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European natural gas imports and storage reserves

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Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#231

Post by js8 »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #213
js8 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 PO…

>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? How does that defend Palestine in any way? It's a stupid revenge targeting civilians. If you're so helpless you can't act against military or targeted collaborators then don't do anything at all. I would be the first to suggest to drop support to Uk…

> How does that defend Palestine in any way?

Punishes the oppressors, in an attempt to make them stop oppressing. Same reasons why Ukrainians fight back against Russians.

And yes, he makes the same case, that Palestinians should instead attempt for a peaceful resolution and negotiation, despite it being extremely difficult (against a much stronger adversary, who doesn't respect them).

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#232

Post by petre »

iSnow wrote: post #32
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are other sources of pipeline gas? Where I live everything is LNG so I figured that all there is. What else can be transported and used in LNG lines?

Algeria is one source of pipeline gas in Southern Europe

Algeria has already cut its exports to Spain because the Sanchez gov't supports Morocco's peace arbitrage in Western Sahara. Libya is in the middle of a civil war and the Russians are backing up Khalifa Haftar's LNA, who controls most of the territory, oil and gas fields. Thus Northern Africa is not such a reliable source.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#233

Post by dnh44 »

jcfrei wrote: post #202
lumost wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

After his term as German chancellor was up (1998-2005), Gerhard Schröder became chairman of several gas companies that were (majority) owned by the Russian state (Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, Gazprom). There was nothing covert about the Kremlin courting Germany with its cheap gas - it was plain to see.

Cheap energy is great for Germany's energy intensive heavy industries, and strategically important. Russia and Germany getting cozy and growing together economically couldn't have made the US or the UK very comfortable and I believe this was at least a part of the US motivation to pull Ukraine from Russia's orbit. I mean it makes a lot more sense to me than the US actually giving a shit about Ukrainians and their freedom. It's very well played on the part of the US.

After all the point of NATO was to "keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-agenda-idUSKBN0FB06B20...

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#234

Post by dnh44 »

The_Colonel wrote: post #90
nikolay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

1) in the short term Europe is not cutting gas from Russia, it's the other way round 2) in the long term, Europe is trying to get independent from Russian gas so that 1) will not happen again Europe is trying to get away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.

>Europe is trying to get away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.

I think the truth of this statement increases with a slight modification.

The US is trying to get Europe away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.

Western European countries, and Germany especially have had to be pushed into supporting Ukraine.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#235

Post by brnt »

yabqk wrote: post #150
i_no_can_eat wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very ridiculous thing to say.

It’s hyperbolic, but yes, Ukraine is much more similar to Russia than to Western Europe.

The Russian world is a Muskovite imperialist invention my dear friend. You can't write Russian history without involving basically any other European country. Well, you could maybe leave Liechtenstein and Portugal out?

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#236

Post by The_Colonel »

gdy wrote: post #229
The_Colonel wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Most of the new members have been invaded by Russia in the past 100 years.

And Russia has been invaded by most of the European countries in the same time period. Starting from the Intervention and Poland's invasion to the invasion by Germany and its allies.

You're deflecting. The point is that CEE countries had a valid reason to fear Russian imperialism and acted accordingly.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#237

Post by danhor »

Mewit wrote: post #218
danhor wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part about germany is obviously not true. If you look at the electricity generation via gas, the share has not grown meaningfully since 2005. The state has not started large campaigns in other areas compared to electricity to phase out other fuels.

The Wikipedia article seems pretty good on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany . You're right, gas has remained pretty steady at about 10 to 15% of electricity generation since the early 2000s. But electricity isn't the only type of energy the country needs, and in the case of gas a much more important use is for space heating. In my opinion, Germany would be in a much better posit…

In general, nuclear power and renewables mix quite poorly. This is especially relevant for replacing gas, since gas is great at providing variable power (when needed) which neither nuclear power nor (most) renewables are good at. You can also see this move to more variable gas generation by looking at the increased gas power plant install base (https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/installed_power/chart....) without the corresponding increase in generation.

I wouldn't overrate the amount of gas that is freed by nuclear power (also do keep in mind that there is also quite a lot of heat-electricity cogeneration with gas in Germany, which further complicates matters).

