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Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

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Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#411

Post by CRConrad »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #384
belorn wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason gas is used for heating is the historical cheap price for gas. Gas line and gas infrastructure is actually a bit expensive and require additional maintenance compared to just running electrical lines between homes, and gas heaters are generally a bit more complex to install than electric heaters. The incentives to continue with gas heaters goes down when gas prices goes up, in similar way that the inc…

Sweden has 8x less residents then Germany tho

People always come up with this population-size argument in contexts where it's totally irrelevant[1]. So what if Germany has eight times more residents than Sweden, or Sweden eight times fewer than Germany?!? Everything still works the same, only scaled up or down by a factor of eight: You have eight times more/fewer consumers to supply (with energy, staplers, food, whatever), but you also have eight times more/fewer entrepreneurs and workers to supply it.

___

[1]: This moronic argument is most frequently brought up as "Single-payer health care can't work in the US as it does in [insert any country with single-payer health care], because the US population is [X] times bigger!" Yeah, but so fucking WHAT? That just means the US has X times more health care recipients, and an X times larger economy to supply health care! It's just the same thing, scaled up by a factor of X. Sheesh...

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#412

Post by another_why »

mcv wrote: post #403
another_why wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I meant all European democracies Russia is also a European democracy. Surprise > I think, temporarily[1] until we get this mess sorted. > [1]: In the long run oil and gas prices should probably increase until solar and nuclear power become very profitable. Won't happen during your lifetime.

> Russia is also a European democracy. Surprise Nasty surprises seem to happen to people who credibly oppose Putin. Without free press and free speech, elections don't mean much.

> Nasty surprises seem to happen to people who credibly oppose Putin

I believe, they just don't have/don't want to spend money on showing a real election circus, like in US. Russia is a poor country and making people believe that a cross in a white form means something if you are not a billionaire and can't get billionaires to support you with money, costs a lot.

You have "free press" and "free speech" in the internet, doesn't seem to help much, does it?

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#413

Post by CRConrad »

dboreham wrote: post #99
bungle wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First of all, a lot of gas gets used for heating - nuclear isn't useful there All electricity basically turns to heat at some point. So why not?

You can't use electricity to run your gas furnace.

But if you use that gas furnace to heat radiators in a fluid-born (usually water) heating system, you only need to install an electric heater next to your furnace and re-route the pipes to/from the furnace to use that heater in stead. Not all that humongous an operation.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#414

Post by CRConrad »

junon wrote: post #214
bungle wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First of all, a lot of gas gets used for heating - nuclear isn't useful there All electricity basically turns to heat at some point. So why not?

Nobody here uses electrical heating. It's all done with radiators and the like, pretty much exclusively.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30439403

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#415

Post by CRConrad »

wongarsu wrote: post #160
raxxorrax wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also isn't politically feasible. Nuclear power needs subsidies and I doubt a green government will restart those. Government can be impulsive, but I don't see that happening again.

In Germany protest against nuclear weapons and nuclear energy was one of the core issues of the Green Party for the last 40 years. Restarting or extending the lifetime of existing plants would be political suicide for the current government. If they're smart they can build support for modern designs, probably small nuclear, as long as they can convince their voter base that the risk of accidents and the problem of wa…

> In Germany protest against nuclear weapons and nuclear energy was one of the core issues of the Green Party for the last 40 years.

Yes, "Green" Parties are a blight on the political landscape everywhere.

> Restarting or extending the lifetime of existing plants would be political suicide for the current government.

Well, for the bottom of the current "traffic-light" coalition, anyway... (We can but hope.)

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#416

Post by maccolgan »

stanski wrote: post #269
karpierz wrote: post #241

Anyone have thoughts on how this all pans out? I think that the only way out is that Ukraine cuts off its arm to save the head. It acknowledges the territories as lost, and consolidates what it has left. But I'm not sure how they do that without: 1. The current leader losing legitimacy, and likely resigning. 2. Opening the door for other parts of Ukraine to split off. 3. Opening the door to Russia to meddle in other…

There is absolutely nothing Ukraine can do but sit and watch Russia do what it wants. They weren't able to defend their Eastern border back when Russia was pretending to not be involved, let alone when they openly are. This is Crimea all over again; the West will keep making noises while Russia effectively annexes further portions of Ukraine.

>Crimea all over again

This is not really Crimea, it's just Kosovo but this time someone else is acting as the hypocrite.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#417

Post by CRConrad »

raxxorrax wrote: post #301
rpadovani wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This probably explains why Germany is not supporting Ukraine with fists. And also probably because we don't want a war on our borders? Ukraine was supposed to be a buffer state between NATO and Russia, and then US promised that Ukraine would have joined NATO, and back at the time Germany and France pushed back[0]. But US has only to gain with disorders in the old continent, so here we are... [0]: https://www.nytime…

Very true, but as with the Iraq war, the guilty are easily found and support for a war quickly comes from the righteous®. Russia actually does have an argument for protecting former Russians in some countries. These are people that suddenly lost their nationality with the collapse of the soviet union and don't want to relieve it in favor of the new countries. That puts them in a situation where they are not allowed t…

> ...don't want to relieve it in favor of the new countries. That puts them in a situation where they are not allowed to travel because of lacking passports. There is additional discrimination...

