Covid shut down most LNG production in north america, good opportunity to get back to fracking and ruining the environment in US and Canada for the right price, theh can use tanker ships not just pipes unless they simply can't move that volume with ships.
there is no lng supply possible for Europe. you can frack as much as you want and ship as much as you want. the next 4 quarters will decide about the downfall of Europe (and ultimately the US).
Renewables are going to ramp, floating LNG import terminals are already en route (to add capacity to the existing 24 in EU countries), and industrial processes requiring LNG will make due with less or seek alternatives. Europe will place a small number of coal plants on temporary standby, and they will only add 1.3% to EU emissions annually, even in the worst-case scenario where they run at maximum output.
There will be some pain, but this is the 21st century, not the 19th.
All the stuff you describe are need at least 2 years. At least. Plus, they are expensive. Energy will come with a huge premium in Europe. This is the time that Putin needs to build the pipelines to other countries.
Let us not forget that NOBODY is against the war: not a single South American, not any African country, not China, not India. This is a US/Canada/Europe/South Korea/Japan/Australia thing. Nobody else cares. They are happy to get cheap energy soon.
Short term impact on Europe:
- cold winter
- populism
- crashing economy
- gov financial support and more inflation
- no inflation control as we cannot let Southern Europe crash, hence, no interest rate hikes
Mid-term effects
- Expensive American dirty LNG
- No competetive advantage anymore
I disagree with the West to 100% and hope that Putin will finish off Ukraine asap so this topic is finally closed.
Disclaimer: I have Ukranian roots, visited Ukraine often, support refugees here in Germany from day 1 and was for many weeks at the border when the war started. So please go away with your "morals" and value bs.
We have different perspectives. Are there challenges? Absolutely. Conversely, the free world ("United States and Co") has strong incentives to not allow Europe (a NATO ally) to fail due to Russia's actions. Direct military action is off the table at the moment (it appears?), but the US has robust economic capacity to assist logistically speaking. India may do nothing except get a deal on Russian energy, but China is in no position to assist considering the economic razor's edge they're currently on (they're even considering accepting imports of Australian coal again due to internal constraints).
Also, I take issue with "Expensive dirty LNG." While a greenhouse gas, fossil gas burns clean. It is a fine short term solution until this conflict reaches resolution, as long as you can shim in import infra at underutilized infrastructure intersections. The LNG shipping capacity is not a challenge (although import logistics are, as mentioned), and the cost premium is the cost of energy demand during a conflict.
> I disagree with the West to 100% and hope that Putin will finish off Ukraine asap so this topic is finally closed.
Speaking only based on factual information, this is unlikely. Putin is in poor health (shaking in public, puffy appearance likely due to heavy steroid use, putting off events without explanation), and the US will remain solvent longer than Russia can continue its military actions while under crippling economic sanctions. To allow Putin to succeed would set a geopolitical precedent that the developed world can't allow to be set. The American-supplied HIMARS are proving very effective in recent combat ops (per The Economist) against Russian assets, which is a positive sign that Ukraine continues to receive military support. In short, Putin will fail eventually because he cannot be allowed to succeed, we're simply haggling over the timeline.
Disclaimer: US citizen, not a warmonger, pragmatic about the application of military force as a necessary evil.
This must be the I'm not racist, I have black friends equivalent of supporting a fascist regime and calling for it to finish off a country with 44 million people. Given Russia's past and current scorched-earth policy this would be a genocide, if it's not already is.
Even if Russia finishes off Ukraine it would not go back to business as usual, they would still hold the rest of the world hostage with nuclear weapons, and a few years later they would just invade another country. They must be stopped, and stopped now.
If it would be the 19th century wood and coal would solve the problem, but unfortunately nothing can replace the existing natural gas infrastructure. Winter is a few months away.
Europe is until now unwilling to tap available resources. For instance the Groningen gas field is not running at full capacity [0] (for various reasons)
I think Europe is naive and should expect Russia to halt all exports when they need it the most.
[0] https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/06/groningen-gas-should-b...
Go look at some photos of Europe immediately post WWII. Especially Poland and Germany.
If we survived that and rose again from literal ashes, we won't be done in by one winter without Russian gas. This continent withstood a lot worse than a limited period of expensive heating.
"normal prices" - such thing does not exist, because there isn't any "norm" in the markets. Markets develop.
Do you mean "pre-war prices"? They aren't going to come back anytime soon because the entire political and economic balance in Europe has changed and the prices already factor in the uncertainty.
But that was when we had the majority of our industrial capability in Europe and with aid from the US. We also still had open coal mines and people didn't mind burning coal and wood in masses (which was the primary heat source at the time).
But, most importantly, we also had lots of young people. The aging of Europe will be the final nail in the coffin. Who will rebuild Europe? Not the roughly 30 percent over the age of 60 (who, coincidently, ran Europe into the ground for the last 30 years+).
True, but we do not have anything resembling WWII-levels of destruction on the vast majority of the continent, so the effort needed to get back on track is an order of magnitude lower. In 1945, Mariupols were everywhere.
And post-WWII Europe was forcibly split into competing power blocks, which strangulated a lot of the pre-WWII commerce. Contemporary EU is a common market where goods and workforce can freely flow. This compensates for the lack of young people somewhat.
For example, Germany post-WWII was seriously handicapped by the fact that they lost a large portion of their male population in war, either killed/maimed, or taken prisoner by the USSR which only let them return after 1950.
Natural gas cannot be replaced by nuclear energy (or any other source of electricity) for many applications, at least not in the short term. For example here in Germany, many homes use gas boilers (heaters) for heating space and water. You would need to rebuild a lot of infrastructure to use electricity (which Germany plans to do, but obviously this will take years if not decades).
Is there a difference between the kind of gas used in power plants and the kind for residential use? If not, couldn't nuclear plants reduce the need for gas in power plants, allowing that gas to go to heating homes instead?
There is currently almost no gas used for electricity generation in Europe (much too expensive). Even under normal conditions, heating and industry consume an order of magnitude more gas than electricity generation.
Do you a citation for that? It seems unlikely that 20-25% of EU electrical generation shifted in the last couple of years. Solar has been cutting demand for more-expensive gas but 20% is still far more than “almost no”.
> Starting in 2016, consumption of natural gas in Europe’s electric power sector increased as a result of the systematic retirement of coal-fired power plants across Europe and the retirement of nuclear power plants in Germany in particular.
> Fossil gas power declined 8% since 2019, generating 18% of EU electricity (524 TWh).
I think the underlying discrepancy might be explained by electricitymaps.com reporting real-time usage. It would be very easy to believe that today's usage is not representative of an entire year when you're looking at a brief interval in summer when solar is running at maximum efficiency, heating needs are non-existent, and everyone on the continent has been reacting to the possibility that there might be a gas shortage at any time.
Gas plants are almost universally peaker plants, designed to quickly ramp up and down, while nuclear plants are almost universally baseload.
There’s nothing in principle stopping us from building peaker nuclear reactors, but nobody except the military ever does so. As a result, nuclear largely cannot substitute for gas without massive storage systems that don’t exist.
It could but so would accelerating solar and wind deployments.
At this point those are probably more cost effective solutions. Trying to restart a reactor that youve been going through the shutdown process for about 5 years is probably going to cost more.
It's super weird how many people think this restarting the nuke plants is a solution. It'll cost a lot and wont make much overall difference.
(of course, neither will anything else really... there are zero short term solutions to Germany's russian gas dependence other than kowtowing).
I wasn't proposing restarting nuclear plants as a solution. I was suggesting Germany made a huge mistake shutting them down in the first place.
> (of course, neither will anything else really... there are zero short term solutions to Germany's russian gas dependence other than kowtowing).
Kowtowing isn't a solution to Germany's Russian gas dependence, it's accepting it as inevitable. It may be the only solution to Germany's gas shortages.
You're forgetting two things: not all natural gas is used for heating and Russia does not supply 100% of the natural gas used in Europe. If a nuclear plant can generate enough electricity to shut down a natural gas plant, the natural gas which would have been burned for electrical production is then available for applications like heating which are hard to quickly replace.
Russia supplies about 40-45% of the EU's total natural gas, so there's a big question about how quickly imports can be scaled up. The energy mix in the EU electrical grid is roughly a quarter natural gas so there's a fairly large amount which could potentially be shifted to another electrical source.
That leaves the question of how well all of those measures come together along with efficiency improvements and conservation (e.g. getting everyone in the EU to turn their thermostat down by 1°C would be roughly ⅓ of the total Russian imports according to https://www.iea.org/news/how-europe-can-cut-natural-gas-impo...). Given how seriously every government in NATO has been taking this, I would not be surprised to see things moving at faster paces than we're used to.
> Natural gas cannot be replaced by nuclear energy (or any other source of electricity) for many applications, at least not in the short term.
Yeah, turns out that the folks running things put on a hell of a campaign to keep nuclear from being researched, and keep fossil fuel profits rolling in.
This is the world we live in. It can take _months_ to switch if we organize ourselves properly, but good luck.
Electric heaters are cheap (it's just a glorified resistance). It's easy to switch home heating from gas to electric (with portable devices). Maybe not for every room but enough to survive a winter or two. Water heating is more complicated.
Resistance heaters are a very inefficient way to heat (yes, I know they are 100% efficient), and I wonder if the grid could handle a significant number of homes switching to electrical resistance heat?
Hopefully the government is already incentivizing switching to heat pumps, but that's not a quick solution.
The heaters them themselves are cheap, but running them is not. I've done the calculation for my situation last year in Germany, and using the gas heating came out much cheaper (at least with gas prices last year). I think that's because most portable electric room heaters are not as efficient as the built in gas-based heaters. Does anyone know more about this topic?
My understanding is that a significant amount of natural gas is being used for electricity generation. Generate that electricity from another source, and more gas will immediately become available for direct heating.
Of course we don't have the capacity to do that today, and that's the problem.
Besides heating, natural gas is a major component in many industrial processes. It's also used as input for a wide variety of petrochemical products. Can't make those from nuclear power.
People tend to overlook that nearly a quarter of all oil & gas goes into non-energy use. I can't think of a single modern product that doesn't use petroleum-based products in some way.
Glad to let moralistic foreign policy drive the entire trade block down the shitter (it is moralistic FP because EU did not nut up and actually deploy to protect the so-precious-Ukraine, but instead threw its own economy and living standards into chaos just so they wouldn't be mistaken to be pro-Putler).
"Let's not get nuked" isn't moralistic or insane, in my book.
A hot war between EU/NATO and Russia is not something anyone should advocate for, nor is letting Russia just take countries it wants on the edges of Europe. The current situation is a direct result of ignoring a long pattern of Russian aggression and expansionism in Georgia, Moldova, and Crimea.
I'm not recommending to have a nuclear war over who gets to collect vodka taxes in some East European town. I am pointing out that these people let moral foreign policy run their entire trade block and foreign policy choices, and not a cold rational calculus of any kind. All the self-sanctions have come to nothing: they have not and will not materially affect the end result of the war.
They've made me, as a citizen in an EU country, pay out of my nose for their moral betterness though, when we are not even a party to the war.
Those goalposts are moving quickly. "It's impossible" -> "It's too costly" -> "The wrong people are supposedly footing the cost (without considering the gigantic externalities)" -> "I just want Russia to win"
I never said it is impossible, it's 1. immoral (sanctions are only against civilians) 2. idiotic (destroy your economy for a symbolic gesture) 3. paid by the poorest
Yeah, so you build nuclear reactors and raise the standard of living in that case, which would be the exact opposite of what EU is doing (recommendations to reduce energy density and carrying capacity, ie. you own nothing and will be happy).
Who is to say Russia will stop at Ukraine? They clearly weren't satisfied with Crimea. Is Poland safe? Is Germany?
I don't mean to be alarmist but we've seen similar scenarios play out in Europe before. This isn't merely about what's morally correct, it's also about self-interest.
The sanctions do nothing to stop this. They're not acting like they're a marketing firm that gets shocked because of some red in the GDP, they're on a war footing. That will only react to, you guessed it, equal force (war).
I mean, are you suggesting we go to war with Russia directly? That's not going to help with the natural gas shortage.
I hope it doesn't come to that, but it could some day, I don't know, obviously if Russia attacks... well, in the meantime, I don't think we should be giving Russia more money it can use to further develop its military.
> I mean, are you suggesting we go to war with Russia directly? That's not going to help with the natural gas shortage.
I am stating that going to war with Russia is the only way to walk the walk and be provably morally good over the issue. The sanctions are just a particularly expensive form of virtue signaling that does not alter the outcome of the war, but makes EU leaders Feel Good.
> Don't think we should be giving Russia money it can use to pay its soldiers and build more weapons.
And I disagree, my extended family is already in troubles and the proper price increase doesn't even come until winter.
It's not a "don't think" question either. Would I like to be energy independent? Of course. Can I currently? No, not without risking energy security for winter. So I would pay (but EU has decided it is a Moral Bad, and tells me to warm myself with Moral Good).
Suffering ~10%+ inflation and having no guaranteed energy (all depends on Germany) for moral good boy points only helps nobody, and neither of the conditions alter the material facts on the frontline, nor does it make EU resilient either (economical turmoil has generally been a politically radicalizing agent in democracies).
Russia can't win a war against NATO, so they will not attack Poland or Germany. Maybe Moldova or something. This fear mongering is ridiciouslus.
They can't even win against Ukraine, for crying out loud. Poland, France, UK, Germany(, Turkey?) would together crush them in a couple of months. Add Finland and Sweden and it gets reduced to weeks. Add the US and it'll take a couple of days.
(Hyperbole, but still).
They are hopelessly outclassed in all categories but nukes. And UK/France has a couple of them, so Russia can't nuke willy nilly.
No, but as soon as you start asking questions like "is X country really worth it compared to nuclear war?" then the deterrent has failed.
A loss in Ukraine means every non-NATO state in the region either gets nuclear armed up, or gets annexed.
The expectation that the result of "letting it happen" would also be cheap gas is laughable: if someone's willing to trade away their morals and a country for something you sell them, then you already know it's underpriced.
There's a whole spectrum of actions between "do nothing" and "open hot war between nuclear powers". It's quite clear Western military aid, intelligence, and diplomatic support has been critical to Ukraine in the current conflict.
Komintern was very, very active in Europe. You think Putin will stop on Ukraine, is that all he wants? He'll maybe pause on Brest when poor Europeans will be looking at golf-playing superyacht-sailing Russian mobsters robbing the EU. That's the dream. A bunch of power-hungry corrupt and immoral people who now have enough weapons to actually start doing this. They don't give a fuck about your Europe.