If Germany only didn't shut of any nuclear power plants prematurely, then emissions could be reduced significantly since coal would probably be directly replaced. But I doubt the expansion of renewables in Germany would have happened as it did without a parallel nuclear exit in the 2000s. Would it have changed much if the exit in the 2010s didn't happen in terms of renewables? I don't know. But I also think a non-exit would have been politically untenable after Fukushima, with pretty much every party simultaneously being suddenly gung-ho in shutting down nuclear.

I think the phase-out of nuclear, could everything else have stayed the same, was a missed chance. But at the same time western countries which held much more strongly onto nuclear, especially France, are very likely seeing a huge electricity generation issue in the next decades due to very low rates of building nuclear (with huge difficulties) or renewables (not much interest) and a large amount of nuclear power plants going of the grid (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernkraftwerke_in_Fr..., the list in the englisch wikipedia unfortunately doesn't include planned closure dates). These dates could (and will) be extended, but as we're seeing right now they're already getting unreliable and nearing the end-of-life.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#238

Post by petre »

bhaak wrote: post #11
roenxi wrote: post #6

Economies, when left alone, are about as resilient as cockroaches and much more brutal about securing themselves. The situation is a serious blow to the pride of the European politicians who look like they've been mishandling energy policy for years (where are the nuclear reactors?). But realistically they'll probably survive in practice. It'll be painful. The issue is that somehow the West has taken Iraq 2.0 and is…

What diplomatic off ramp does Russia need? There is a simple first step towards redemption and that is get out of Ukraine right now. Better yesterday. Western Europe just learned a painful lesson that you can't trust Russia. Eastern Europe tried to hammer that point into the brains of the other European politicians but it didn't work until now.

Redemption? Even if Putin is toppled, some of his potential replacements are either ultra nationalists (basically Russian nazis) or the commies (Zuganov) who are now both blaming him for not ordering general mobilization. The Russians who do not support the war are a minority. The good thing is that their army is exhaused, ill equipped and their military capacity has diminished. Putin has lost all his credibity with the West, it can't be redeemed. At home he did not deliver a victory. He will be replaced if he doesn't and it's currently not looking good for him. His replacement is probably going to be another rational actor from the FSB, who will be forced to negotiate some kind of ceasefire arragement to ease the sanctions and keep the gas, oil and the money flowing.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#239

Post by dnh44 »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #124
tablespoon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What diplomatic off ramp does Russia need? One that saves face, to at least some degree. > There is a simple first step towards redemption and that is get out of Ukraine right now. Better yesterday. Simple for you, because you're not the one losing face For example, here's another "simple first step" for Europe "towards redemption" (in the eyes of the Russians): withdraw all military and financial support for Ukrai…

Your analysis is seemingly based in the notion that all viewpoints are equal valid, but an analysis of the war needs to be rooted in what’s right and what’s wrong. Russia is fighting a war of aggression in Ukraine. Do they have interests there? Sure, but that doesn’t give them the right to invade and topple the government. Before you ask, yes the US is extremely guilty of this exact same behavior, it is also wrong. T…

>but an analysis of the war needs to be rooted in what’s right and what’s wrong.

I don't think such an analysis is 100% useful because because that's not the main criteria that countries use to make their decisions. The main criteria are strategic and economical considerations. Ethical considerations are nice to have but they are more often used to justify a decision based on furthering strategic/economic goals. The US has played a blinder on this one.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#240

Post by plushpuffin »

adventured wrote: post #220
nosianu wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday's headline: "Russia’s budget surplus evaporates as energy revenues shrink" https://www.ft.com/content/d9cdc51f-5fe3-4f4a-b0e8-054ef21a2... > Russia’s budget surplus for 2022 has almost evaporated after a sharp drop in energy exports during August led to a monthly deficit of as much as Rbs360bn ($5.9bn). Russia is increasingly cutting itself now too: > Revenues look set to worsen following Russia’s suspensio…

Even more important than the economic shrinkage, is the destruction of Russian industry (including military industry) through deprivation of technology access. This is also ignored by the parent comment. Russia can't rebuild or restock their military without the required external tech (much of which has been shown to depend on the US semiconductor industry). All of Russia's more modern military hardware requires fore…

I wonder what this war is going to do to Russia's exports of military hardware. Not only can they not defend or re-supply themselves, but who is going to want their stripped down, even less capable export versions of their weapons now, after seeing it destroyed by a handful of pieces of 20-30 year old western tech?
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