Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

wermac.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 280 posts

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#221

Post by pbak »

bombcar wrote: post #205
cloutchaser wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be suprised if this turns into the next "lab leak theory" in terms of censorship. There's going to be one acceptable party line, parrotted in the media and anything else will be censored on social media as well. There's too much at stake and the infrastructure is already there to create full on censorship for one side and non stop propaganda for the other.

Everyone is quiet because nobody knows what the party line is supposed to be. On any side.

Most insightful comment yet. +1

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#222

Post by IAmGraydon »

p1esk wrote: post #15
c_o_n_v_e_x wrote: post #13

I worked in oil and gas in a previous life. The absolute wildest people I've ever met are saturation divers - divers who live in pressurized chambers on ships for months at a time to avoid having to decompress after dives. Fantastic money but you need a few screws loose to handle the work.

How much money is “fantastic money”?

Typically around $40-50K USD per month.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#223

Post by pbak »

DangerousPie wrote: post #173
ktfelt wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is Stuxnet and its predecessor, which blew up a pipeline! https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r... The U.S. motivation is that it has tried to shut down energy trades between the Soviet Union/Russia and Germany for more than 50 years.

But those trades were already shut down and not coming back anytime soon. If Germany had refused to join sanctions and was still using NS1 + NS2 at full capacity right now then maybe there would have been some motivation to force the issue. But why now, when the pipelines weren't even active?

You are analyzing this too much in the short term. These pipelines were meant to last for decades.

The pain of seeing a quarter of your industry close for lack of energy might have easily bent the will of Germans and others after this winter. All political announcements about replacing Russian gas before 2027 at the earliest were a pipe dream (pun intended)for anybody with any actual knowledge of the industry.

Even now, a large portion of what was supposedly bought elsewhere was just repackaged and re-originated at the port of loading, but actually Russian gas - hence part of the price hike going to a chain of middlemen.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#224

Post by quonn »

rendall wrote: post #67

Everyone seems to know it was Russia and is just casting out ideas to find a plausible motivation. I find that completely baffling. For opportunity, consider that while setting up the pipeline needs a weird high-pressure residence and special training, blowing it up takes a fishing boat, scuba gear and underwater explosives. The equipment and training is cheap and available. So, those with opportunity is almost anyon…

The only one except Russia with an incentive would be Germany, and only for NS2, not NS 1. And even then it‘s far less likely.

I think also the way it was done. Attacks on two pipes for maximum effect and apparently large leaks.

Anyone except Russia would have an incentive to make an attack look small and boring, perhaps like a defect.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#225

Post by diimdeep »

rendall wrote: post #128
captainmuon wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just hope it wasn't the US. That would be a devastating breach of trust for Germany and would backfire badly if it came out. I'm rooting for the Danish anarchists. You basically just need underwater explosives and a boat. You hang the explosives on a long rope, throw it over board like an anchor, and drag it into the pipeline. When you hit the pipeline, you detonate the explosives.

Don't worry. It wasn't the US. Not really our style. Sure, the CIA pulls dirty tricks, but those are quiet, in-the-shadows skullduggery where no one's paying attention. CIA doesn't do big and loud where other Americans can see it. Plus, motivations are wrong. The US catastrophically ends European energy dependence on Russia so that... it can compete with the Middle East and Russia and Canada on a more equal footing?…

Strategic Forecasting Inc. STRATFOR - US 'Private CIA' firm disagrees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX7G3wIzBhs&t=9s

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#226

Post by quonn »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #187
belorn wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diving down 60-80 meters in the baltic ocean is quite advanced technical diving if you are just going to go down there and up again. Doing any kind of work (which increase breathing) at those depths is a massive step in complexity. We are talking about cold water diving, at hypoxic gas depths, with usually low visibility. The dive would require several hours of decompression in the middle of a shipping lane. The dens…

As someone with diving experience I laughed at parent comment's "anyone with scuba gear" assertion too - a classic example of "I'm an expert at everything because I'm a smart programmer who makes $200k a year" arrogance that is endemic here - but you're right next to them. - The timing of the explosions doesn't require "multiple coordinated teams." It requires timers. Or, as is common with naval mines, an acoustic ar…

> it seems unlikely Russia would do this to themselves when, you know, they can just not supply gas into the pipeline.