> who gets to collect vodka taxes in some East European town.
Is that what you think Russian expansion in those regions is about? It's not. Just like the current military expansion, those conflicts have been about acquiring and controlling natural gas and oil reserves in those regions.
This entire conflict has been about energy and it's been going on for the past decade or so because of relatively recent discoveries of fossil fuel reserves in these areas coupled with control over pipelines transporting these resources.
At the end of the day these struggles are about resources and fundamentally existential in nature. If Russia fails to acquire more reserves it will be on a sure path to absolute decline. This is why the nuclear threat should be taken seriously, if Russia where to lose this conflict entirely, they would be on the path to complete collapse. If pushed too far it makes absolute sense for Russia to take extreme options since they would be backed into a pretty severe corner.
Those extreme measures would get all the leadership killed or hiding in bunkers forever (and I wouldn't bet on their lifespan in the bunker). There's plenty of graft still to be had in a weakened, declining Russia, on the other hand.
It is moralistic because moral hysteria ("goons raping children") is driving the fate of the entire trade block right now, your post was a perfect example.
Poor, lights out EU with 10-20% inflation will not in fact be a 'strong against Russia' or whatever (and this is without EU being in a war of any kind, lmao)
pray tell what is about the quotes? do you claim that the very well documented exactions by russian troops are fabricated by the west? Lavrov also did, but then he refused the setup of any independent inquiry therefore in my humnle opinion admitting responsibility for these crimes.
I think this argument is very short-term thinking. Letting Russia take Ukraine would have enormous security implications long term.
I mean the lack of sanctions, hasn't stopped Russia after taking Crimea, so it's only fair to assume Ukraine wouldn't be the end to Russia's (Putin's) expansion either. They implied so many times. Their enormous investments in the destabilization of foreign politics, have made it a very real possibility that the U.S. might drop out of NATO, if Trump gets reelected. Orban and Erdogan are also wild cards.
Such a development would put Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Poland at risk.
> Letting Russia take Ukraine would have enormous security implications long term
Yes, I am not disputing that.
I stated that the actions of EU (self-sanctions) have not, and will not affect whether or no Russia takes Ukraine though, this was the entire point of my post. It is part of what makes them so absurd.
An action that would affect would be to deploy there via strategic military action, but which our Moral Leaders are too scared (for right reasons, Russia has lots of nukes) to make. So they do this idiotic self-sanction regime to Feel Good (all paid by the tax payers and lower quality of life by people like me, who live in EU).
> I stated that the actions of EU (self-sanctions) have not, and will not affect whether or no Russia takes Ukraine though, this was the entire point of my post. It is part of what makes them so absurd.
What credentials, intel do you have to back this up? I've heard a lot of evidence to support the contrary. The sanctions are working, Russia is just telling us they're not and that's what the rooble is so highly valued right now.
I am not credentialed, I am a Bad Person (I have my own Thoughts); as for "intel", I have none either.
I find these given cause-and-effect chains in defense of the sanctions and other actions largely to be magical thinking and hysterical (they'd be less so if they were actually backed by the proof-of-work of deploying to protect Ukraine).
Like, I don't care about the Ruble in itself. I was told that it would be flattened in two weeks. Well it wasn't, so we failed there. Okay, so next goal post is to pretend Ruble going up and down has helped Ukraine's strategic or operational capabilities or hurt Russia's, materially altered the course of the war. Well that's magical thinking, they were supposed to run out of missiles in two weeks somewhere around March, and it was like day or two ago they made their largest missile strike (which have been more or less continuous).
A NATO deployment would alter the outcome of the war, and that single action is not coming.
Russia can't build its own most advanced weapon designs, tank production lines are stopped and they're down to using non g-tolerant consumer chips in missiles, greatly degrading their reliability (you might note how their random long range terror bombing of civilian targets is doing absolutely nothing to win them the war, while their supply depots are blowing up).
We should have given up eastern Ukraine, negotiate peace. Better surrender a part than destroying the whole country. We get hyperinflation, giving money to USA's weapons industry, general destabilization, and a lot of dead Ukranians. All because it's politically weak to negotiate with Russia. Only Macron tried and he was sadly ridiculed. Does nobody remember how Sarkozy helped with Georgia's peace negotiations?
There is no way to know how Russia will behave exactly, but we DO know that they stopped invading Georgia when some territory was ceded. The USA and Europe behave very differently when invading (Iraq, Afghanistan). It does not help to reduce the conflict into a bad guys/good guys story. People are dying and a whole country might get flattened to rubble.
There are so many people who want to see ordinary Germans suffer for decisions their government made. Do you think the pensioners who will freeze are the ones who decided on energy policy?
The party who was supposed to be against abolishing our nuclear plants, the conservative CDU and the liberal FDP, actually abolished them.
So, kinda? No matter who we elected at that time, nobody would have kept them.
It's kind of amazing that Germany can make the biggest effort of any western country to switch over to renewables and when they start suffering because America and Russia decided they want a proxy fight, Americans opine that Germany should be suffering because they decided to switch off a source of 4% of their power and didnt build enough port capacity for overpriced American LNG.
If this truly is the official American line then Id be pushing to have American military bases in Germany shut down.
Renewables were never an alternative to gas. They can supplement it but not completely replace it. They are simply not stable enough. Maybe except for hydroelectricity. Meanwhile they did everything they could to prevent any development of new nuclear projects.
They did vote for them. I'm all for people suffering consequences for their political choices. Be it freezing to death or dying as combatants in their own countries.
I have sympathy for people in states like Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea when they suffer do to their governments. Changing governments there is tricky
The German population are well informed, well educated, and have a free media, they have a wide selection of political parties to choose from every few years, changing political direction is trivial, nobody will arrest you for talking about it, nobody will shoot you for voting the wrong way
Overcoming addiction sucks. If your heroin dealer is arrested, maybe it’s a good time to consider stopping heroin. Withdrawal is going to be awful at first, but after a while, you’ve overcome it and you can move ahead with a better life.
To get some perspective why this is such a hotly debated topic - just got my heating bill for the last year - just a small 2 person flat in a small town - most flats in Germany are heated by gas one way or another - 700€/year with 5.2ct/kWh for 2021 - current market is more like 15ct/kWh and will probably rise. With the rise in rent prices in the last years this could push quite a bit of poor / lower middle class people into poverty/problems which is the majority of the population.
Furthermore gas is used in almost every chemical process in some way or another - it's difficult to just disable a single industry because the network effects are not really known.
So this will be a shitshow because industry/lobbyists groups and regulation will probably collide at the expense of the tax-payer.
Still me and all of my friends are still fine with this. There is no alternative anyway - Russia is a fascist totalitarian state that declared war against Europe and is using gas as a weapon. After reading https://osce.usmission.gov/response-to-moscow-mechanism-repo... as just as a single example I just hope we can cut off Russian gas/oil as fast as possible.
edit: Damn'it just took a quick look at the calculation of the whole house and took a wrong number it's not 1600€/year but 700€/year - still triple that and it's still a problem.
Have you seen any impact of the Euro's drop against the dollar in your day to day life? Say, things from American companies getting substantially more expensive, or salaries rising to keep pace with American counterparts?
At this point, EUR/USD parity is way less perceivable and concerning in our daily lives than the gas/energy that is coming full speed towards us (seen from France), which is driving a lot of first and second order prices (heating, transportation in general, food, construction).
With a lot of fuel and energy trades denominated in the dollar, and all fuel and energy trades in competition with one of the largest economies which happens to be dollar denominated, these are not separate issues.
The ‘stronger’ (relatively) the dollar, the more expensive energy will be in every other currency.
Yes, but the USD is not the driving factor. It's a coefficient, for sure.
I mean, yes, it's very concerning.
But what's even more concerning is the perspective of the consequences on the next few years. We'll perhaps get a difficult winter and social/political troubles because of that, yes.
But on the balance is: the current Russia powers overcoming this and succeeding to establish something completely different in Europe through war.
Plus the incertitude as to USA's support, provided that we now know they may as well elect something as disastrous as Trump in 2 years time.
Well, it isn’t THAT different. Ukraine was part of the USSR after all, and it wasn’t that long ago that most of Eastern Europe was too - because of war.
That Stalin wasn’t the most aggressive aggressor that started it THAT time being cold comfort for everyone under the Russian thumb.
Europe has a long history of wars of conquest, extermination, religious intolerance, etc.
I’m also from Germany so I feel I can answer.
1) No not yet anyways. The inflation is only really visible in gas/energy prices and groceries. I know that some EV car manufacturers had to increase prices but that has a different reason.
2) The german tech sector never tried to compete with US salaries. I for one have quite the income (base+bonus+other monetary benefits) but am way behind a Silicon Valley counterpart. And I mean with cost of living etc included.
My company is constantly adjusted the salaries. But we still base it on market conditions in Europe not world wide. And they don’t want to react to inflation so fast.
But that is only my experience. Major city in Germany btw.
Serious question here - I swear I'm not trolling and I've been asking myself this same question...'
Would you be fine with it if you were on the margin?
I have this same attitude about inflation in the US and rising interest rates. Good - we need to get the situation under control. But I'm not living on the margin. It affects me, but not really. I'll be fine. So I don't really have any skin in the game here. Not yet.
I am on the margin. So is my family. I'm getting by fine at the moment but I'm just a little above the poverty line but have no reserves. I have no choice anyway. I just hope that if I can't pay the bills there will be a moratorium to cut energy for a while. I'm trying to buildup a reserve for a few months exactly for that situation. It's also not clear when the price hikes will hit the consumers so I hope I have a few months to set aside money for this.
A large-scale theme in humanity that usually goes unnoticed is how much more the poor are willing accept privations and duties in the name of patriotism. They are also more charitable on a per-cent basis, and certainly on a marginal per-cent basis.
>the poor are willing accept privations and duties in the name of patriotism
Not everyone agrees on what patriotism means or what actions are patriotic or good for the nation. Tolerating a few abstract points off your GDP because people you don't like voted your country out of the EU easy enough so people put up with it. You are not going to get a nation to put up with serious hardship like what the energy situation is shaping up to do unless everyone is on the same page about what the end goal is.
In this case it's not just patriotism and noble ideas but sheer realism. The civilized world needs to do everything to weaken Russia to minimize the chances of them expanding the war. We got totally dependent on cheap Russian gas in spite of warnings and now is the price to pay. There is really no alternative. I mean yes, we can lift sanctions and let Russia build advanced rockets with our chips, but is this really the future we want to build?
I think this is a great and fair question. It’s all fun and games until our own life is impacted. I have a family and am thinking about this carefully as I live a good middle class life in Austria and we are similarly impacted wrt gas. At the moment my position is that I would be prepared to sacrifice a heck of a lot in order to not give in to a murderous regime. I would be prepared to drastically drop my standard of living for several years. My thinking is that in comparison to direct involvement in a hot war that would be peanuts. Now, ask me again next year once I’ve gone through a cold cold winter and whatever other luxuries I’m missing out on. I hope I can live up to my ideals. I have met refugees from Ukraine and they need us to step up so they can one day go home in peace.
This asserts that Russian aggression would transcend across NATO-borders. Is that a given?
1. Party Z invades Country U.
2. Continent C denounces the invasion of U and sanctions Z.
3. Z retaliates against C.
Does an act of retaliation (weaponizing Gas) from Z towards C count a declaration of war? Because if not, who exactly did Russia declare war on? Europe is many things, most prominently a continent and an idea. Was Germany declared war on? If not, is it reasonable to assume that Germany will be declared war on, and if so, which escalations from which involved party would lead to that?
(As always, I don't have strong opinions, just trying to make up my mind on what to expect/how to read the situation)
I see cutting off the EU's has supply as very similar to war, and they started doing that last November. So they will again, the moment the EU doesn't do exactly what Russia says.
Yes, that is exactly what is going on. And we can stop "shooting", but then Russia has no incentive to do the same. They would just conclude that they had won.
I think we agree. I'm just surprised by the number of people don't view the situation as EU and russia already in conflict. legal agreements, law, and norms are largely irrelevant when you are fighting a war with another country, and this line is crossed with respect to the EU and Russia.
I still see people saying Russia cant cut off gas, or demand payments in rubles because some contract doesn't allow it. Those contracts went out the window a long time ago.
I mean, that happened after they started an actual shooting war of naked aggression. It would be difficult to argue against the ECB spending every cent of russian money on pornographic gatcha microtransactions live while daring Putin to do something about it, at this point.
I don’t understand how any country could ask people on the margin to shoulder the worst effects of a burden that effects everyone, without offering support. During the early part of covid, we offered hazard pay for “front line workers”, and monthly support cheques for people who’s jobs were put on hold to keep people safe (restaurants, event venues, performers, etc). That didn’t last long, but it’s clearly the kind of mindset we need to tackle climate transitions - i.e. pay oil field workers to retrain for solar and wind, help support people who can’t afford to get off fracked methane gas heating yet. Etc.
This is a genuine question to ask for a lot of policy decisions that directly affect the person asked. I think it's fair to say "no I wouldn't be fine with it if I were on the margin", but still think it's a good idea. What is good for the individual, may be bad for society in the long term.
Which is a really callus and harsh position to take.
The current problem in Germany is/was their political class is slow-walking aid to Ukraine under the general idea that the war will end and "normal relations" with Russia will mean that the ridiculous dependence on foreign gas supplies can be continued.
The alternative question, the one which should be being handled right now though is what % of people need support, and how do you help without worsening the problem? How quickly can you install solar, batteries and air-sourced heat pumps? What financing scheme gets the best bang for buck while helping those least able to afford the market fluctuation?
The question isn't "would you be fine with it at the margin?" - because the only reason to ask it is to sidle up to "maybe we should appease the nazis/just kind of not think about the genocide" under the auspices of "well there was no other choice so it's not really an immoral one".
The much better question is one of political accountability: why was the country made so vulnerable to this situation? Why were the vulnerable in the country made the most susceptible to this situation? Why were the alternatives ignored? And why is bold action not being taken now to fix this?
Yes, because I'd know that if I was adversely affected, it was an explicit choice of the politicians running my country to force me to bear the cost, and I'd be angry at them, not anyone else.
As for inflation control, in mamy ways the whole point of that is to punish those at the margin, who might otherwise gain at the expense of those with large assets.
If you're about to say, what about the poor pensioners on a fixed income, see my first paragraph.
Nearly all gas turbine power stations can also run on oil. Oil is usually a backup method in case the gas supply is disrupted, but it is possible for them to run on oil continuously. The exact oil type required differs, but some can use Diesel/Petrol/Kerosene/ethanol/hydrogen or sometimes even unrefined crude oil.
