislation, the supply side of the equation is difficult to forecast.

> Is LNG route open for Russia?

I am not an expert on these affairs, but I believe Russia doesn't have a lot of LNG export capability at the moment, and LNG export terminals are not something quickly built. It's more likely to me that Russia shifts its gas exports away from Europe and into China via existing pipelines, rather than investing in LNG export capabilities.

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#98

Post by The_rationalist »

mderazon wrote: post #90
InitialLastName wrote: post #70

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.

With enough energy and access to sea water you can desalinate I guess

In fact nuclear plants are optimal for this

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#99

Post by The_rationalist »

Joeri wrote: post #69
HPsquared wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the round-trip efficiency of such a system? There are multiple lossy conversions, you'd be doing well to hit 50% if the gas is simply burned to spin a turbine.

Solar and wind are already far cheaper than gas or nuclear plants, and they’re still getting cheaper while gas and nuclear are getting more expensive (although to be fair, gas has only recently gotten more expensive). In so far that the economics in favor of renewables+storage don’t work out yet factoring in conversion losses, it is all but inevitable that they will. See the LCOE graphs in this article for the trends…

Nuclear is a lot cheaper than solar, it simply depends on the nuclear plant model. Russians are the world leaders regarding nuclear plants time to market and costs (4 years).

Re: Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain

#100

Post by gpm »

ls612 wrote: post #46
treis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is that something like half of Russian gas goes through Ukraine and some more is just across the border in Belarus. AFAIK that hasn't stopped. Just goes to show you the complexity of international relations. Map: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/europe-map/ It's a bit misleading since it doesn't show Nordstream 1 which runs under the Baltic sea to Germany. EDIT: Here's a better map. The above is o…

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.

> it would certainly immensely hurt Russia’s strategic position to have their gas exports cut off.

Would it?

Surely a few days of gas exports aren't that important to their economy, just because they can average the losses over many many more days of gas exports.

Now europe has a reason to let russia win, and repair the pipeline. A few days without heating would damage europe (though I'm unsure how many days worth of gas europe has stored).

I guess I could see it hurting Russia, because they lose a valuable resource and the threat to cut it off, but I could also see it helping them.

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