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European natural gas imports and storage reserves

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Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#191

Post by tablespoon »

mythrwy wrote: post #156
trasz wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has already been blackmailed by Russia - when they invaded Ukraine last time, in 2014. That's how we know Russia can only be dealt with by force: because we've tried to do it the other way and it failed terribly.

How do you envision "dealing with Russia through force" going down just curiously? I would imagine there is a similar point of view in many Russians regarding the West (and they can make arguments about abuses and how intrinsically evil the other party is and patriotic jingles and all that too). So how, on that road, does this end? I think we know the answer and it really and truly is awful and the end of the world w…

> How do you envision "dealing with Russia through force" going down just curiously?

FYI, they're "dealing with Russia through force" right now. It's just through proxies, and it's going pretty well.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#192

Post by rich_sasha »

Maakuth wrote: post #176
blub wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no redemption for Russia, this is by now probably etched into their brains after Yugoslavia, two NATO expansions, Georgia and Ukraine. The sanctions are also here to stay, so claiming that “getting out of Ukraine now” would make any sense or bring them any benefits is wishful thinking. As far as lessons go, Europe didn’t really learn anything or drew the wrong conclusions based on their approach to China. In…

Pray tell, when did Georgia and Ukraine join NATO?

Not GP but i think they are referring to Russian invasions of Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014, 2022).

Georgia was complicated but from any zoomed out perspective it was clearly a Russian aggression.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#193

Post by iso1631 »

JSDevOps wrote: post #174

http://www.jamessawyer.co.uk/pub/08_29_2022_Economic_Indicat... I published this, Shows the UK Gas reserves. It's not looking good for winter!

But rather than rationing (via price or via other means), the government has thrown £150b+ at the gas miners, trying to get a quart out of a pint pot.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#194

Post by 8note »

js8 wrote: post #158
benj111 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just so we're clear. Russia is ok invading another country and killing it's populace. But the west shouldn't fight back incase it kills someone? Why aren't you holding Russia to the same standard as everyone else. Why don't you require them to talk and 'appease' the west rather than invading?

I am holding both to same standard. Russian invasion is of course terrible, and it in fact undermined Russia's own goal of keeping Ukraine neutral, at the very least. But I think everybody here agrees with that, so what's the point of stressing it? You think Putin listens to my opinion? Yes, and the West should be careful with military intervention, and consider whether it won't lead to more escalation and more death…

Europe could do even more to promote peace by declaring putin to be the emperor of Europe, and granting him dictatorial power over the continent

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#195

Post by lumost »

cycomanic wrote: post #182
Mewit wrote: post #167

Looks better than I thought! But of course they'll burn through that storage fast if it's a cold winter. The import graphs give me hope that they might be able to mostly plug the gap with LNG and maybe Algeria. Of course for LNG they're competing with Asia, so even if they are able to avoid physically running out of gas, it's probably going to get very expensive. I think what this has really demonstrated is the dange…

The German situation was even worse then you describe. They decided to move out of coal and nuclear, but at the same time made windpower significantly more difficult and reduced investment into solar. If you look at the installed windturbines ( https://www.wind-energie.de/english/statistics/statistics-ge... ) you can see an initial boom around 2000 and a large reduction after 2004 similarly things picked up again in…

This really begs the question on whether there was some outside influence on german energy decisions. It's not a given that Russia hasn't been using non-standard negotiation methods for making Germany more dependent on Russian gas by drumming up fear on everything else.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#196

Post by distances »

pydry wrote: post #144
distances wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Finland, so not that much to do with Iraq either. Instead, Finland has a lot of experience about being in the USSR sphere of influence (see Finlandization), and thus I wholeheartedly support Ukraine's right to choose their own alignment. > When you join a criminal gang for protection I think we agree that in this context you choose to join a gang, and the opposing gang doesn't get to prevent you from leaving the…

>thus I wholeheartedly support Ukraine's right to choose their own alignment. I would agree but I would also argue that unless you also wholeheartedly support Crimea and the Donbass's right to choose their alignment (something Kiev and the west both publicly reject), you are probably somewhat half hearted in your belief in people's right to self determination. This is the litmus test of whether you are just flashing…

I'm no expert in Ukrainian demographics so I won't weigh in too much on that.

I will however say this much: what makes the situation of any Russian neighbour difficult is the Russian history of forced relocations and genocide, Russian imperialism and irredentism, and their lack of any resemblance of fair elections and referendums. Russian modus operandi is forced russification. So if you move enough ethnic Russians to Crimea so that they have majority over native Tatars, you can simply annex it at will? I definitely understand if there are opinions to both directions on that topic.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#197

Post by axus »

nikolay wrote: post #86
iSnow wrote: post #41

With a couple of FSRU terminals coming online during the next year, Europe might be OK, but it's going to be a problem. Storage is high for the season, and growing, but total gas delivered is very low. When the winter cold comes, storage will be depleted much faster than in the last years, and even if no gas shortages occur, storage will be very empty in spring - maybe too low to refill them till next winter.

So, once of a sudden, Europe is fine with shale gas as long as it's from another country. Europe seems fine with gas from Qatar as well, which also is waging a cruel war in Yemen with tons of deliberate civilian casulties!