With gas prices so high, many are already running on oil, and that's part of the reason Diesel/Petrol prices are so high, even though the price of crude oil hasn't gone up much for months.
On charts of power generation, they still show up in the 'gas' category, even if they're burning oil. As far as I know, apart from the tanker of fuel arriving every 10 minutes day and night there is no way to know what they're burning.
It is an emergency lasting at least 8-10 months starting now so as to not deplete the reserves. I don't think the turbines can last that long without regular heavy maintenance.
Also, I highly doubt some of these can run on crude oil. Before this claim the only type of device capable of such fuel ranges I knew of is the main battle tank. It makes more sense to me that a tank is designed for versatility, and a gas turbine for efficiency on a single precise fuel. What's exactly the catch here?
> Its multiple-fuel combustion system allows switching from one fuel to another while running under load.
Note that gas turbines are very flexible with fuels because it's a continuous combustion process and done at very high temperatures. That means you don't care about flamefronts, knocking, octane figures, etc. All that matters is that whatever you burn ends up hotter that when it started, which is kinda the definition of a fuel. Also, no expensive high precision parts of the engine touch the flame - all combustion is over by the time you get to the turbine blades (which are film cooled anyway, so even the combustion gases don't touch the blades)
Probably. The 1300C burn temperature ought to even make it quite clean.
I would guess the main limiting factor will be that these machines cost tens of millions of dollars, and even with a small probability of the wood gas damaging the machine, the owner will say no to any experimentation.
Having said that, the manufacturers do tend to like to add extra things to the spec sheets of their turbines, so might well support trials of such things.
It's obviously gonna be needing extra infrastructure for heated feed pipes (to keep the wood gas from condensing) and high temperature valves, filters, and flow meters. You might be needing gas composition sensors and a feedback system to deal with the fact wood gas can be pretty variable in its composition.
I would imagine you might also tap off some of the post-combustion hot gasses from before (or even after) the turbine to act as thermal input to your gasifier too. That wouldn't be strictly necessary, but should improve efficiency.
Why are you and your friends okay with this? The increase in energy prices due to EU sanctions are making the Russian state fabulously wealthy right now. Russia has alternative customers, y'all don't have alternative suppliers.
If the EU doesn't come to their senses and embrace realpolitik, they are looking at literal deindustrialization and a plunge into mass poverty and social unrest. BMWs aren't built nor homes heated with unicorn butterfly karma.
Not OP but i suspect they’re ok with it because the other option is giving in to an authoritarian regime that is intent on expansion. I.e. war on their doorstep.
The realpolitik is speeding up the transition off oil and gas, and energy independence.
Europe announced a REPower initiative to speed up investments in alternatives; the problem that they have is that no one wants to build more LNG infrastructure because that's a 20+yr commitment to gas that has some environmental impact and want to go full renewable but this is quite slow to do (and of course is hugely dependent on China which controls the processed critical mineral market). Also, German environmentalists especially do not want to build nuclear facilities, so the options for the government to respond with are limited.
> the sanctions are obviously backfiring on Europeans and not hurting the Russians by any objective measure
I’m not sure that’s an accurate summary of the situation.
> "If the goal is a quick and complete collapse of the Russian economy, then no, sanctions are not working because the Russian economy is still functioning. But if the goal is to weaken Russia economically over time, then sanctions are 100% working."
Except that it's not. The ruble is the best performing currency in 2022, inflation is not as bad as predicted, shelves in Russia are full and Russian state tax revenue is way up (they raised pensions and mimimum wage by 10%).
Sure, there is some pain - but there's this little thing called import substitution. The Chinese and Turks are happy to oblige (machines, vehicles). The sanctions are just making Russia more independent and resilient.
If anything, people have underestimated Russia in a big way. Well, those who weren't paying attention.
You can contradict the opinions of experts all you want, but i’m still going to believe “Russian political scientist Ilya Matveev” over hacker news commenter cpursley 11 times out of ten.
I agree it’s not working as well as we’d all hoped, but to say it’s strengthening russia is not in alignment with what all expert opinions i’ve heard so far are saying.
Ilya is a young "political scientist" (not a real science, btw), very open about his left and anti-Russia biases and certainly no economics expert. Please consider broadening your sources of expert opinion because "all experts" are absolutely not in agreement just like "the entire world" is not actually against Russia (unless you believe the EU and Anglo-sphere is "the entire world").
Weird ad-homenums: political science is not a science. He’s not an economist. He’s young. He has an anti-russian bias (he’s literally russian… perhaps you mean anti putin bias?)
The point you just ceded was exactly my point. Not all experts agree. You said originally that sanctions were “obviously not working”. If it was so obvious, wouldn’t the experts agree?
Either way, I’m not resting my entire world view on the word of one man in an npr article. So attacking him doesn’t matter to the point. I’m saying I’ve yet to hear anyone credible, i.e. outside of comments sections, say what you are saying. Instead of attacking the expert I’ve cited, maybe bring your own expert to the table?
Just make sure they’re old, are definitely an economist, they love putin, and have never studied polisci in their life.
We can do without energy from a rough state. We have 1-2 hard years ahead but I believe Europe will rebound stronger. It made no sense to have such close relationships with someone like Putin or be so dependent on fossil fuels. I take it as an opportunity for Europe and the whole world.
It time of war things can go faster than usual. With the right policy the transition speed will increase exponentially. Cheap oil and gas made the transition harder (politically). This crisis could be a blessing in diguisse.
As a Ukrainian, I sincerely thank you for writing this.
It is often disheartening to see how many people of HN don't realise what is happening (and, frankly, has been happening for 8 years) and then read cold opinions devoid of empathy. What is the compromise when the other side's goal is extermination?
And it's not just Ukraine - what about Sri Lanka which is collapsing by the minute? I do care about the people, but if I am completely honest, I could care less about the government. If the current government can fend off Russia, great, but maybe (I don't know for sure) it would be better for the people for some sort of diplomatic solution to be created (perhaps surrender a part of Ukraine but allow anyone interested to leave the new Russia peacefully), that might be better for people on the ground than an endless war. Surrender for now for the sake of stability, but regroup and don't allow such a thing to ever happen again and take some lessons learned from this.
I'm not inclined to see American-backed separatist movements as entirely "internal" either, but Ukraine is not as homogeneous as some would have you believe.
Not caring only really works, in this case, if you think Russia would stop if they conquer Ukraine. Personally I don’t think they will stop there, so sooner or later everyone in Europe will eventually need to worry.
Empathy is what distinguishes us from being just angry monkeys. But then, there are of course very selfish goals like long-term survival and freedom to live as you like outside of yet another authoritarian prison of nations. Which would be less likely for at least a significant part of Europe should most not care now.
We should all be worried when the war goal is Lebensraum. It was the leading motivation for world war 2, and there can never really be an end to the ambition of colonialism through war.
You don't have to exterminate the population (although Russia's been there, done that in Ukraine) to exterminate the country as a going concern, or the national identity.
They killed most of the population of Mariupol that wasn't able to flee, shell civilians continuously, have deported millions of Ukrainians to Russia so far where children are taken apart from their parents and the parents are taken to "filtration camps" where many are shot and the rest relocated to the Far East.
On top of the rhetoric that Ukrainians as a people shouldn't exist.
There is no doubt that it is genocide and termination.
Russian propaganda amply demonstrates their intent. The physical part is also well-established. For example Russian filtration camps have been use to "process" then relocate over a million Ukrainians. Including over 250,000 children who will be raised with propaganda about not being Ukrainian.
You may prefer mealymouthed substitutes for calling a spade a spade. But I condemn you for normalizing genocide by refusing to use its proper name.
My "very strained definition" is from the UN treaty on genocide. This has been the authoritative definition of genocide in international law for over 70 years. That you do not accept the definition says more about you than the definition.
The first condition is intent, specifically intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Russia has provided ample evidence. For example https://uacrisis.org/en/justification-of-genocide-russia-has... is a translation into English of an article from Russian media laying out what "denazification" actually would entail. The following passage is typical and demonstrates intent:
Denazification will inevitably also be a de-Ukrainization – a rejection of the large-scale artificial inflation of the ethnic component of self-identification of the population of the territories of historical Little Russia (Malorossiya) and New Russia (Novorossiya), begun by the Soviet authorities.
There are many similar statements from all corners of Russian controlled media. Intent is abundantly clear.
As for the second component, we need to establish a physical element. Many Russian war crimes qualify. But I specifically pointed to https://www.state.gov/russias-filtration-operations-forced-d... because the forced relocation of children for the purpose of erasing their ethnic identity is directly listed in the treaty.
Do you still refuse to acknowledge that Russia has met the definition of genocide established in international law by treaty? If so, then on what grounds do you argue that this ISN'T genocide?
That seems to be a veiled accusation. Maybe you have heard about Russian bots on TV or something.
Let me clarify my motives for you.
I am not happy with the approach the West has taken in towards this conflict. Most particularly the coup in 2014 and the urging of non settlement early. It has cost the lives of thousands of young Ukrainian men. And for very little purpose. The formerly Russian/ high Russian population areas are going back to Russia. Full stop. This was extremely obvious from the beginning. There was an equitable path forward early, even the return of formerly Russian territories did not have to happen. But the West has become blind and stupid as well as belligerent. Reality is going to smack them squarely in the face soon I think and no amount of propaganda will prevent it.
It did not have to go down like this. A lot of lives could have been saved and suffering prevented. I don't control what Russia does (and I agree, they are looking for geo strategic and economic gain, not to "defend poor Russian speakers"), but anyway, I expect a whole let better from nominal liberal democracies. If you are going to be callous and continue with the murder and deception that has been the defining characteristic the Western order, at least be smart about it. But we have been both callous and stupid. I'm not happy about it. I'll be even less happy if it heats up even more killing millions.
Also, I don't really like extreme bullshit propaganda. I try to see the truth and proclaim the truth best as I can understand it.
Your position is that the correct thing for a nominal liberal democracy to do is to encourage another nominal liberal democracy to give it's sovereign territory to a government that is, to put it charitably, ruled by executive decree? Because...they want it?
I'm not sure how much of an understanding you have about what is going on there.
The Russian speaking areas do not want to be part of Ukraine after the 2014 coup. The one that was full of Western intelligence and US politicians, including the wife of Iraq war proponent Robert Kagan who is currently serving under Biden.
Many of these areas were part of Russia up until the Soviet Union, most particularly Crimea which was part of Russia from the 1700s until 1954. The people there are Russian. And, there wasn't really an issue until the coup which outset a democratically elected president. After that Russia took Crimea back (with a vote by the locals for whatever that is worth). The other breakaway republics were indiscriminately shelled for over 8 years. Over 14,000 people were killed which is nearly 3 times the amount of civilian casualties Russia has inflicted to date.
Also, Russia has been invaded along this (open) route a few times over the past couple of hundred years. Hitler and Napoleon. Millions died. Putins older brother in fact died as an infant during the Nazi siege.
So when Ukraine starts talking about getting nukes, joining NATO, have literal Nazi brigades attacking the breakaway republics and amassing hundreds of thousands of troops in the East to attack the breakaway republics and "get Crimea back" the Russians will just sit there? No, they will not. Now, again, their other aim is to get exclusive control of the Black Sea and take the oil and agricultural rich areas of the east, as well as increase their population. And we handed them a figleaf like dummies. They have a lot of legal ground. Putin is actually a lawyer (a fact lots of people don't know).
Let the people chose their destiny. Like we did in Kosovo when we wanted to put an airbase there. But no, that doesn't apply in this case. So it has heated up to this. I hope it settles down but the longer it goes on the worse for Ukraine. We should be urging peaceful settlement, not adding fuel to the fire.
You absolutely DON'T understand what is going on there.
The President of Ukraine is one of those Russian speaking Ukrainians that you're talking about. Why don't you ask him whether he would prefer to be part of Ukraine or Russia?
According to polls, Russian speaking Ukrainians overwhelmingly want to be in an independent Ukraine. And the longer the fighting goes on, the stronger that support gets. Strip away Russian propaganda, and "Russian speaking Ukrainians want to be in Russia" turns out to be a fantasy.
It is likewise only in Russian propaganda that Ukraine was looking to get nukes, or was on a course to join NATO. The "breakaway republics" in fact were invaded by Russia in 2014. Yes, the "green men" weren't wearing their Russian military insignia, but nobody was actually fooled. And satellite photos confirmed that the artillery was being fired from Russian territory. See https://iphronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Joint-repo... if you doubt me.
I'm not happy with everything we did involving Euromaiden. But Russia had set a democratically elected leader on a course to take over and become a Russia-friendly dictator. Ukraine need look no farther than Belarus to see how that story turns out. Describing it as the overthrow of a democratic regime is at best a half-truth. Probably no more than a quarter truth.
When it comes to legal issues, Russia HAS no legal ground other than a military, a willingness to lie, and other people's unwillingness to confront them.
Let's talk about the whole Nazi thing. It is true that the Azov battalion started as white supremacists, and got absorbed into Ukraine's military. (Then toned down the whole white supremacist thing a lot.) However this problem exists on both sides, and there are likely more white supremacists fighting on the Russian side than the Ukrainian. If this comes as a surprise to you, start with https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-neo-nazis-fighting-ukraine/3... for some of the basics. Worse yet, Russia has actively solicited, and received, international support from white supremacist organizations. Supporters like Steve Bannon opened doors, and are part of how we have Russian propaganda being spewed over Fox News by people like Steve Hannity.
Despite Russian rhetoric about "denazification", it is Russia that has sought out and obtained support from neo-Nazis and those sympathetic to them.
And so we see that again and again, you are consistently misinformed. You've swallowed Russian propaganda on issue after issue. This is in addition to your unwillingness to call a spade a spade and recognize Russian genocide as what it is.
Ok, so the breakaway Republics secretly wish to join the West but Dennis Pushilin is holding them hostage. Ridiculous.
I would advise against compounded the many many bad moves that have been made so far but it's free world.
What I stated is historical and geopolitical fact. Without (near as I can tell) much bias. It's not propaganda, it's the truth. Yes, Russia has traditionally been an expansionist power. Yes, they are looking for advantage.
But a whole lot of ethnic hatred and stupidity and Western involvement has made this even easier for them.
It is so ridiculous that you can read https://www.jhuapl.edu/Content/documents/ARIS_LittleGreenMen... for an unclassified report from the US government about Russia's disinformation campaign and the Russian special forces with no insignia who showed up and got the nickname "little green men".
