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3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

stopgas.org

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Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#81

Post by jacquesm »

_vmcx wrote: post #66
jacquesm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, one assumption didn't hold: that in a more economically connected world war would be a thing of the past.

Didn't we work this one out after WW1?

Not really, no. The USSR and China were pretty isolated spheres and there wasn't all that much trade between those blocks and 'the West' for a very long time. That all changed in the 80's, 90's and accelerated in the 00's.

The idea was that if we don't want to engage them in a military way in a direct confrontation that by trading so much with each other that our economies would suffer substantially from either one breaking off that we would avoid doing so. The economical version of 'MAD'. That turns out to have been a mistake. What happened between WWI and WWII is not really representative in comparison.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#82

Post by HyperRational »

chmod775 wrote: post #50
wffurr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storage, transmission lines, and over provisioning are also alternatives. Still blows my mind that Germany and other countries are closing nuclear facilities though.

> Still blows my mind that Germany and other countries are closing nuclear facilities though. That's kind of a misconception. Germany isn't (and wasn't) closing any nuclear plants that weren't about to closed anyways - it was all old plants. What Germany did was not bringing online new ones and instead choosing to invest that money elsewhere.

No post body was provided.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#83

Post by MandieD »

yayr wrote: post #42
dmitrygr wrote: post #3

Ok, so what is the solution you propose? Quit russian gaz cold turkey, today? Let people in Berlin freeze to death tonight? (Temperatures are 0 degrees C at night)

interestingly, most split air conditioning units also have a heating function. Usually, they convert 1kwh of electric energy into 4-5 times the heat energy. Heating with electricity is therefore something quite achievable and sometimes even economical. At current German electricity prices of 0,33 EUR/kwh electricity heating is currently cheaper than gas heating (currently at 0,20 EUR/kwh for new contracts - was at 0,…

Most people here don’t have air conditioners - more than used to, but most of the people I know here (Nürnberg area) don’t.

I feel like we temporarily dodged a bullet by sheer laziness - before the pandemic, we were all set to do the whole Energiesanierung with full KfW incentives, which would have required chucking out our oil furnace (replaced right before we bought the house a few years ago) for, most likely, natural gas. Instead, we are still sitting on 1.5 years of normal or possibly 3 years of very carefully used heating oil supply.

Now, like everyone, we’re looking into heat pumps. Because we are still sitting on a year or two of heating oil, I think we shouldn’t be competing against our gas-heated neighbors for that changeover this year or next.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#84

Post by cinntaile »

macspoofing wrote: post #17

If you double-down on renewables, then you double-down on natural gas. Germany decided to close down their nuclear and coal generation, so the only thing that is left is natural gas for base load (and to augment renewable intermittency problems).

This is a bit of a blanket statement. It's more nuanced than this of course. If your energy generation is geographically spread out, there might not be a need for gas as a base load. Since Europe is getting more and more interconnected wrt electricity transport I suspect we'll get there sometime in the future but right now it's an issue. Different storage mechanisms will also help alleviate the issues, but that's also sometime in the future.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#85

Post by cm2187 »

tuyguntn wrote: post #34

Quoted post unavailable.

As JP Morgan said, a person always has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.

I think the sympathy for Ukrainians is a bit of a pretext. It's not just a pretext, there is clearly a lot of sympathy in Europe for Ukraine, not the least because of the geographical and cultural proximity, and we all know ukrainians personally. But the real reason for Europe to be tough on Russia is because Russia is now directly threatening EU countries (Baltic states, Poland, etc). And I do not understand how we can justify financing what has become a direct enemy.

Which is why an equivalence with Yemen or any other conflict, no matter how violent it is, isn't really convincing.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#86

Post by numpad0 »

motoboi wrote: post #46

I wouldn’t doubt, given the nefarious consequences for Germany, that this site is Russian INFOSEC campaign. Germany cannot function without Russian gas right now. Simple there isn’t enough BTU’s. Why did Germany put itself into this strange Russian dependency is also very strange. Perfectly fine and environmentally friendly nuclear power plants for dependency from Russian natural gas. Why?

It did create extra few devices that can be used to escalate on and send messages using towards a declaration of a war. Ain’t stupid if it works I guess.

e: also: didn’t verify but seen on social media that there had been studies on general difficulties of construction for nuclear plants, and apparently in one such data, it was estimated that 3-6 times more machinery such as valves, pumps, motors, etc would be necessary compared to other types of generator[, and industries in some nations had declined compared to golden ages that they would no longer be able to source that amount]. Everyone can make a nuke but not necessarily at scale, it seems.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#87

Post by ummonk »

internet_user wrote: post #75
deeviant wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, whataboutism. Neat?

when is hypocrisy also whataboutism? when is it simply hypocrisy? hard questions.

Especially when Saudi oil would be used to substitute for Russian oil. It's not really moral to buy Saudi oil instead given that the Saudi conduct of warfare in Yemen is worse than the Russian conduct of warfare in Ukraine.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#88

Post by est31 »

sendfoods wrote: post #63

Does anybody know why Germany isn't really using their domestic gas fields? According to the german EPA equivalent[1] there's enough for 10 years of usage. While I agree with the need to shut off Nordstream I, I am not sure Germany can afford this right now due to historically low gas reserves [2]. I have to disagree with the tone of the statement "We can afford the consequences". Who is "we"? The lower middle class…

Those 10 years require the use of fracking, which is I think too bad for the environment, especially for a country as densely populated as Germany. The resources that don't require fracking are only enough for 1-2 years of consumption at current levels.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#89

Post by parkingrift »

qaq wrote: post #60
tuyguntn wrote: post #34

Quoted post unavailable.

What is the cost of 8 million refuges in EU? (since you are focusing on cost) Russia is not the only oil and gas supplier

What you are suggesting here is equivalent to blowing up a bridge and then suggesting that there are other ways to cross a river.

Yes, there are other oil and gas suppliers. No, Germany and the EU cannot just suddenly switch.

Fools for relying on Russian energy in the first place.

Re: 3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

#90

Post by Zpalmtree »

unethical_ban wrote: post #10
axiosgunnar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. (nobody will freeze to death btw) And the reasoning is as follows: The actually morally necessary step is to establish a no-fly zone above Ukraine, enforced by force with NATO fighter jets and anti-aircraft systems. People (possibly rightfully) consider that this could lead to a WW3, possibly escalating into the usage of nuclear weapons. So far so good. So the bargain we do is basically "Ukraine, we would do eve…

Agreed. In other words, the EU and US are at war with Russia by all means except direct fire. In a war, citizens will have to make sacrifices. This may include painful economic sacrifices.

I didn't sign up for a war
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