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Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

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Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#71
post #58
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like this: "It's not that you refrain from doing something because it will offend Russia. If Russia is doing something that we don't want it to do, we should offend them."[0] And that's coming from a man who said a few minutes earlier: "There is one of the factor here that we seem to be forgetting, and we did, though it was not a legally binding assurance, we gave categorical assurances to Gorbachev, back when the So…

> NATO, NATO would not be moved eastward. 1. Which Gorbachev himself said never happened 2. Before 2014 almost no one in Ukraine wanted to join NATO. After 2014 almost everyone wanted to join NATO. After 2022 Sweden and Finland ran to NATO. > it's not Russia's business if NATO decides to expand. Countries bordering Russia literally run to NATO the moment they have a choice. I wonder why. It couldn't be Russia who's t…

>Which Gorbachev himself said never happened

He lied.[0] No one wants to look like a fool.

>Before 2014 almost no one in Ukraine wanted to join NATO. After 2014 almost everyone wanted to join NATO.

Pro-Western Ukrainian president submitted request to join NATO in 2008 and the NATO response was positive.

And your statement is false, before 2014 there was significant minority that favored joining NATO and after 2014 the percentage grew but was very far from "almost everyone"

>It couldn't be Russia who's to blame, could it?

That's typical response. Now please tell me why the security concerns of these countries has to be respected and Russia's security concerns don't?

>Just like Russia is midwifing crises and elections actoss Europe and countries like Georgia and Azerbaijan

Russia has never supported any coups in Europe or in Georgia and Azerbaijan.

[0] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#72
post #69
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2024, China produced 8 times more electricity from renewables that from nuclear [1], and the renewable share is growing much more quickly. Nuclear is as dead in China as it is elsewhere in the world. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

China has a huge advantage over the majority of Europe: abundance of mostly empty land with a lot of sunlight, it's unrealistic in places like Norther Europe. But I'm not talking about nuclear alone, it was the best answer in the 70s and 80s, nowadays we need a healthy mix of nuclear, solar and wind. But above everything else we need a government willing to make significant changes and make them fast.

China has a larger population density than the EU. There is more empty land in Europe.

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#73
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's not that you refrain from doing something because it will offend Russia. If Russia is doing something that we don't want it to do, we should offend them."[0] Has Russia ever refrained from offending the West when it suited their interests? > And should I mention the US "midwifing" the coup in Ukraine in 2014? [2] It takes some really stupid arrogance to say shit like this when Ukraine literally had Russian st…

>Has Russia ever refrained from offending the West Of course. Like abstaining in a UN SC vote, allowing NATO bomb Libya. >Russian stooge as a president at the time, installed via fossil fuel extortion Nope, Yanukovich was elected by Ukrainian people.[0] Previous pro-Western president received only 6% of votes in the first round. >If Russia wanted truly neutral Ukraine, they should've backed the fuck off in the first…

> Of course. Like abstaining in a UN SC vote, allowing NATO bomb Libya.

The generosity!

> Nope, Yanukovich was elected by Ukrainian people.[0]

Tell me more of those exciting stories. From your link:

>> After all ballots were counted, the Ukrainian Central Election Commission declared that Yanukovych won the election with 48.95% of the vote compared with 45.47% for Tymoshenko.

> Previous pro-Western president received only 6% of votes in the first round.

After the guy was poisoned, disfigured beyond repair all while fighting smear campaigns calling him beekeeper.

You should've linked [0] when you talk about Yushchenko, comrade.

> Enlighten me, how backing off when the US supports pro-Western coup in the Ukraine would've resulted in "truly neutral Ukraine"? And please mind your language

Quid pro quo, it's a really tough principle for Russian to understand, because they're only used to extortion.

> And please mind your language

Your attempt at patronizing is as pathetic as Russian military takeover of Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005%E2%80%932006_Russia%E2%80...

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#74
post #72
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has a huge advantage over the majority of Europe: abundance of mostly empty land with a lot of sunlight, it's unrealistic in places like Norther Europe. But I'm not talking about nuclear alone, it was the best answer in the 70s and 80s, nowadays we need a healthy mix of nuclear, solar and wind. But above everything else we need a government willing to make significant changes and make them fast.

China has a larger population density than the EU. There is more empty land in Europe.

> There is more empty land in Europe.

Truly empty? Or nature reserves?

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#75
post #72
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has a huge advantage over the majority of Europe: abundance of mostly empty land with a lot of sunlight, it's unrealistic in places like Norther Europe. But I'm not talking about nuclear alone, it was the best answer in the 70s and 80s, nowadays we need a healthy mix of nuclear, solar and wind. But above everything else we need a government willing to make significant changes and make them fast.