Apparently the conclusions of multiple organizations, ranging from widely respected NGOs to national governments, seem ridiculous to you. That does not mean that they are ridiculous. It merely means that you've accepted a dose of Russian disinformation. Which they've been very competent at packaging.
But no, you just keep repeating propaganda lines and claiming that sourced statements are ridiculous. While offering no sources for your claims, and ignoring a variety of sources that you have been provided.
Lies do not become fact merely by being repeated enough. And Russian lies about spontaneous uprisings and Ukrainian atrocities do not become fact simply because you can't accept that those uprisings were conducted by Russian soldiers, and the shelling of Ukrainian civilians in 2014 began with Russian artillery operating on Russian territory. Confirmed by ballistics, satellite photos, and testimony from the people who were shelled.
Sources that you currently believe which say otherwise should be viewed with suspicion. Because they are lying to you.
There are no breakaway republics? The majority of people in Crimea did not wish to rejoin Russia? All people on what is (formerly now) Ukraine territory were happy with the post coup Ukrainian government? Is that what you are saying?
If not, what exactly of my point do you take issue with? The claims on Russia geo strategical intent? The history of invasions into Russia through Ukraine in fairly recent times? That Crimea is not historically Russian?
These are all facts my friend. Not propaganda.
I wish you would take a more rational and less emotional view of the situation but I can't say I'd do differently in your circumstance. I am concerned where the irrationality leads however. It has so far caused nothing but trouble for Ukraine. And the trouble is spreading.
There are Russian backed terrorists that are temporarily occupying Ukrainian territory, these terrorists shot down a civilian airliner and killed hundreds.
> The majority of people in Crimea did not wish to rejoin Russia?
Theres no been no real referendums so we will never, but the partisan posters that keep appearing in Crimea would suggest that no the majority dont want to join Russia.
> All people on what is (formerly now) Ukraine territory were happy with the post coup Ukrainian government? Is that what you are saying?
All the people on occupied Ukrainian territory may not be happy with the government they may also not be happy be conscripted by the FSB backed terrorist occupiers either to fight against their brothers. But it doesn't matter because not everyone needs to support a government for it to be legitimate.
> These are all facts my friend. Not propaganda.
None of these are facts.
> I wish you would take a more rational and less emotional view of the situation but I can't say I'd do differently in your circumstance. I am concerned where the irrationality leads however. It has so far caused nothing but trouble for Ukraine. And the trouble is spreading.
The most rational view of this situation is to send the heaviest weapons possible to Ukraine, because the only rational way this ends is with a lot of dead Russian soldiers, and that needs to happen as soon as possible.
The denial of reality has not been working very well so far for you. Neither has the craziness and hostility. At what point do you realize this? When you have no coastline and another 100K dead? Or will it take millions in big urban centers and widespread starvation?
The denial of reality? The reality is that Russia failed miserably at there noted first goal (regime change in Ukraine) suffered such a resounding loss that they withdrew there army from a axis of the war because they where being decimated.
Keep in mind Kyiv is only 50km from the border with Russia, and Russia failed to take it. This was has less been about a denial of reality and really been about seeing just how much a paper tiger the Russian armed forces are, turns out they are worse then pretty much anyone expected.
If Russia is doing so well why are there own propagandist and military complaining about how well Ukraine is striking there C&C and ammo depots?.
Why has Russia made so little gains in the past two weeks?.
Russia has already failed the only question is how badly there loses get before they leave.
That’s the question, how many dead Russian soldiers, how many more ships from the Black Sea fleet have to sink, how many more helicopters and planes have to crash and how many more tanks need to cook off?.
> Or will it take millions in big urban centers and widespread starvation?
The intentional starvation of urban centres certainly sounds like genocide to me, and you really have to ask yourself what kind of capable military acts like this?. Russian threatens because it’s there only option, if they could they would of taken Ukraine already.
Claims that I'm denying reality by someone who clearly is denying reality lacks any sting.
Examples.
- Offering well-sourced factual claims is not craziness.
- I'm not Ukrainian. I assure you that the California coast is not under any current threat.
- The military facts on the ground say that Russia cannot successfully take much more territory than it already has, and is extremely unlikely to be able to sustain what it has already taken.
- You are continuing to ignore the very real issues that I raised about genocide, etc.
Here is a fact for you to consider. Russia lost the Cold War in part because they didn't have the economy to be a counterweight to the USA. And economic trends have not gone in their favor. By GDP, Russia last year was only slightly more important than Florida. Thanks to sanctions, they are rapidly reducing in geopolitical importance. Not fast enough, I grant. But they aren't in a sustainable position.
You haven't raised any real issues about genocide, which is farcical claim on it's face. Also, I'd think this obvious, I wasn't talking to you when referring to the Ukrainian poster.
Also I would not be so sure the coast of California is safe if this keeps going.
"By GDP". Ya ya ya. Debt based scripts being passed around from VCs and overpriced healthcare are actually the same as resources in hand. That scheme totally isn't going to blow up and there are perpetual motion machines.
One correction. The partisan posters suggest that there are people who are strongly against the Russian occupation. But actual polling says that there probably was strong majority support within Crimea for rejoining Russia. After 8 years of Russian propaganda, I would bet that the actual support is now higher. People become (at least temporarily) loyal to their abusers. It is not unlike Stockholm syndrome, and is often seen after, for instance, domestic violence.
You are not even be attempting to discuss this in good faith. You attribute ridiculous statements to me, such as that the breakaway republics do not exist, and there was universal support in Ukraine for Euromaiden, just so you have something to argue against. You throw complex topics such as the Crimea referendum out there. (For the record, the 97% support that Russia claimed is clearly false, but a majority support is probably true. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum for more.) And then you disingenuously ask that if I don't disagree with these, which do I disagree with?
Meanwhile you continue to avoid calling Russian genocide by its proper name. You continue to claim that Russia had legal justification. You continue to deny the truth of Russian actions, and continue to blame Ukraine's situation on the West rather than on the country doing the invading.
The truth is that it is a tragedy that Ukrainians are faced with the choice of fighting for their sovereignty or submitting to a genocidal Russian oppression. The record of Russian rule being terrible is supported by extensive history, current events, and ongoing Russian policy. By contrast the specter of Germany launching another invasion through Ukraine is rather ridiculous given the current culture of the German people and government. And Russia wore that excuse rather thin after using it to justify decades of tyranny over the Eastern Bloc during the cold war.
I wish you would portray my position honestly, engage with the truth of Russian crimes, and start accepting facts. I also wish you wouldn't support a genocidal dictatorship.
The fact that you refuse to engage with, for example, an official report from the US state department DOCUMENTING genocide, does not make calling Russias crimes genocide hyperbole.
That said, I agree that further conversation is useless. At this point it should be obvious to anyone reading the thread that I try to source my facts, and report on what is true whether or not I like said facts. It should also be clear that you fail to engage with either facts or sources which do not agree with your world view. And your world view has been heavily shaped by Russian disinformation campaigns.
My final word is that I condemn you for believing and then wanting to appease a genocidal dictator. While refusing to engage with documented evidence of the many crimes that he is lying about.
Feel free to respond however you like. I'm done with this conversation.
> But from what I see they might be in even worse trouble then I had thought. We might be as well
Whilst it’s obviously not all rainbows and sunshine for the Ukrainians you really refuse to admit that it only took 4 HIMARS to slam Russian logistics. 30 ammo depots and command and control points have been vaporised in a couple of weeks, and Russia has no counter.
> There is no genocide (yet anyway and hopefully ever). Please stop using hyperbole. It does your point no favors.
You can try and redefine the word genocide all you want, but that does not change the fact that the Russians are committing genocide in Ukraine per them UN definition of the word.
> I am not happy with the approach the West has taken in towards this conflict. Most particularly the coup in 2014 and the urging of non settlement early. It has cost the lives of thousands of young Ukrainian men. And for very little purpose. The formerly Russian/ high Russian population areas are going back to Russia. Full stop. This was extremely obvious from the beginning. There was an equitable path forward early, even the return of formerly Russian territories did not have to happen. But the West has become blind and stupid as well as belligerent. Reality is going to smack them squarely in the face soon I think and no amount of propaganda will prevent it.
All of Ukraine, will go back to Ukraine, this includes Crimea. The Russians will leave or die, the Ukrainians have only just started getting HIMARS and M270s and they are already slaughtering Russian ammo depots and command and control centres.
When the NASAMS turn up the Russian missiles and planes will start falling out of the sky at a much higher rate. Then the net that these two systems provide will expand out as the Ukrainians push back.
Russias army doctrine is setup in such a way that practically everything is centralised, its why they occupied the same airfield over 20 times, even though the Ukrainians kept attacking it. This centralised doctrine is highly suspect ile to weapons like HIMARs and M270s as they target the bases and depots that the Russians are working from.
The Russians pretty much killed a lot of the population of the occupied territories, which hadn't fled in time. A lot of the rest has been abducted to Russia, possibly Siberia.
They're actually quite explicit in what the goal is, at least in propaganda towards the internal audience[0]. If one does equate a Ukrainian to a "nazi" that must be exterminated, burns this into the minds for years, builds a chauvinistic version of history to frame it into then the rest comes out naturally — don't even need an order.
The behaviour of the Russian army towards the non-combatants so far has been aligned to what you could expect of this concept — mass murder, rape as a weapon, "filtration" camps, forced deportations, burnt ground tactics. These are not singular cases, it's the pattern everywhere the Russian army is or has been active.
It's not even the first attempt in the history — the last one was less than a century ago.
That's unadulterated bullshit and I think both of us know it.
"mass rape, mass murder etc".
Look, I don't think the Russians are innocent in this at all. Obviously they have economic incentive and don't mind killing some folks to get what they are after. They don't want to kill everyone though or they would act very differently.
It's not genocide. Very simple. Even by a stretch of the word to include removing Nazi elements from the armed services.
Yep. The Russians are posting the same kind of thing for their populations to consume. I fully believe neither.
Here is what I do know. As of last week less then 5,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed so far in the campaign. Contrast that with the US did during Iraq, or even in Raqqa. Was that genocide? No, it was just we didn't care. Which is pretty disturbing especially now as we try to proclaim moral high ground and talk about atrocities.
This is not genocide either and false flags and exaggerations abound on all sides.
Edit: responding to the comment below because I'm obviously on a time out at this point:
`As delivered by Ambassador Michael Carpenter`
This is a guy, with a strategic national interest, who addressed the org you are talking about with some claims. Not an series of independently verified facts.
Have bad things happened? Yes. It's a war. Have Russian soldiers done some bad things? Almost certainly. Is there widespread or systemic murder of civilians and rape by Russian troops? No, that is not happening. And it makes sense as it would be counterproductive to Russia's aims.
> Have bad things happened? Yes. It's a war. Have Russian soldiers done some bad things? Almost certainly. Is there widespread or systemic murder of civilians and rape by Russian troops?.
They literally ask for permission to rape the Ukrainians from their partners.
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Russians are easily doing at least the last (forced transfer of children) and are arguably doing the first, and second based on the terrible conditions they leave the cities they level in leaving the Ukrainians to die in the street.
> No, that is not happening. And it makes sense as it would be counterproductive to Russia's aims.
The rape and deportation of locals to Russia is par for the course for the USSR's and Russia's conflicts. They did the exact same thing in Chechnya. If you want to learn more about the terrible crimes that Russia has committed in Ukraine and past wars (like Chechnya) look up what a 'filtration camp' is.
This isn't counterproductive to Russia's aims, it _is_ one of Russias aims.
> In short. Unadulterated bullshit.
In short, it's the Russian army doing Russian army things, at this point it seems they are incapable of conducting wars without committing a tonne of war crimes.
I think it might be difficult to understand if you're not living in this context yourself.
In this context the Russian soldiers are telling you that you're a "Nazi" because you're speaking Ukrainian, served in the army (no matter how long ago), or have a Ukrainian flag in your home, a tattoo or a haircut they don't like, or just camouflage-styled clothes and therefore don't deserve to live. A shot in the head usually comes after, sometimes worse than that.
This is a story of _each_ village in my area near Kyiv that came under the occupation for just a month. Probably would have been one for my family too if we hadn't fled to safety in time as we'd be considered, in your words, "Nazi elements" too.
Do I really need to link the photos of mass graves, bodies hastily burned to conceal the evidence and accounts of the survivors? Even this is a small fraction as we're not seeing what's happening in the currently occupied areas (there are only some accounts).
How different does it need to be? Does the pointless flattening of Mariupol fall under your definition? Or do we need to wait and see what happens if Russia wins this and there's no real visibility at all?
It is genocide, very simple; heck, Putin is pretty up front about the intent to destroy the Ukrainian people as a people, because he views the existence of that identity distinct from Russia as anathema.
And even without Putin’s statements the piles of evidence from the acts on the ground admit no other explanation.
> And even without Putin’s statements the piles of evidence from the acts on the ground admit no other explanation.
Bucha, Irpin, Kharkiv, Mariupol etc... It's all there, anyone denying this is either utterly blind or a Russian apologist, these are all war crimes. And Putin's (convoluted) rhetoric has arrived at a single point: that Ukraine are not their own people or culture.
The latest Russian missile attack was on a civilian shopping center FFS! This isn't war conventional between militaries, this is terrorism on civilians when Ukraine attacks on Russian munition depots in Ukrainian territory or some other military target is successful.
Russia has bombed Lviv and Kyiv as well when similar successful military strikes took place with civilian casualties.
The truth is that this is really looking less like a proxy war and more like a hyper-localized World War, if Iran is really supplying UAVs to Russia and China and India is buying their energy to bypass sanctions than the BRICS alliance looks like the geo-political strata is shaking out; one cannot help but feel that if this isn't fought qnd won then Taiwan will be the CCPs next move as it is starting to crack under it's own myopic weight as the Zero COVID policy is taking it's toll and making internal civil war inevitable as the bank freezes/bail-ins are happening there.
I’m not sure why these distinctions are relevant. In my mind, if an army is indiscriminately bombing and shelling my city, it sure feels like a genocidal act.
I suggest that instead of using your throwaway account to post objectively untrue bullshit, you instead not post at all. HN does not benefit when you pull stupid stunts like this. Be a better person.
not sure if my bills are too low or yours are too high.
i live in a large flat in London with my partner. fully electric, no gas, but the building was awarded for being ultra efficient.
i used to pay £60/month for the electricity in summer and £100/month in winter. now it’s £80 during summer. winter heating involves shorts and tshirt. usual amenities: large oled, dishwasher every day, washing machine every other day etc etc
> There is no alternative anyway - Russia is a fascist totalitarian state that declared war against Europe and is using gas a weapon.
sure, but inflation reached historical highs before the war even started:
luckily for the today’s politicians, Russia invaded Ukraine, so now they can point to Putin instead of analysing what they did wrong (spoiler: we actually know what they did wrong).
