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Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

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Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#361

Post by blub »

fsflover wrote: post #342
pphysch wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose everyone was simple and conspiracies didn't exist. Where might Germany get its fossil fuels? Perhaps shipped across the entire Atlantic Ocean? Perhaps from Mars? Or perhaps from the major producer on its same continent? The bottom line is that European integration is a natural phenomenon. It is natural to have strong economic ties within one's neighborhood. You don't need a decades long conspiracy to explain…

> Where might Germany get its fossil fuels? How about nuclear? https://thebreakthrough.org/blog/the-true-face-of-the-anti-n... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464

Gas is used firstly for heating, then in the chemical industry in Germany.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#362

Post by blaser-waffle »

paganel wrote: post #272
lobochrome wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now consider that Germany has a huge dependency not only on the supply side to China but also on the demand side for machinery equipment and vehicles. In addition, we have a huge dependency on the US for national security. So we are dependent on Russia for Energy, on China for Manufacturing and industrial demand of our most important industrial sectors and are protected by the US from a National Security point of vie…

The problem with a country like Germany is that it's too big for Europe (as a continent), but too "small" for the world. Similar thing for France. Of course that the European Union was meant as a solution for this problem (and for the accompanying wars caused by it). I'd say that while the EU has been a great project from an economic pov from a political and geo-strategic pov this war in Ukraine is showing its huge w…

India is far too fractured and chaotic to really bat at the same level as the US or China.

They will (probably)get there, but they're not at the big leagues just yet.

Russia was thought to maybe be at that level, but the war is showing how hollow their military is, and maybe how wobbly their economy is.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#363

Post by cameldrv »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #254
Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

Let's be fair: this was a massive, strategic aim of the Russian state. Germany didn't randomly fall into this situation, there has been decades of influence, bribery, and espionage in Germany to develop that dependency. Kids may need to be reminded that Germany has only been reunified for 32 years and Berlin was divided from the USSR controlled East Germany by a physical wall. Russia is is so motivated to expand its…

I see a lot of poo-poohing of the influence aspect of this. The biggest example is the man at the top, Gerhard Schröder, the former Chancellor of Germany.

As Chancellor, he began the phaseout of nuclear energy and approved the Nord Stream gas pipeline directly from Russia to Germany.

Today he's:

1. The Chairman of Nord Stream, the company that owns the pipeline

2. The Chairman of Rosneft, the third largest company in Russia

3. A member of the board of directors of Gazprom, the largest company in Russia

You figure it out.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#364

Post by skeptikal »

agapon wrote: post #268
skeptikal wrote: post #261

This is Germany doing something to not be seen doing anything. Doing something for lack of a plan is usually a mistake. Everything of value of this subsidiary has (pipelines, stored gas, etc), is physically in Germany and already subject to German law. The stored gas wasn’t going anywhere without the German regulator’s permission and the regulator can always force Gazprom Germania to sell German stored gas to Germans…

Well, Gazprom changed ownership of Gazprom Germania without any approval from German government. So, apparently, it's not impossible that they would be able to do other things as well.

changing company structure while the assets remain in Germany (in fact they are immobile) is peanuts. Pretend change.

If they (the Russians) had tried to vent Germany’s gas reserves (which wont happen because the employees are German) to kneecap them (the Germans), then you would have seen the German regulator do something.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#365

Post by holoduke »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #313
blub wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you put it like that, one almost has to feel sorry for Germany, bravely fighting influence, bribery and espionage every step of the way only to fall prey in the end to the Russian state which maliciously supplied the German industry with gas. But this is not at all bad for the US, it’s great! Russia is isolated and weakened and the EU is strangulated by yet another wave of refugees and weakened economically, bec…

I think that https://ceres.georgetown.edu/research/student-projects/geopo... is a fair assessment. I would add https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/13/russia.germany , also. It is plainly clear that the current Russian leadership is expansionist in nature, because they are killing thousands of people in a former satellite state to reestablish prior borders. This is definitely a less than zero-sum environment. R…

The US doesn't want to have a strong Europe Russia relationship. That's the whole reason behind this conflict. The US started to bribe everyone in Ukraine and even forced a coup in 2014. History of the US destabilising regions is very evident. They are good at it.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#366

Post by holoduke »

actionfromafar wrote: post #286
paganel wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with a country like Germany is that it's too big for Europe (as a continent), but too "small" for the world. Similar thing for France. Of course that the European Union was meant as a solution for this problem (and for the accompanying wars caused by it). I'd say that while the EU has been a great project from an economic pov from a political and geo-strategic pov this war in Ukraine is showing its huge w…

Upvoting but Russia most definitely cannot be self-sufficient. Unless you mean in a theoretical or future sense. Most of it exports are energy, and their industry depends heavily on western and chinese machinery and components.