I'd heard that Qatar withdrew in 2017 and was perhaps supporting the Houthis now, could you point me to some sources about the situation in 2022 so I could get up to date? I thought it was Saudi Arabia and UAE who were actively waging war.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#198

Post by js8 »

benj111 wrote: post #183
js8 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am holding both to same standard. Russian invasion is of course terrible, and it in fact undermined Russia's own goal of keeping Ukraine neutral, at the very least. But I think everybody here agrees with that, so what's the point of stressing it? You think Putin listens to my opinion? Yes, and the West should be careful with military intervention, and consider whether it won't lead to more escalation and more death…

What about Ukraine? Should they refrain from defending themselves? Lest it cause blood shed? I really don't get your POV Putin has repeatedly shown they he will invade other countries. If we don't stop him at Ukraine then next it may well be a nato member and then how much blood shed will there be? Your suggested course just rewards aggression. Sometimes you need to stand up to bullies. Putin is a bully.

I think Ukrainians have the right to do it, and it's not my call to make, it's up to them. I am torn on it, emotionally I understand it, but I think rationally it's possibly a wrong choice (as I explained elsewhere in the discussion).

Chomsky made a nice comparison with Palestine. Do Palestinians have the right to defend themselves against Israeli apartheid by shooting rockets at them from Gaza strip?

Regarding my POV - I don't want NATO to get involved as long as it doesn't have to, because I worry about nuclear escalation. That should tell us, try to get serious about complete ban on nuclear weapons in the future, because they prevent exactly the type of action that you propose.

If my country wasn't a NATO member, then military aid against Russian invasion to Ukraine would be more acceptable to me. It is NATO that is making us helpless - we are bound by risk of escalation into a nuclear war. Simply, NATO was designed to handle a different type of threat. (Not to mention, we IMHO have somewhat less efficient military because we partly outsourced it to USA.)

I don't think what I suggest as an alternative (sanctions, resistance) rewards aggression. Occupying Ukraine is a big liability for Russia.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#199

Post by 8note »

dnh44 wrote: post #91
distances wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should all be lobbying for a large neutral buffer zone between US-aligned Europe and Russia As long as that buffer is inside Russia, I would be fine with it as I suppose most others would. It's not OK to suggest that countries can have a sphere of influence in 21st century. Each country chooses their alignment and alliance independently. Russia has repeatedly shown to be a poor neighbour, so it shouldn't be a su…

Do you not think that the US has a huge sphere of influence? It seems to me that the US can and does take any action it wishes to outside its borders. Sometimes those actions have a good moral justification and sometimes they don’t. >US and Russia simply can not agree between themselves what should be Ukraine's place in the world. I’ll argue the opposite. The Ukraine has no inherent right to join NATO. Ukraine isn’t…

Ukraine has inherent freedom to join NATO.

It needs NATO's permission because that's how NATO works, but it doesn't need Russian permission

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#200

Post by anticodon »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #178
anticodon wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yes the US is extremely guilty of this exact same behavior, it is also wrong. Has US ever suffered sanctions for that? I don't remember any. > This war started because Putin won’t accept anything less then complete fealty from the leaders of Ukraine/Belarus How do you know this? Did Putin said this personally to you? Announced this in the media? You attribute to him something that western propaganda fakes like it's…

> It wasn't a revolution - it was a coup funded and organized by the EU and USA. I don’t doubt that there was western involvement, just as there was certainly Russian involvement supporting prior administrations. While it can be difficult to discern the true desires of Ukrainians given outside involvement, its very easy to say that the current government in Ukraine is much more democratic than plenty of US Allies in…

> its very easy to say that the current government in Ukraine is much more democratic than plenty of US Allies in other parts of the world, eg the Middle East.

What makes you think so? What was/is democratic about Ukraine? How Zelensky, for example, crushed all the opposition parties and media, and even arrested some of his opponents after he came to power? Do you know about that?

BTW, here's the video of him before he became president: https://youtu.be/cAfXNbnXwxg Hilarious, if you understand Russian. It's about so-called Ukrainian democracy. I'm pretty sure it won't exist for long on YouTube, and it won't be ever translated to English.

> If this is so easy to find, why not provide actual sources?

Would you be able to understand without translation? Who would translate it to you?

Can you understand this, for example: https://youtu.be/ofEF5l72sjQ

> Edit: the irony here is the extremely close parallels between this war and hitter’s annexation of the sudentenland.

There are no parallels. Except that Ukraine was pumped with nazi propaganda to the top. They named streets and stadiums after Nazi collaborators that helped Germany exterminate tens of thousands of Jews in Ukraine during WWII. If you look at almost any photo/video of Ukainian army personnel, they openly wear Nazi uniform, Nazi tattoos, SS insignia. They even use Nazi salute.

It was especially easy to find before 24.02, they've become more careful since then, but still they fail many times to blur swastika or Hitler tattoo when filming their new propaganda videos.

There're tons of videos like this: https://youtu.be/_eDjtPwC2wY

> US does bad things so other countries should do bad things too.

More like, US does bad things and always gets away with it.

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