I've found a lot of bills are driven by how well insulated apartments are. Some leak heat left and right.
Another factor is how many open surface areas they have and the size of windows. I had an apartment that I rarely heated in the winter because it was wrapped on 5 of 6 sides by other apartments and the only exposed surface was a wall. Other apartments had multiple outside-facing walls/roofs.
Remember that Russia started delivering less gas than contracted last autumn. That was the moment from which energy prices started to spike.
In hindsight it was an obvious preparation for the war, making sure that Europe had lower gas reserves so that installing sanctions on Russia would hurt more.
Something really doesn't add up here. If your bill is so high, why haven't you done anything to mitigate it? Can you add insulation?
What's the temperature kept at in the heating months? How much would lowering it lower the costs? Is there a possibility of putting solar collectors on the rooftop and heating with hot water? Even in winter they can get water up to 35-40 Celsius, which is considerably higher than comfort temperature.
There is an obvious alternative: The West must stop doubling down every 2 months and seek a diplomatic solution.
The U.S is relatively fine. Europe is being screwed over by the virtue-signaling policies. Europe canceled cheap long term Gazprom contracts and is now buying expensive gas (including from Russia!) on the spot market. Europe buys expensive liquid gas form the U.S.
Meanwhile, China is laughing and buys cheap Russian commodities using RMB instead of Dollars or Euros. India resells Russian oil.
The policies are a disaster, and Europe suffers from not standing up to Nuland, Lindsay Graham et al.
Luhansk/Donetsk are lost. Europe needs to deal with that and ensure that it stops there (don't give me that nonsense about Peter the Great or other propaganda).
Living in the UK, US policy on Ukraine barely registers. It's surprised me how strong most people's feelings are that we need to do everything we can to cut out Russia. This isn't an economic question any more, it's emotional. War in Europe is suddenly a reality, and it doesn't feel very far away, even in London.
The UK may have left the EU, but we still have millions of Eastern Europeans living here.
Whether this sentiment stays when winter comes and energy prices really start to bite is another question - but right now our attitude towards Russia is driven by our own emotions - nothing to do with American virtue signalling.
You can't understand anything Russia does until you understand that it has a bully's mindset. Anything you negotiate with them just emboldens them to do more to you later. When confronted, they escalate but there is a lot less muscle behind that than it seems.
Therefore any negotiation of the kind that you describe will embolden them to reach for more as soon as they think they can. Appeasing Russia will no more prevent further aggression than giving Czechoslovakia to Hitler avoided WW 2.
Also you completely misunderstand the war situation. The current phase has been a war of attrition with a slow retreat. The Ukrainian counteroffensive will come in August or September, once Russia's ability to wage war has been exhausted. From projects that I've seen, it is an even bet whether there will be a COMPLETE Russian collapse before the end of the year. (Yes, they won't even get to keep Crimea.)
Isn't understandingwar.org run by the same people who drove the Ukraine into this mess? Who were proponents of multiple wars that the U.S. has lost (Afghanistan being the most recent one)?
How would we know what appeasing Russia will do when it has never been tried? Not all wars are like WWII. What if this is the same as the Finnish winter war, where Stalin was eventually content with Karelia and some other small parts?
The people who drove Ukraine into this mess are Putin and his cronies. I'm quite sure that they aren't running understandingwar.org.
That said, the organization does have a pro-US military bias, but works to create neutral and factual reporting. If you don't like their bias, you can double check with a variety of other sources with different biases. For example https://www.aljazeera.com/where/ukraine/ does not take a pro-US position.
Also, appeasing Russia HAS been tried. We let them take part of Georgia. We let them take part of Ukraine 8 years ago. We let them have a free hand in Syria. And through that all, we continued to treat them as a normal country. Germany in particular proceeded on a "business as usual" policy. We even raised only minimal objections when they were caught trying to manipulate elections in a variety of countries including the USA. (Without Russian assistance Trump would have never been President.)
The result has been the current full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Offering full support to Ukraine is a reversal of our previous policies.
Heat pumps are not an alternative in the next few years because there are not enough available on the market. I know someone who wanted to buy one for his house in Germany and the waiting list is more than 1-2 years right now.
Couldn't German industry produce more of them? Heat pumps seems like a technology which isn't import dependent in the way that natural gas is, especially if the government were there to help with funding.
It takes a while to spin up production. It also takes a while to find and train a sufficient number of people to can install them. It also takes a while to increase the supply of electricity so that we have enough power for tens of millions of heat pumps running all winter.
> It also takes a while to increase the supply of electricity so that we have enough power for tens of millions of heat pumps running all winter.
The same therm of natural gas that would have been burned in a domestic gas boiler, if burned in a modern combined cycle gas electricity plant, can provide 2-3X the amount of domestic heat via heat pumps even in the coldest conditions. In shoulder seasons it's more like 3-4X.
The load we need to expand electricity production for is EVs, which use a ton of it comparatively.
Of course heat pumps are great, but right now the gas is burned in millions of homes. We still need to build the capacity to burn about a third of that gas in combined cycle plants, we don't have them lying around idle.
Governments have to wait for manufacturing capacity to spin up just like the rest of us do. There's no magic wand that gives you a heat pump for every European household who'd need one in any reasonably short period of time.
Even something comparitively simple like toilet paper took months at the start of the pandemic.
> Governments have to wait for manufacturing capacity to spin up just like the rest of us do.
Yes, but government can provide a demand signal far more clearly and immediately than the market can. That's what the Defense Production Act is for in the US.
The lack of federal tax incentives for air source heat pumps is also an an issue.
Frustratingly there is a 30% credit for ground source heat pumps, which are far less scalable because they require an expensive trench or well.
Presumably this means that every available heat pump and heat pump installer is booked for the next two years, in which case they are an alternative and will make a difference.
I share the sentiment regarding Russia's fascist regime but it seems much more realistic that the EU will just silently walk back on the embargoes. After all, if the populace gets too uneasy with higher energy bills the politicians won't have any issues dealing business with Russia.
And with the support for energy embargoes already falling to 32% in Germany[0] in mid July this seems like the most likely outcome.
Question is will Russia then attempt to hurt Europe by blocking gas deliveries like it is doing now with Nord Stream 1.
Currently NS1 is blocked under the excuse of repairs. Now that could be true, but it could also be a showcase from Russia of what it can inflict. So yeah, option 2 it is.
The repairs are standard, planned in advance and happen every year. No gas is actually blocked. The articles stressing about the pipeline are all based on pure speculation about whether it won't come back, but there's no actual evidence that will happen. It's just what-if scenarios.
There are no sanctions against Russian gas and the contractual agreed money is paid as specified in the contracts. The involved Russian banks have been excluded from the sanctions to facilitate that. On the other side, Russia has started to starve Europe of Gas about a year ago, also showing how long planned this war is. The boiling of a frog metaphor applies here and has been executed perfectly by Russia. As shown by how many people don't realize what had happened.
I remember Trump saying that "Germany is a captive of Russia" [1] because of the prospect of weaponized gas supply cuts.
I also hate to say, but, at that particular moment, the man was right.
This is why political extremism is bad. Nobody in Europe listened to him. Had him be more respectful, polite and balanced in his communication, maybe he could have convinced Germany to anticipate what they're scrambling to do now...
Not? There is no doubt, that even Hitler every now and then did something right. But of course that doesn't excuse him from being the Monster he was and all the crimes he was responsible for.
By saying "not wanting to invoke Godwin's Law", and by the above comment, you are saying that Trump = Hitler.
It is sad to see a /r/redditmoment on Hacker News.
I'll reword rmbyrro's comment in another way. Trump was right, and the German envoys laughing at him on camera (including Heiko Maas, the foreign minister), was wrong, on the biggest German blunder in 80 years. Just in July alone we've had
a German minister stating that becoming dependent on Russian gas was a "grievous mistake", and that his country is begging (yes, begging) for turbines from Canada "with a heavy heart"
* His government stating that entire industries might "collapse"
* Rationing of gas announced
* Local municipalities planning warm buildings that those without heat in their homes can visit during the winter
Again, this is the greatest German catastrophe in 80 years. It is an existential threat to the German (and, thus, European) economy and nation. It is also 100% self-inflicted. You know this.
Instead of acknowledging that Trump was right on this issue, people like you can only resort to some variant of "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" | "Trump = Hitler and even Hitler every now and then did something right" | etc., etc.
Look, I don't approve Trump, but comparing Hitler to him might be a disrespect to victims of Hitler. From my perspective, it's lessening what Hitler has done.
700€/year for heating in a rather modern flat (modernized 15 years ago) add to that 1200€/year for electricity - rent is without heating around 5000€/year here but not a lot of families can stomach a tripling of heating costs and likely growing electricity costs. Consider the price of gas stays at 15ct/kWh that an additional 1500€/year - for most people in Germany a full month of earnings.
And my situation is rather in the best-case bucket. Lot's of people live in badly insulated houses or flats that have much higher energy costs. I guess it won't matter that that much for upper middle class families - maybe they postpone their expensive vacation or don't buy another SUV but everyone that is poor or just survives without any chance to buildup reserves this could get nasty.
yes, small town, no rent raises in 15 years and owned by the municipal housing association. I guess it would double if on the market again and it would still be reasonable.
In terms of fighting Russia we probably get more bang for the buck by sending more rockets rather than cutting the gas. At the moment Russia shows no sign of running out of cash but is having issues with all their ammo stores exploding.
The whole Ukraine/Russia conflict underscores how poor the strategic position of Europe and the US is with respect to Europe.
We’ve been phoning it in since the Clinton era and assuming that “norms” and oligarchs would keep Russia at bay. End of the day they got tanks, nukes and are learning what they can get away with.
No, most europe and the us told germany it relies too much on a single source of energy. Schroeder, Merkel, both were in bed with russia’s oil and gas tsars. Nord Stream’s ceo is a former stasi officer, ursula is corrupt and many many alternative pipelines have been pushed back in favour of we know who. Please dont mix everyone else in. As you can see some german commenters even admit to germany wanting to push for eu wide de nuclearisation. Some even go as far as saying germany shouldnt get involved in east europe - despite it making copious amounts of profits from the region, with many policies actually preventing development there in favour of germany. The eu needs reform so that it works nicely for all members. It can be done but germany needs to take a welcome step back and to stop sanctioning allies each time they have dissenting opinions. Germany’s economy was subsidised by dirty energy and the policies of the eu it controls have done it favour too much and too long.
Who in Europe isn't heavily affected by the gas shortage? How is this Germany's fault? To me it seems like a lot of the smaller/weaker countries in Europe just always need a scapegoat to blame when things get difficult.
Switching off their own nuclear power plants, replacing them with gas and coal, when gas is lacking and creating shortage of electricity, thus propelling prices up.
Thing is that energy is traded in EEX (https://www.eex.com/en/) so everyone who is trading there is feeling Germany's stupid decisions. For example Sweden is not in EEX and has no problem with high energy prices.
Every year Germany has been a net electricity exporter. If other countries buy German electricity, it means they can't produce it cheaper. You know who is paying by far the highest spot prices in Europe causing prices to go up? France.
Exporter with massive asterisk. They are exporting electricity during summer, when it is cheap and nobody needs it and importing it during winter when it is expensive.
Sure but Norway is the only EU state that has a decent amount of gas or oil, and at least Turkey is on the NATO side. Politically it's messy, but at least militarily it's fine.
We can trace the dependency on gas to Germany's ill advised policy to go all in on coal & gas after shutting down nuclear.
Other countries now have an enormous economy entering the market, driving up prices and effectively controlled by Russia, as Russia supplies most of the gas. Russia and most eastern european countries have a poor relationship.
Now money is expensive and there's no time to build alternatives. And Russia knows this.
"So I think that when both the Russians and the other players want to find a lobbyist, they very naturally look at Germany first. In this respect, I am not surprised that Schroeder and Fischer were the two [chosen]," he said.
The issue is that if Germany is building pipelines and importing cheap Russian gas any other country would be at disavantage if it were to build a more expensive alternative. It would not be competitive. It is like some small country would tell the U.S that it's not wise to offshore electronics manufacturing to China. The small country would not be competive if it were to manufacture at home or in the U.S. Tomorrow China starts a war with the US and you could say that the small country is just using the U.S as a scapegoat because it didn't build an alternative in the U.S.
Correct. This was known in advance that Russia will inevitably use natural gas for political reasons, but Germans weren't listening to "russophobic" Eastern Europe, instead they were actively trying to undermine Nuclear Power together with nuclear hypocrites from Austria (anti-Nuclear fanatics, suing everyone in EU who happens to have NPP, but has no problem to buy energy from Czech Republic NPP Temelin)
It's important to remember that Russian influence operations across the globe have been generating anti-nuclear sentiment. It was part of their plan to hook Germany on Russian natural gas. They literally bribed German politicians to agree to shut down nuclear plants and double down on Russian gas imports, while also preaching the miracles of renewable energy that were never even designed to provide baseline power.
The same is true in the US, Japan, Canada, France, New Zealand, UK... all of these countries have been nerfing their nuclear plant programs due to pressure from "green party" lobbyists that are veiled Russian interests.
Ah yes about trump. I distinctly remember people rightfully laughing at him for his “clean coal” statements. Guess what country in europe relies heavily on “clean coal”?
“Germany represented 46 % of the total brown coal consumption of the EU in 2021, followed by Poland (19 %), Czechia (11 %), Bulgaria (10 %),Romania (6 %) and Greece (5 %).”
Unfortunately Brunsbüttel terminal only finally got the go ahead in January 2022 and it will take 3.5 years to build. It's anyway a good alternative source. https://www.gem.wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_LNG_Terminal
Increasing insulation and installing and building more heat pumps are obvious ways to save on gas. Italy used some big EU subsidies to pay 100% of people's home and house renovations. Would something like that be possible in Germany? 50% subsidy for insulation renovation. Run all the styrofoam, rock wool and glass wool factories nonstop in three shifts. Found new heat pump factories. Train employees.
A lot of manufacturing for these materials aren't in Europe though. New factories and associated logistics chains, finding and training workers, these things are difficult to set up in a few months, never mind the actual process of renovating millions of homes.