Enough smart people to create a small world within.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#367

Post by nix23 »

archerx wrote: post #186
nix23 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we can import it from france and we have hydro, why even care about the nuclear-waste and all the negative sides of it. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-get-75--of-power-from-ren...

Why should we be dependent on France? Nuclear waste is a boogie man to scare hippies at night, almost 96% of fuel rods can be recycled and fuel rods have a life cycle of 5-10 years while not needing that many to run a reactor. We could be researching and investing in modern nuclear tech that solve these problems until fusion is viable. Also with petrol there was a lot of waste but we learned to process it and turn it…

>Why should we be dependent on France?

Because Switzerland is dependent on like everything? The same could be said about steel, food, chips, chemicals, minerals, fertilizer, oils, gas...just about everything, yes we produce stuff but nearly nothing from the ground up, with the exception of Alp-Cheese and Buendnerfleisch ;)

>Hydro while interesting it is awful for the environment.

Switzerland then must have terrible environmental problems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Switzerland

high share of hydroelectricity (59.6%)

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#368

Post by nix23 »

recuter wrote: post #312
nix23 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your plan is to sit in the dark while the radiation drifts across the imaginary line that is your border? You know how small Switzerland is? One accident and whole Switzerland could be polluted at once. >You know Mr Putin could have just stayed Not sure how that has anything todo with a far right french politician. >Nord Stream 2 was weeks away from being flipped on And would have been probably flipped off, after wh…

> You know how small Switzerland is? One accident and whole Switzerland could be polluted at once. Well precisely. And Bugey is so close might as well be in Switzerland, heh. Atoms don't know about our imaginary lines. > And would have been probably flipped off, after what happened. I'm saying instead of collecting riches he opted to invade. It is a bummer but sometimes people are not rational actors, even in Europe…

>Atoms don't know about our imaginary lines.

200km less...that's massive for Switzerland

>Generally far right movements have an affinity with Russia/Putin.

Sorry but that's just a wannabe attempt...let's stop here, not worth my time, for example in Germany it was the left.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#369

Post by holoduke »

ganzuul wrote: post #306
1over137 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, the larger dispute is between NATO and Russia. The USA is the head of NATO.

If this insane idea that the sovereign nations of Europe have no agency of their own comes from American "news"-branded edutainment, I dearly suggest you defenestrate your television set. It is clearly rotting minds.

Hardly any euro state has real power when it comes to real decisions. Most of the euro states are politically heavily influenced by financial injections from the US. Military bases everywhere. US companies everywhere. All tech is dominated by the US. Of course Russia sees the US as the master country and euro countries as their puppets.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#370

Post by holoduke »

throwmeariver1 wrote: post #56
logifail wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> energy independence We use LPG gas (from a tank buried at the bottom of the garden) feeding a gas boiler to heat our house. I'm all for energy independence, and would love to switch to a more environmentally-friendly energy source, but I'm deeply concerned about how much this will cost me, and even if I did have the money, based on reports in local media, getting a heating engineer in would take many months. Half a…

We are in Germany and switched to a heatpump system 4 years ago through incentives over the "Marktanreizprogramm" we got over 45% of the costs reimbursed. It's not even only on the supply chain crisis it's simply ramping up production and training installers because everyone was totally fine with just doing oil and gas for a long time but now everyone scrambles. Shortsightness not only from the state but everyday peo…

For our detached house the price of a heatpump setup is about 40.000 euros. We decided to stick with gass for a while. At some point a electrical heat unit would be better. Very inefficient, but with solar and batteries a lot cheaper than a heatpump. About 15.000 euros.
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