China has a larger population density than the EU. There is more empty land in Europe.

Chinese population is concentrated in the East. The Western half of the country is pretty much empty. Lots of sunny semi-desertic/desertic areas, too so they do have a lot of actually empty land well suited for solar (China is more to the South compared to Europe: Beijing is about same latitude as Madrid...) and wind.

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#76
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand where the arrogance comes in here. I see underhandedness and realpolitik, but those don’t arrogance make. (I’ll also note that it seems very weird to use a pinky promise that the US made with a country that no longer exists as some kind of “gotcha.” You presumably don’t factor the Austro-Hungarian empire’s commitments into your geopolitics.)

>no longer exists Russia is legal successor to the USSR. Somehow the West hadn't written off the debts of "a country that no longer exists" and Russia paid out all of them.

> Somehow the West hadn't written off the debts of "a country that no longer exists" and Russia paid out all of them.

Shall we make concessions to Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany too?

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#77
post #71
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NATO, NATO would not be moved eastward. 1. Which Gorbachev himself said never happened 2. Before 2014 almost no one in Ukraine wanted to join NATO. After 2014 almost everyone wanted to join NATO. After 2022 Sweden and Finland ran to NATO. > it's not Russia's business if NATO decides to expand. Countries bordering Russia literally run to NATO the moment they have a choice. I wonder why. It couldn't be Russia who's t…

>Which Gorbachev himself said never happened He lied.[0] No one wants to look like a fool. >Before 2014 almost no one in Ukraine wanted to join NATO. After 2014 almost everyone wanted to join NATO. Pro-Western Ukrainian president submitted request to join NATO in 2008 and the NATO response was positive. And your statement is false, before 2014 there was significant minority that favored joining NATO and after 2014 th…

> Pro-Western Ukrainian president submitted request to join NATO in 2008 and the NATO response was positive.

I wonder where it came from [0][1].

> That's typical response. Now please tell me why the security concerns of these countries has to be respected and Russia's security concerns don't?

World superpower (according to Russians themselves) has security concerns about checks notes Ukraine, Baltics, Georgia, Poland, Finland. Seems about right, judging by how war in Ukraine goes.

> Russia has never supported any coups in Europe or in Georgia and Azerbaijan.

My fucking eyes, lmao.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia#...

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005%E2%80%932006_Russia%E2%80...

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty confident that a large part of NATO (and all other military alliances) is the accession of new members. Candidate members have to want to accede, which goes back to my question: why are we talking about what the US and Russia want, when Ukraine’s wants are just as if not more important?

Look, the point is not what one wants. Everyone is free to make its own choices. The point is that choices have consequences, and when the consequences are very clear in advance and you still make that choice, you also take responsibility for the consequences. This attitude that "this is my will and I will pursue it, and I don't care about how others feel about it (because anyway I'm stronger)" is called arrogance.

> This attitude that "this is my will and I will pursue it, and I don't care about how others feel about it (because anyway I'm stronger)" is called arrogance.

So literally Russia invading Ukraine.

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#79
post #61
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of Belgium’s electricity comes from nuclear, wind and solar. They have been greatly expanding wind parks in the north sea, and they’re in the early stages of deploying SMRs. But the reality is that Belgium still needs a lot of natural gas for electricity production and its large chemical industry, and that all of this gas has to be imported. Long term there is the European hydrogen strategy which aims to…

The long term European hydrogen strategy aims to waste a while bunch of time and money on a dead end technology.

This is not necessarily true for all situations. Northern Europe is planning to produce a lot of electricity with offshore wind, but laying deep sea high voltage electricity cables isn’t cheap. There’s already a lot of gas pipelines that can be retrofitted for hydrogen transport at a much lower price. At a certain point it becomes viable to just use electrolysis and transport hydrogen using excess wind power instead of transporting the electricity to land and storing it in batteries.

There are also industries like steel production that are just not going to transition to electricity. Hydrogen has a place there too.

Re: Italy, Belgium set to lose gas supply after biggest LNG plant bombed

#80
post #53
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google "Messmer Plan". France built 65 reactors in 15 years as a reaction to the 70s oil crisis, and now the majority of electricity in France comes from nuclear without any significant dependency on fossil fuels. The only thing that we're lacking is political will to change things.

The French energy sector is more than 50% fossil [1]. If France decarbonizes over the next decades, it will be due to renewables, not nuclear. While the government and population have been extremely pro-nuclear for a long time, the economics just don't work out. The current plan is to barely build enough reactors to replace old ones going off-line over the next decades. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Fra…

That seems to be mostly because of oil use which is coming from transportation. Electrical generation is dominated by nuclear and renewables. Electrification of transport will help, provided they don't generate the additional electricity needed by burning gas or coal...
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