It certainly shouldn’t be ignored, simply because it might take some time. Targeting public housing and (responsibly) incentivising landlords to improve less efficient homes would go a long way.
You don't have to imagine, it is commonplace around the world. Lots of tax revenue from countries all around the world is distributed to different areas of the country/world (obvious e.g. foreign aid). If the amount of tax isn't excessive, allows everyone to have a good standard of living, and is resulting in something positive, why not?
As a US citizen, there is no way I would stand for getting taxed to pay 100% of a home improvement bill in Canada. In hindsight, brexit is starting to look pretty damn smart
That's not the situation though. It's more like federal tax revenue from residents of California being distributed to other less well-off states. Or re-distribution payments from Alberta and Quebec to Nova Scotia and Manitoba.
Guess who has and is building up more (two very large new terminals) infractructure for unloading LNG from the sea and moving it to continental Europe (also EU funds weren't actually used).
I'd feel the same way if my neighbor texted me and informed me that he was making a withdrawal from my bank account to go to a nice dinner, when I was staying in for the night to save money. Being subject to taxation by foreign bureaucrats who then decide where to bestow lavish gifts sounds like nightmare fuel
Increasing the energy efficiency is not exactly a lavish gift. Maybe some materialls that went into the project were even manufactured/provided by "you".
Somehow you see your neighbour a "foreigner" that eats your dinner and steals your money! You are not a nice guy.
Without cooperation you can't acomplish much as an individal human being nor as an individual country(bigger or smaller).
Maybe your neighbour is already helping you with cheaper food or whatever he is producing since his energy bill is now lower.
You’re not “helping a neighbor” - this analogy is flawed. It’d be more correct to say “a third party with incentives that are entirely unrelated to the matter showed up at my home, placed a gun to my head and demanded I transfer a third of my checking account to him. He then took this money and used it to curry favor from another party by distributing it to his friends to do some repairs and improvements on the home of yet another person in the hopes that said person would support the same thing happening to the next guy.”
What makes him a 3rd party instead of your neighbour? If he lives near your home, you trade to with him, visit him, exchange goods and fix regional issues and even try to global issues, isn't it a good neighbour? Helping him may prove wise. I doubt there was any gun involved. I suspect a more sensible approach that involved cooperation and negotiation. Italy is the third-largest net contributor to the budget of the European Union so I don't see what made you think the deal is so one-sided.
What makes him a 3rd party instead of your neighbour? If he lives near your home, you trade to with him, visit him, exchange goods and fix regional issues and even try to global issues, isn't it a good neighbour? Helping him may prove wise. I doubt there was any gun involved. I suspect a more sensible approach that involved cooperation and negotiation. Italy is the third-largest net contributor to the budget of the European Union so I don't see what made you think the deal is so one-sided. Now it has more access to gas so it may share some. This is precisly why it's good to have close relationships with your neighbours.
Apparently heat pumps are sold out and all the workers who are able to install them are booked up for the year. It's a bit late for drastic improvement there.
The old cynic in me wonders what it would take, for Germany to care about building major new infrastructure fast. Asteroid Dino-Doom 2.0 headed straight for Dortmund, and the needed interceptor rockets stacked like logs outside the barely-started launch facility?
When covid hit, governments across Germany realized wait, we need videoconferencing for students!. For the prime ministers and their ministers of education, this meant they could either shine in comparison to the others, or the opposition would rip them apart in the next election.
Suddenly: money everywhere, zero red tape, worry about compliance later, get it done now.
So, if the political will is there, things are possible, and I can easily imagine our country going a lot harder than that if the danger was imminent enough.
So the conclusion is that they don’t yet believe the danger is imminent?
As a Dutch person whose country is equally dependent on gas (but happens to be sitting on gas as well, which can’t be used for political reasons), I’m flabbergasted by the optimism of the politicians.
Yes, it may be fine, but why bet on it? Why isn’t there more central EU coordination in case there actually will be a gas shortage, and we need to divide the gas? Who gets what and who should deliver to whom?
>Why isn’t there more central EU coordination in case there actually will be a gas shortage, and we need to divide the gas?
Look no further than back to early Covid again, remember the disparities and chaos wrt borders? When people finally realized the potential gravity of the situation, politicians went full "each man to himself". Saying "we distribute gas elsewhere while you are freezing" isn't part of any regular elected politicians playbook, don't you think?
To your first question, I haven't met anyone who openly doubts he'll be fine personally. The situation is tense, but not meteor heading towards dortmund tense.
Sounds credible. OTOH...lack of Student Videoconferencing showed up instantly in millions of homes, and I suspect that political opposition to Student Videoconferencing was pretty light.
Vs. with natural gas, there aren't so many people shivering in the dark now that all the carbon-neutral, Green, anti-global-warming, NIMBY, etc., etc. opposition can just be ignored.
There are solutions, just unpopular and require a political class that is not fickle and weak.
Solution #1. Capitulate to Putin and treat Russia as a regional power that can gobble and punish its neighbors when they stray too far.
Solution #2. Forget about the climate for the next 5 years, turn on all coal, nuclear powerplants.
Solution #3. Put the Euro printer in overdrive and pay whatever price needed for the little natural gas that's out there and the expense of transportation.
#3 is probably the worst, but also - the easiest for a fickle and weak political class to do. So, that's what's happening.
Won't be surprised if we get hyperinflation in the EU in the winter. The ECB barely functions in good times with its one monetary policy, but different budgets nonsense.
I am with ya there. But the Germans populace have been thoroughly brain-washed that nuclear is bad. So, better just to tell them : "its bad, but needed because we are in a war."
Also before anyone talks about fuel: Australia is right here. We have a bonkers amount of Uranium in the ground, to the point that our coal is actually pretty dang radioactive.
I am a fan of nuclear energy, but German nuclear powerplants have been underinvested for years because of the pending Atomausstieg (nuclear exit). It didn't make economic sense to maintain facilities that were on their way out anyway.
So they are likely not in shape to be turned on again.
Worst case if you short out all the safeties and just run it anyways is a meltdown, but Germany's reactors have containment structures. So a meltdown just means that the decommissioning process for your reactor has become a LOT more expensive, but it's not going to cause another Chernobyl.
Similarly, if they were willing to say "fuckit, this may end up being extremely expensive in 10 years but we need it now or we freeze to death", they could start building (potentially) unsafe reactors in unapproved locations with inadequate documentation of their material supply chains and have that ready by February. Yes, there are long lead times for things like approved reactor pressure vessels. But if you're willing to go back to Hanford, Washington [0] safety standards that all goes out the window, and the math on deaths almost certainly still works out.
According to the EU nuclear power is green. So solution #2 would save the climate, based on that logic. Actually inflation was already there before the war, so it is mostly because of #3.
Especially for "longer living" species like humans.
I don't understand why its supper common for people not understand that climate and environmental friendly often overlap but are not always the same and sometimes in direct conflict.
For climate protection nuclear power is currently probably the best choice we have (globally).
But for environmental protection and protection of human health it isn't.
Anyway coal is worse for both and tbh. the German green party should have focused on getting out of coal not nuclear power.
Even incuding Chernobyl, Fukushima, and other nuclear disasters, pollution from coal has taken far more life-years from humans than nuclear energy. Our record with nuclear is not perfect. The technology is not forgiving of mistakes. But we learn from every failure and adapt. It's like passenger air transport in that way.
In 5-6 years, Europe should be able to free themselves of Russian energy and build a military capable of standing up to Russia. (Ukraine is almost managing the latter on their own.)
This assumes that, if allowed to win in Ukraine, Russia would return to normal gas and oil deliveries. I’m not sure there is a way back to regular trade now, Russia has essentially, if not literally, declared war on much more than just Ukraine.
But we depend on them for everything else. I am deeply embedded in the drug supply chain - we would run out of live-savings drugs in 3-6 months of China closed shop.
(and drugs are not fundamentally different from any low-margin manufacturing critical item)
And Russia had poisoned a West-friendly candidate even before and generally meddled with Ukrainian elections. Let's not make this look like it was started by Ukraine...
Very much true. In this leaked audio-fragment Biden is quite literally threatening Poroshenko (a very corrupt individual himself and previous Ukraine president) because he doesn’t want Trump looking into situation in Ukraine during Trumps presidency.
Here is a propaganda tip for ya - simple, dumb ideas work great in Facebook and Twitter. Hacker News is a little different.
Just say that Russia is no different than China or the USA. It is reasonable for them to have their own monroe doctrine over former USSR nation-states.
Terrorizing in what sense? I'm pretty fluent in the region, and read Ukrainian and Russian news, but I've never seen any evidence beyond the laws promoting Ukrainian language. That's pretty far from terror imo
How are you in charge of not giving or giving some East European watering holes to Russia? Can you establish the set of facts here.
I can tell that a real NATO deployment to D & L would dramatically change the strategic goal setting of Russia, materially alter the outcome, but not sanctions if that's what you are suggesting as deciding the fate of these places.
I'm on the fence about an all electric future- we simply don't have the grid capacity in most parts of the world - but the Germans and French who control the EU should have been developing SMNR years ago. They are now in an energy checkmate situation with a hostile country with an economy the size of Italy. Not clever,
This is why I think the more likely future is for each house to have their own electricity generator (solar panels?) and batteries to store the energy.
In Europe, much fewer people live in houses, and thanks to the dense, walkable cities they enjoy, they have much fewer roof and yard space to put the panels. Also, unlike US, most of Europe doesn’t have huge swaths of hot and sunny plains that are currently not used for anything valuable. Look at the satellite view of Germany, France or Poland: it’s all farms, with occasional forests.
I do live in Europe and lived in various European countries, that being said the apartment buildings could also have a similar solution (their own solar panel/wind turbine/geothermal) OR simply do that in a more localized way (each city has their own solar/wind farms). Combine this with more regulations regarding energy saving/consumption (promote more efficient electric devices).
In the end I see it as having multiple independent energy-generating clusters (each building, or each city, or each country) and sharing excess energy outside the cluster only when needed.
> the apartment buildings could also have a similar solution (their own solar panel/wind turbine/geothermal)
They can’t, though. Apartment buildings are too efficient at packing people together to have enough per capita roof square metrage for panels. Practical wind turbines are huge. A typical wind turbine blade is longer than the height of a 10 story building. Geothermal is also rather impractical as a source of energy, due to low thermal conductivity of the rock.
> In the end I see it as having multiple independent energy-generating clusters (each building, or each city, or each country) and sharing excess energy outside the cluster only when needed.
You are describing here exactly the current status quo. That how energy works right now.
You need a lot of PV per person if you want to satisfy all their primary energy needs. On the order of 150sqm. Apartment buildings don't have enough roof space to be self-sufficient.
> They are now in an energy checkmate situation with a hostile country with an economy the size of Italy.
I think looking at national threats by their GDP is kind of weird. Afghanistan led to the downfall of the USSR but had basically nothing going for it economically. The US also blew decades of effort and money. ISIS plowed through its region with sheer mongol-like savagery and managed to wreak havoc in major western countries sometimes as well. America went basically all out trying to stop Vietnam, then one of the poorest countries on earth, and got nowhere.
Gas is currently cheap and that makes Russia’s economy look small. If prices, say, quintuple globally and Russia keeps pumping out the same quantity, that’s a huge jump despite few internal changes and they’d have the world by the balls. Meanwhile, the Swiss could decide to all retire tomorrow permanently and drop their relatively huge GDP (half of Russia’s) to 1% of what it is now and the world would probably shrug and move on.
Russia is depended on globally for food, fuel, and loads of random resources. They’re just temporarily considered cheap while some things (eg banking) are currently considered high value. That could change very quickly.
>America went basically all out trying to stop Vietnam, then one of the poorest countries on earth, and got nowhere.
This is ahistorical. The US in no way, shape, or form when "all out" trying to stop North Vietnam. It was a poor country, but it was heavily armed and resupplied by the USSR and China, including leveraging some of the newest fighter jets, SAMs, etc. the USSR had to offer.
They burned the entirety of the country to the ground. Vietnam's neighbors were absolutely destroyed by the US. Laos is the most bombed country in world history due to the US trying to stop Vietnam.
What would be considered "all out" if not dropping the most bombs in human history, and double the amount of WW2? There is no higher level.
>They burned the entirety of the country to the ground.
Categorically false. There were huge swaths of Vietnam that were off limits to bombing.
>Laos is the most bombed country in world history due to the US trying to stop Vietnam.
Yes, with a fraction of the warplanes, airmen, etc. due to advances in technology like strategic bombers and cluster weapons. The overall air efforts are incomparable to what transpired in WWII.
>What would be considered "all out" if not dropping the most bombs in human history, and double the amount of WW2?
If only there was a term to encapsulate such a concept...
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are far smaller than what happened to Vietnam.
I live not far from there. Seen the range of the damage first hand. The extent of the damage in SE asia is far larger and people are still de-mining the area.
And civilian deaths were colossal in Vietnam. Rapes and massacres (that includes by Americans, yes) certainly weren’t just directed at combatants. Just because American deaths were low doesn’t mean the US didn’t go all out on obliterating the country unlike anything they’ve done before.
Btw, the fire bombings in Japan were far more disastrous than the nuclear weapons. I suggest you Google them. The nuclear weapons were more of a major spectacle. Vietnams bombings exceed even the Japanese fire bombings, both of which destroyed their entire countries. The napalm and agent orange attacks most certainly weren’t fine tuned either and had massive effects on Vietnamese civilians—lasting even to today. Burning and poisoning the earth will do that.
If we wait for our grid capacity to improve before we transition, we'll be waiting for decades to come.
We need to quickly transition now to force the government to fund improved transmission and supply. Our governments aren't great at building things for future needs, but when your citizens are in danger of going without electricity, you bet your ass these politicians will do what needs to be done.
As an example, look at the mRNA vaccine development.
I don't think it's fair to blame France, they have long been pushing for nuclear as evidenced by their energy sources being hugely reliant on domestic nuclear rather than foreign energy. It's really been the German greens hellbent on holding back nuclear across the EU.
Not sure what's odd about my either statement, below are some links as evidence as it seems like you think there's something controversial about what I said.
> I don't think it's fair to blame France, they have long been pushing for nuclear as evidenced by their energy sources […]
… and right now you can see how "successful" they are with their nuclear power plants: so "successful" that they have to import energy because a lot of their nuclear power plants are currently offline, due to unexpected problems related to safety. Even better, the current hot weather also causes serious problems and reduces power output.
But "Russia has been treated so unfairy" and "European Union is the biggest foe of the United States" not Russia or China...So let's listen to what that clown(Trump) says next, right? Germany's dependency on Russia's energy has been well known for decades.