They put themselves in that situation by not getting new passports, so if there's any "additional discrimination" it's done by themselves. If they didn't want to become citizens of their newly independent ex-Soviet Republics but remain Russians, they should have moved to Russia.

> Of course that is not at all an excuse for an invasion.

It certainly is being used as one, just as it has in the past.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#418

Post by CRConrad »

raxxorrax wrote: post #301
rpadovani wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This probably explains why Germany is not supporting Ukraine with fists. And also probably because we don't want a war on our borders? Ukraine was supposed to be a buffer state between NATO and Russia, and then US promised that Ukraine would have joined NATO, and back at the time Germany and France pushed back[0]. But US has only to gain with disorders in the old continent, so here we are... [0]: https://www.nytime…

Very true, but as with the Iraq war, the guilty are easily found and support for a war quickly comes from the righteous®. Russia actually does have an argument for protecting former Russians in some countries. These are people that suddenly lost their nationality with the collapse of the soviet union and don't want to relieve it in favor of the new countries. That puts them in a situation where they are not allowed t…

> But if you deny that Russia has security interests in that region, you basically are asking for a war. And the Russians have made it very clear that it is seen that way and made their reaction very predictable.

Russia's "security interests" are, as they have ever been, aggressive unilateral expansion. Nobody else was "asking for a war"; nobody needs to, because Russia is always only too willing to serve one up unasked. So yes indeed, "their reaction [is] very predictable". It always is, and it's of course even easier to predict when it's a "reaction" to circumstances they themselves engineered.

> Yet, western nations ignored that completely.

So WTF were they supposed to do? Acquiesce and appease, as so many times before? There has to be a limit somewhere. Putin cannot count on Munich 1938 going on forever.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#419

Post by CRConrad »

raxxorrax wrote: post #301
rpadovani wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This probably explains why Germany is not supporting Ukraine with fists. And also probably because we don't want a war on our borders? Ukraine was supposed to be a buffer state between NATO and Russia, and then US promised that Ukraine would have joined NATO, and back at the time Germany and France pushed back[0]. But US has only to gain with disorders in the old continent, so here we are... [0]: https://www.nytime…

Very true, but as with the Iraq war, the guilty are easily found and support for a war quickly comes from the righteous®. Russia actually does have an argument for protecting former Russians in some countries. These are people that suddenly lost their nationality with the collapse of the soviet union and don't want to relieve it in favor of the new countries. That puts them in a situation where they are not allowed t…

No post body was provided.

Re: Germany shelves Nord Stream 2 pipeline

#420

Post by CRConrad »

raxxorrax wrote: post #301
rpadovani wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This probably explains why Germany is not supporting Ukraine with fists. And also probably because we don't want a war on our borders? Ukraine was supposed to be a buffer state between NATO and Russia, and then US promised that Ukraine would have joined NATO, and back at the time Germany and France pushed back[0]. But US has only to gain with disorders in the old continent, so here we are... [0]: https://www.nytime…

Very true, but as with the Iraq war, the guilty are easily found and support for a war quickly comes from the righteous®. Russia actually does have an argument for protecting former Russians in some countries. These are people that suddenly lost their nationality with the collapse of the soviet union and don't want to relieve it in favor of the new countries. That puts them in a situation where they are not allowed t…

> One common factor of those that asked for a strong response, which the west mostly gave with the exception of Germany perhaps, was being profoundly ignorant in how to talk to Russia and its interest.

Because normal international diplomatic relations and norms don't apply to Russia; one has to "talk to" Russia in a special way? How about fucking Russia just come down off its high horse, in stead?

> Ukraine has interests too, but there is no solution for them without a dialogue with its neighbor.

There is no solution for them with such a neighbour.

> And just promising to not include Ukraine in a military alliance (it is not just a defensive pact) would have mostly ended the conflict and most arguments. Yet, some people decided not to do that.

Here's what people with a dictatorial mindset[1] just can't seem to get: It's not a matter of what other powers should "promise" or "decide", but what the people of the sovereign nation of Ukraine themselves WANT to do. If they feel that they need to belong to an alliance in order to preserve their national security, then who the fuck is Putin to say they can't? He has his own nation to run; he is not the dictator of the Ukrainians. (Yet. :-( )

[1]: Like you are so convincingly demonstrating here.

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