The idea is that this gets everyone to think about the security of other pipelines while being less risky for Russia. And gas prices rose right afterwards.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#227

Post by koonsolo »

adrianN wrote: post #200
koonsolo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need gas to heat homes??? Heat pumps seem like the most ecological solution. Let's face it, we're in this shit because of political shortsightedness, not because it was the best way to go.

We're talking about whether keeping the nuclear plants on would have made Germany independent of Russian gas. If we had heat pumps everywhere we might as well use renewable energy, that's cheaper than nuclear.

Sorry but I call bullshit on your story. Just look at this chart: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...

For power generation, lignite and coal stayed about the same, gas increased from 20 to 30, oil stayed about the same. The only thing that went significantly down was nuclear going from 22.4 to 8.1.

It all depends on where your priorities are, and obviously getting rid of nuclear was more important than burning Russian stuff into the atmosphere.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#228

Post by quonn »

tazjin wrote: post #143
rendall wrote: post #67

Everyone seems to know it was Russia and is just casting out ideas to find a plausible motivation. I find that completely baffling. For opportunity, consider that while setting up the pipeline needs a weird high-pressure residence and special training, blowing it up takes a fishing boat, scuba gear and underwater explosives. The equipment and training is cheap and available. So, those with opportunity is almost anyon…

The US is the only actor that makes any sense to me, especially after Blinken's statement yesterday (~ "it was in nobody's interest, but would you look at the benefits!"). Combine that with the US naval activity in the exact area around the time, and also the "anti"-mine "drills" they did there earlier this year. The US knows that none of their vassals will ever openly accuse them, and for the Western media it was Ru…

Calling Germany a vassal of the US is more than questionable. I think you also underestimate the EU, as many still do. The US doesn‘t deal with individual states anymore.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#229

Post by eternalban »

_kbh_ wrote: post #69
rendall wrote: post #67

Everyone seems to know it was Russia and is just casting out ideas to find a plausible motivation. I find that completely baffling. For opportunity, consider that while setting up the pipeline needs a weird high-pressure residence and special training, blowing it up takes a fishing boat, scuba gear and underwater explosives. The equipment and training is cheap and available. So, those with opportunity is almost anyon…

Why did these groups miss a pipe on Nord Stream 2 that remains undamaged, and can be used by Russia to try and force certification of NS2 if things get bad?.

This and only this is the one fact (which I did not know about yesterday) that actually puts Russia in the viable suspects list, which now include:

US, UK, Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Germany (deep state), any nation betting on strategic LNG sales.

Or maybe it was Dr. No.

Re: Nord Stream: Tie-ins and hyperbaric welding

#230

Post by rendall »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #187
belorn wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diving down 60-80 meters in the baltic ocean is quite advanced technical diving if you are just going to go down there and up again. Doing any kind of work (which increase breathing) at those depths is a massive step in complexity. We are talking about cold water diving, at hypoxic gas depths, with usually low visibility. The dive would require several hours of decompression in the middle of a shipping lane. The dens…

As someone with diving experience I laughed at parent comment's "anyone with scuba gear" assertion too - a classic example of "I'm an expert at everything because I'm a smart programmer who makes $200k a year" arrogance that is endemic here - but you're right next to them. - The timing of the explosions doesn't require "multiple coordinated teams." It requires timers. Or, as is common with naval mines, an acoustic ar…

As the endemically arrogant programmer, I sincerely appreciate your candor!

I was hoping that a scuba expert would come by and help out, so thank you. After all, the fastest way to get a good answer on the internet is to post a wrong answer.

Just, as a minor point, I was responding to assertions that it could only be Russia because only a submarine crew could have done it.

Post reply on HN