He's not though. He was probably given some version of that statement as part of a briefing, but more importantly his businesses and campaign finance were incredibly entangled with Russian money and oligarchs at pretty much every level[1,2], not to mention his bizarre interactions with Putin.
This was his version of simply yelling the same insult back at people he didn't like: and he really didn't like Merkel (or any European leader) because unlike the despots and dictators they wouldn't just suck up to him (notably Shinzo Abe figured him out immediately and went all in on the obvious play for favor[3])
My explanation is that it doesn’t actually take a lot of deep thought to understand this dynamic. The guy who runs your local hardware store could’ve figured this one out, given the information.
The problem is that the over “educated” and credentialed class of political elites weren’t ever taught elementary common sense in their textbooks, and have never operated within institutions that have held them accountable for it.
Ergo the outsized elite hatred for Trump among the managerial elite caste, who shone a spotlight on the astonishing triviality of their ineptitude.
>Both countries drew the ire of the others, and for a time, it seemed as if the European Union's internal market would break apart under pressure from the crisis due to the egoism of the member states.
>A repeat this time around is to be avoided at all costs.
Because this time solidarity is in Germany's interests, duh.
>Germany Blocks Joint Gas Purchases
>But resistance is coming from large natural gas utilities in Germany, like RWE, and from industrial customers as well. They want to buy their own gas and fear that they won't be allocated sufficient supplies by the EU.
Seems like the German definition of solidarity is that they get gas from others.
1) Not self sufficient, they have to import food from the US
2) Burning nearly a million more cubic feet of coal per capita than the US does (and they have way more people, so that means they're really burning far far more coal)
Honestly I'm not sure how you thought that made any sense.
EDIT: (out of comment quota)
>China also installs more renewables than anyone else
I'm sure that's great for the companies producing those, I'm not convinced that will lead to them burning less coal (although their coming demographic collapse almost certainly will.) Germany was in a pretty similar situation too and the current situation is the consequence.
In all honesty, China and the US are unique nations in that they don't have to import anything from anyone. It's politically and financially convenient for them to import the things they import, so they do. But they are both perfectly capable of meeting their own needs with domestic production if the issue is pressed. Even where they don't currently manufacture a thing, they're both able to ramp up manufacturing of that thing in a timeframe unthinkable for other nations.
Oh yea, China who emitted 2x as much CO2 in 2017 as they did in 2005, vs the US who has been flat since 1990[1]. China who is operating 1100 coal plants vs the US who is operating 240[2]. Sure, China's growing their economy, and they have ~4x as many people as the US, but they are not some bastion of clean green energy or anything.
I’m guessing Russia will fully cut off gas to EU when it seems that either the EU is about to ban gas imports or turning the taps off will likely break the EU.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Europe is currently off. Its a planned maintenance however. But what if they run into "issues" and the maintenance takes a few weeks? A month? Pure speculation of course, but these things do happen. I doubt they would keep it off forever, Putin likes Europe being dependent on him.
Russia is making more money on their oil and gas exports now than last year [0], due to higher prices. Imagine what could happen when winter comes and Russia shuts off the gas deliveries until EU pulls back sanctions. Would all countries stand united even though some are very dependent on that gas to heat their homes? Will people still care enough about a war that's almost a year old by then?
The EU and the US need to have been building new nuclear power plants yesterday. Not everywhere in the world is ideal for nuclear due to the potential for significant natural disaster, but much of Western Europe and the United States are perfectly safe with the latest nuclear reactor designs.This was known before the current energy crisis and there has been complete inaction for decades.
Coupled with solar, wind and existing hydro, it is our best path forward for sustainable future in the mid term. It is not just about being "green" or saving the planet from global warming. It is about energy independence.
People get quiet when they realize that the energy investors won't pay for it so you end up with Uncle Sam footing the bill. Any analyst just looks at the financial disaster that is Vogtie and it becomes impossible to justify investment. Unless the government bankrolls you.
In the US, we need to get comfortable with the government owning large swathes of energy production capacity. Until we are, and are willing to pay the taxes and authorize the disbursements to make these things happen, nuclear will not happen in the big way we need it to.
It's not the environmentalism that gets us. In fact even if there were no environmental rules or any other regulations at all, we'd still have Vogtie in the mess it's in.
Construction costs money and time. Metallurgy costs money and time. And on and on and on.
I doubt we could build a reactor for less than USD5 Billion even with no regulations at all. This stuff takes time, and if you don't get it right, the damn things don't work. It's not like they work with less efficiency, they just don't work at all if any one of a thousand critical things is done incorrectly. Then that has to be fixed, and you try again. And so on.
And keep in mind, that's for designs we are familiar with and understand. Just imagine trying to build and scale out the new designs. When it comes to the new designs, what is it that we don't know that we don't know? How much time and money will those mistakes cost?
It's about a lot more than environmentalism.
Put in layman's terms: "This stuff is just hard."
Getting rid of regulations helps some. Getting rid of the need to actually make any kind of money by making the government shoulder the costs helps even more. But in the end, you're still left with constructing a nuclear plant. Which is an extremely hard problem that is enormously expensive to solve.
So put yourself in the place of an energy investor, what's s/he going to do? Raise USD5 Billion to spend on the hopes that we can actually construct one of these correctly and under budget in under 10 years? Or just keep slapping up wind farms and start pulling in his/her generation fee in less than a month?
I would advocate the government to protect nuclear plant construction from frivolous litigations, environmental rereviews, and local political challenges, as well as reopen the storage facility in Nevada.
The construction isn't the big cost - it's all the nonsense that we do to interfere with those trying to build the plants.
And I'm saying that "those trying to build the plants" has to be the government itself. Because despite your belief, the construction is absolutely the dominant cost.
You need to contract for specialized materials to make components. Forge those materials incorrectly and it's PHYSICS that stops the project from working, not the government. Not lawsuits. Do you have an idea of how much it costs to enrich nuclear materials? Do you have an idea what the specs are for materials that can contain enriched nuclear materials? Materials that can contain a meltdown? What it takes to construct structures incorporating said materials?
I'll tell you right now that it will cost more than lawsuits about the hornbutted swallow losing its habitat or whatever. That's just reality.
If we just went based on the political message in the past then Germany could just use that massive amount of solar and wind they have been subsidizing for the last few decades, and for heating they could simply use that green hydrogen. Both of those were supposed to be both cheaper than any other for of energy.
More realistically, this is a time where most countries in EU should be scrambling to throw money at new energy projects and energy modernization. That should help with both the energy crisis long term, and focusing money on internal infrastructure seems to have good track records for reducing inflation. Reducing imports dependency from Russia, especially in a different currency, should strengthen the euro.
The political message was always wishful thinking - even with Germany’s massive spend, there was never a realistic way to replace baseline heating needs in the winter without spending at least 10x more.
Most off grid systems have some sort of generator for the long stretches of cloudy days, and in a cold climate, pretty much everyone uses fossil fuels for heating off grid due to the energy density, reliability, and low cost.
Anything else starts being really cost prohibitive if you do the math on ‘I get X amount of heat during these long tail scenarios or the pipes burst/I freeze’.
The whole world is supposed to be off fossil fuels by now, and here we are hoping and praying Germany and the rest of the EU gets enough fossil fuels to burn this winter.
If humanity was to look at itself in the mirror, it would see an image stupid freaking hypocrite clown.
Solar, Nuclear, Wind, get after it, it's so late now it almost feels like a waste of time...
Part of the reason Germany is still stuck on fossil fuels was the ultimatums of the environmentalists that killed their nuclear power. IMO if they really care about the environment they need to chill out so people can work out how to transition. Hard rules like this will first result in desperation which causes people to make sub-optimal choices like you're seeing now and eventually economic collapse which will absolutely destroy the environment (think of all the messes the USSR made when it fell apart.) Whatever regime replaces the one that causes this probably will care a lot less about the environment too.
I've read from a few different places now that people who are part of Nordstream were powerful in German politics and had an incentive to push Gas over nuclear.
I'm blaming blindly siding with environmentalists (especially corporate funded ones) without reasoning through the consequences. If you want to call those hippies than yeah I'm blaming the hippies, this is a direct consequence of their actions no matter what you call them. The exact same thing is going to keep happening if they don't change their behavior.
And all this crap from the madness of a few people plus broken systems.
I used to think the great filter thesis stems from the natural hostility of the universe, but I'm now convinced it stems from the danger of monkey brain.
Germany wanted to have and eat it cake too. It worked to an extent during Merkel. They made European South pay the hefty price while humming on their exports using Cheap Russian gas/oil and supplying manufacturing components to china and finished goods to rest of Europe and America.
Russia is not some bit player in Oil and Natural gas industry, 5 million barrels per day ? That is a huge amount of hydrocarbons to replace. Of course, Europe will scramble to find alternatives and before they go cold, will fuck the Global South again from its limited supplies, it already started happening - Pakistan got its NG supplier broke contract and sold gas under contract to Europe.
Europe is going to get screwed but in an effort save its ass it will create a frenzy in global south that would tip many countries into absolute choas.
When ideology meets reality. Expensive, overbuilt capacity for Wind and Solar in countries with not much sun or wind for most of the year. Now with the declining Euro will make purchasing energy even more expensive. Fertilizer shortage and declining working age population. And threats to the free flow of goods across the world. Inflation is here to stay. It will be interesting to see how many governments fall in the next few years the way Sri Lanka's did.
Frankly, I think it's embarrassing that such a large part of Europe is still so dependent on natural gas. It's being portrayed as a problem now due to economics, but global warming and making yourself dependent on authoritarian regimes has been an issue for much longer than that. The switch should have happened much sooner, but I guess the money was always more important and Russian gas was cheap enough to forget about the external costs.
And it's not only about finding other energy sources, it's also about using the energy in a smarter way. Better insulated houses and heat pumps work well here in northern Europe, why hasn't this been a priority the last ten years at least?
I'm paying much more for my electricity now even though we hardly use any natural gas in this country, because we're exporting electricity to countries that do, driving up our prices. Their shortsightedness is costing me money and adding more CO2 to our atmosphere. If it was only because of the war in Ukraine I wouldn't mind as much, but come winter and millions of people in other countries are going to burn expensive Russian gas to heat poorly insulated houses leaking heat like a sieve.
Because they are morons and shut down their nuclear plants and bet everything on Russian gas and renewables that aren't even designed to provide baseload.
Might be true for Germany, but other countries are also dependent on natural gas. In 2018 natural gas accounted for 45% of Italy's electricity production [0], in 2021 28% of Hungary's electricity came from gas [1]. And that's just electricity, 63% [2] of Europeans energy consumption is used for heating, I would guess a large part of that is gas as well.
This is bigger than Germany closing some nuclear plants, although that obviously isn't helping. Despite knowing that natural gas is a fossil fuel that we need to stop using the cost of using it hasn't been high enough to dissuade using it. This sudden increase in cost and the crisis it has and will cause really shows that economy is the only thing that matters, people will continue burning whatever they can get as long as it's cheap, since the external cost of global warming isn't properly included in the price. Neither was security risks, and we're all paying for that now.
If Germany kept its nuclear plants it would still be almost as dependent on Russian gas as it is today. Homes aren't heated with nuclear power, they're heated with gas. Industrial processes don't run on nuclear power either, they run on gas. Germany doesn't produce a lot of its electricity with gas turbines.
> Homes aren't heated with nuclear power, they're heated with gas. Industrial processes don't run on nuclear power either, they run on gas.
I'm glad that there are still people who understand this. In the Netherlands 90% of the homes[1] still run on natural gas and that's not something we can "simply" replace. It is possible and will eventually happen but it will take years if not decades.
And that's just homes in the Netherlands. Take a look at the global energy mix[2] how much the world still depends on gas.
The switch should have started years or decades ago. If 90% finds it economically beneficial to keep using fossil fuels for heat the economic incentives are faulty and needs to be updated to move to other alternatives. Heat pumps, bio fuel, waste heat from industry, there are probably plenty of other sources. And of course, energy management, with well insulated houses.
European LNG spot market prices went up by much more than an order of magnitude between Summer 2020 and Spring 2022. They also went up for other regions while Russia has no problems selling gas outside of Europe, even with steep mark-ups. It pains me to write this, but Russia is coming out on top because of Europe cutting itself off from her gas.
422 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 342 ms ] threadRenewables are going to ramp, floating LNG import terminals are already en route (to add capacity to the existing 24 in EU countries), and industrial processes requiring LNG will make due with less or seek alternatives. Europe will place a small number of coal plants on temporary standby, and they will only add 1.3% to EU emissions annually, even in the worst-case scenario where they run at maximum output.
There will be some pain, but this is the 21st century, not the 19th.
All the stuff you describe are need at least 2 years. At least. Plus, they are expensive. Energy will come with a huge premium in Europe. This is the time that Putin needs to build the pipelines to other countries.
Let us not forget that NOBODY is against the war: not a single South American, not any African country, not China, not India. This is a US/Canada/Europe/South Korea/Japan/Australia thing. Nobody else cares. They are happy to get cheap energy soon.
Short term impact on Europe: - cold winter - populism - crashing economy - gov financial support and more inflation - no inflation control as we cannot let Southern Europe crash, hence, no interest rate hikes
Mid-term effects - Expensive American dirty LNG - No competetive advantage anymore
I disagree with the West to 100% and hope that Putin will finish off Ukraine asap so this topic is finally closed.
Disclaimer: I have Ukranian roots, visited Ukraine often, support refugees here in Germany from day 1 and was for many weeks at the border when the war started. So please go away with your "morals" and value bs.
Also, I take issue with "Expensive dirty LNG." While a greenhouse gas, fossil gas burns clean. It is a fine short term solution until this conflict reaches resolution, as long as you can shim in import infra at underutilized infrastructure intersections. The LNG shipping capacity is not a challenge (although import logistics are, as mentioned), and the cost premium is the cost of energy demand during a conflict.
> I disagree with the West to 100% and hope that Putin will finish off Ukraine asap so this topic is finally closed.
Speaking only based on factual information, this is unlikely. Putin is in poor health (shaking in public, puffy appearance likely due to heavy steroid use, putting off events without explanation), and the US will remain solvent longer than Russia can continue its military actions while under crippling economic sanctions. To allow Putin to succeed would set a geopolitical precedent that the developed world can't allow to be set. The American-supplied HIMARS are proving very effective in recent combat ops (per The Economist) against Russian assets, which is a positive sign that Ukraine continues to receive military support. In short, Putin will fail eventually because he cannot be allowed to succeed, we're simply haggling over the timeline.
Disclaimer: US citizen, not a warmonger, pragmatic about the application of military force as a necessary evil.
This must be the I'm not racist, I have black friends equivalent of supporting a fascist regime and calling for it to finish off a country with 44 million people. Given Russia's past and current scorched-earth policy this would be a genocide, if it's not already is.
Even if Russia finishes off Ukraine it would not go back to business as usual, they would still hold the rest of the world hostage with nuclear weapons, and a few years later they would just invade another country. They must be stopped, and stopped now.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-07/the-us-is...
The US is not particularly dependent on Europe. Total trade with Europe, both import and export, is just 3% of the US GDP.
Go look at some photos of Europe immediately post WWII. Especially Poland and Germany.
If we survived that and rose again from literal ashes, we won't be done in by one winter without Russian gas. This continent withstood a lot worse than a limited period of expensive heating.
those who support the vAlUeS should stop consuming ALL products from China and energy from Russia
those who dont care should get those products to normal prices
This is fair. Then we will see how many people actually support all this political bullshit.
Do you mean "pre-war prices"? They aren't going to come back anytime soon because the entire political and economic balance in Europe has changed and the prices already factor in the uncertainty.
But, most importantly, we also had lots of young people. The aging of Europe will be the final nail in the coffin. Who will rebuild Europe? Not the roughly 30 percent over the age of 60 (who, coincidently, ran Europe into the ground for the last 30 years+).
And post-WWII Europe was forcibly split into competing power blocks, which strangulated a lot of the pre-WWII commerce. Contemporary EU is a common market where goods and workforce can freely flow. This compensates for the lack of young people somewhat.
For example, Germany post-WWII was seriously handicapped by the fact that they lost a large portion of their male population in war, either killed/maimed, or taken prisoner by the USSR which only let them return after 1950.
How about turn on those Nuclear plants?
Citation? The number that I consistently see cited is 1/4 of all electricity in EU comes from Natural Gas [0].
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2...
ElectricityMaps has some live data for electricity generation: https://app.electricitymaps.com
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51258
> Starting in 2016, consumption of natural gas in Europe’s electric power sector increased as a result of the systematic retirement of coal-fired power plants across Europe and the retirement of nuclear power plants in Germany in particular.
https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/european-electri...
> Fossil gas power declined 8% since 2019, generating 18% of EU electricity (524 TWh).
I think the underlying discrepancy might be explained by electricitymaps.com reporting real-time usage. It would be very easy to believe that today's usage is not representative of an entire year when you're looking at a brief interval in summer when solar is running at maximum efficiency, heating needs are non-existent, and everyone on the continent has been reacting to the possibility that there might be a gas shortage at any time.
There’s nothing in principle stopping us from building peaker nuclear reactors, but nobody except the military ever does so. As a result, nuclear largely cannot substitute for gas without massive storage systems that don’t exist.
At this point those are probably more cost effective solutions. Trying to restart a reactor that youve been going through the shutdown process for about 5 years is probably going to cost more.
It's super weird how many people think this restarting the nuke plants is a solution. It'll cost a lot and wont make much overall difference.
(of course, neither will anything else really... there are zero short term solutions to Germany's russian gas dependence other than kowtowing).
> (of course, neither will anything else really... there are zero short term solutions to Germany's russian gas dependence other than kowtowing).
Kowtowing isn't a solution to Germany's Russian gas dependence, it's accepting it as inevitable. It may be the only solution to Germany's gas shortages.
Russia supplies about 40-45% of the EU's total natural gas, so there's a big question about how quickly imports can be scaled up. The energy mix in the EU electrical grid is roughly a quarter natural gas so there's a fairly large amount which could potentially be shifted to another electrical source.
That leaves the question of how well all of those measures come together along with efficiency improvements and conservation (e.g. getting everyone in the EU to turn their thermostat down by 1°C would be roughly ⅓ of the total Russian imports according to https://www.iea.org/news/how-europe-can-cut-natural-gas-impo...). Given how seriously every government in NATO has been taking this, I would not be surprised to see things moving at faster paces than we're used to.
Yeah, turns out that the folks running things put on a hell of a campaign to keep nuclear from being researched, and keep fossil fuel profits rolling in.
This is the world we live in. It can take _months_ to switch if we organize ourselves properly, but good luck.
Hopefully the government is already incentivizing switching to heat pumps, but that's not a quick solution.
Of course we don't have the capacity to do that today, and that's the problem.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...
We are only talking about a 20 or 30% shortfall here.
People tend to overlook that nearly a quarter of all oil & gas goes into non-energy use. I can't think of a single modern product that doesn't use petroleum-based products in some way.
In short, insanity.
A hot war between EU/NATO and Russia is not something anyone should advocate for, nor is letting Russia just take countries it wants on the edges of Europe. The current situation is a direct result of ignoring a long pattern of Russian aggression and expansionism in Georgia, Moldova, and Crimea.
They've made me, as a citizen in an EU country, pay out of my nose for their moral betterness though, when we are not even a party to the war.
The time to start getting off Russian gas was 2014. The EU, and Germany in particular, let a gun be pointed at their head for far too long.
The EU should provide payment assistance to low-income folks for their energy bills, or directly subsidize it.
It is possible to dislike all empires you know.
This is a very silly assertion.
I don't mean to be alarmist but we've seen similar scenarios play out in Europe before. This isn't merely about what's morally correct, it's also about self-interest.
I hope it doesn't come to that, but it could some day, I don't know, obviously if Russia attacks... well, in the meantime, I don't think we should be giving Russia more money it can use to further develop its military.
I am stating that going to war with Russia is the only way to walk the walk and be provably morally good over the issue. The sanctions are just a particularly expensive form of virtue signaling that does not alter the outcome of the war, but makes EU leaders Feel Good.
> Don't think we should be giving Russia money it can use to pay its soldiers and build more weapons.
And I disagree, my extended family is already in troubles and the proper price increase doesn't even come until winter.
It's not a "don't think" question either. Would I like to be energy independent? Of course. Can I currently? No, not without risking energy security for winter. So I would pay (but EU has decided it is a Moral Bad, and tells me to warm myself with Moral Good).
Suffering ~10%+ inflation and having no guaranteed energy (all depends on Germany) for moral good boy points only helps nobody, and neither of the conditions alter the material facts on the frontline, nor does it make EU resilient either (economical turmoil has generally been a politically radicalizing agent in democracies).
It is just stupid, hysterical politics.
They are hopelessly outclassed in all categories but nukes. And UK/France has a couple of them, so Russia can't nuke willy nilly.
A loss in Ukraine means every non-NATO state in the region either gets nuclear armed up, or gets annexed.
The expectation that the result of "letting it happen" would also be cheap gas is laughable: if someone's willing to trade away their morals and a country for something you sell them, then you already know it's underpriced.
EU and USA are letting it happen though: there is no military deployment to Ukraine to protect it, and (my guess is) there will not be.
Is that what you think Russian expansion in those regions is about? It's not. Just like the current military expansion, those conflicts have been about acquiring and controlling natural gas and oil reserves in those regions.
This entire conflict has been about energy and it's been going on for the past decade or so because of relatively recent discoveries of fossil fuel reserves in these areas coupled with control over pipelines transporting these resources.
At the end of the day these struggles are about resources and fundamentally existential in nature. If Russia fails to acquire more reserves it will be on a sure path to absolute decline. This is why the nuclear threat should be taken seriously, if Russia where to lose this conflict entirely, they would be on the path to complete collapse. If pushed too far it makes absolute sense for Russia to take extreme options since they would be backed into a pretty severe corner.
Western countries have dealt with and enriched nasty reigimes one way or another for centuries
Poor, lights out EU with 10-20% inflation will not in fact be a 'strong against Russia' or whatever (and this is without EU being in a war of any kind, lmao)
I mean the lack of sanctions, hasn't stopped Russia after taking Crimea, so it's only fair to assume Ukraine wouldn't be the end to Russia's (Putin's) expansion either. They implied so many times. Their enormous investments in the destabilization of foreign politics, have made it a very real possibility that the U.S. might drop out of NATO, if Trump gets reelected. Orban and Erdogan are also wild cards.
Such a development would put Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Poland at risk.
In long, that isn't insanity at all.
Yes, I am not disputing that.
I stated that the actions of EU (self-sanctions) have not, and will not affect whether or no Russia takes Ukraine though, this was the entire point of my post. It is part of what makes them so absurd.
An action that would affect would be to deploy there via strategic military action, but which our Moral Leaders are too scared (for right reasons, Russia has lots of nukes) to make. So they do this idiotic self-sanction regime to Feel Good (all paid by the tax payers and lower quality of life by people like me, who live in EU).
What credentials, intel do you have to back this up? I've heard a lot of evidence to support the contrary. The sanctions are working, Russia is just telling us they're not and that's what the rooble is so highly valued right now.
The ruble is worthless because no one accepts it.
I find these given cause-and-effect chains in defense of the sanctions and other actions largely to be magical thinking and hysterical (they'd be less so if they were actually backed by the proof-of-work of deploying to protect Ukraine).
Like, I don't care about the Ruble in itself. I was told that it would be flattened in two weeks. Well it wasn't, so we failed there. Okay, so next goal post is to pretend Ruble going up and down has helped Ukraine's strategic or operational capabilities or hurt Russia's, materially altered the course of the war. Well that's magical thinking, they were supposed to run out of missiles in two weeks somewhere around March, and it was like day or two ago they made their largest missile strike (which have been more or less continuous).
A NATO deployment would alter the outcome of the war, and that single action is not coming.
So, more sanctions I guess. It is immoral if any EU citizen has heating this winter when that could be going to Ukraine.
There is no way to know how Russia will behave exactly, but we DO know that they stopped invading Georgia when some territory was ceded. The USA and Europe behave very differently when invading (Iraq, Afghanistan). It does not help to reduce the conflict into a bad guys/good guys story. People are dying and a whole country might get flattened to rubble.
You reap what you sow. No sympathy for Russian puppets.
If this truly is the official American line then Id be pushing to have American military bases in Germany shut down.
Yes. Yes, I do. They consistently voted for this future, and now they’ve got it.
The German population are well informed, well educated, and have a free media, they have a wide selection of political parties to choose from every few years, changing political direction is trivial, nobody will arrest you for talking about it, nobody will shoot you for voting the wrong way
Most of the former Eastern Bloc countries were distrustful of Russia in general, much more so after Russia took Crimea in 2014.
Furthermore gas is used in almost every chemical process in some way or another - it's difficult to just disable a single industry because the network effects are not really known.
So this will be a shitshow because industry/lobbyists groups and regulation will probably collide at the expense of the tax-payer.
Still me and all of my friends are still fine with this. There is no alternative anyway - Russia is a fascist totalitarian state that declared war against Europe and is using gas as a weapon. After reading https://osce.usmission.gov/response-to-moscow-mechanism-repo... as just as a single example I just hope we can cut off Russian gas/oil as fast as possible.
edit: Looks like I was wrong on the burning of gas for electricity: https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?stacking=s...
edit: Damn'it just took a quick look at the calculation of the whole house and took a wrong number it's not 1600€/year but 700€/year - still triple that and it's still a problem.
The ‘stronger’ (relatively) the dollar, the more expensive energy will be in every other currency.
I mean, yes, it's very concerning.
But what's even more concerning is the perspective of the consequences on the next few years. We'll perhaps get a difficult winter and social/political troubles because of that, yes.
But on the balance is: the current Russia powers overcoming this and succeeding to establish something completely different in Europe through war.
Plus the incertitude as to USA's support, provided that we now know they may as well elect something as disastrous as Trump in 2 years time.
That Stalin wasn’t the most aggressive aggressor that started it THAT time being cold comfort for everyone under the Russian thumb.
Europe has a long history of wars of conquest, extermination, religious intolerance, etc.
We did recently have a nice sunny spell though.
2) The german tech sector never tried to compete with US salaries. I for one have quite the income (base+bonus+other monetary benefits) but am way behind a Silicon Valley counterpart. And I mean with cost of living etc included.
My company is constantly adjusted the salaries. But we still base it on market conditions in Europe not world wide. And they don’t want to react to inflation so fast.
But that is only my experience. Major city in Germany btw.
Would you be fine with it if you were on the margin?
I have this same attitude about inflation in the US and rising interest rates. Good - we need to get the situation under control. But I'm not living on the margin. It affects me, but not really. I'll be fine. So I don't really have any skin in the game here. Not yet.
Not everyone agrees on what patriotism means or what actions are patriotic or good for the nation. Tolerating a few abstract points off your GDP because people you don't like voted your country out of the EU easy enough so people put up with it. You are not going to get a nation to put up with serious hardship like what the energy situation is shaping up to do unless everyone is on the same page about what the end goal is.
Would you rather be colder in the winter for a couple years or live in a warzone and have your family killed and culture destroyed?
1. Party Z invades Country U. 2. Continent C denounces the invasion of U and sanctions Z. 3. Z retaliates against C.
Does an act of retaliation (weaponizing Gas) from Z towards C count a declaration of war? Because if not, who exactly did Russia declare war on? Europe is many things, most prominently a continent and an idea. Was Germany declared war on? If not, is it reasonable to assume that Germany will be declared war on, and if so, which escalations from which involved party would lead to that?
(As always, I don't have strong opinions, just trying to make up my mind on what to expect/how to read the situation)
Not before first weakening and fracturing NATO.
Brexit split England off the EU (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...). Trump expressed strong doubts about staying in NATO (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-presiden...) and was at the very least sympathetic towards Putin at times (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812). These are opening salvos.
In many ways the EU and Russia are at War. It's just not a shooting War
I still see people saying Russia cant cut off gas, or demand payments in rubles because some contract doesn't allow it. Those contracts went out the window a long time ago.
Which is a really callus and harsh position to take.
The alternative question, the one which should be being handled right now though is what % of people need support, and how do you help without worsening the problem? How quickly can you install solar, batteries and air-sourced heat pumps? What financing scheme gets the best bang for buck while helping those least able to afford the market fluctuation?
The question isn't "would you be fine with it at the margin?" - because the only reason to ask it is to sidle up to "maybe we should appease the nazis/just kind of not think about the genocide" under the auspices of "well there was no other choice so it's not really an immoral one".
The much better question is one of political accountability: why was the country made so vulnerable to this situation? Why were the vulnerable in the country made the most susceptible to this situation? Why were the alternatives ignored? And why is bold action not being taken now to fix this?
As for inflation control, in mamy ways the whole point of that is to punish those at the margin, who might otherwise gain at the expense of those with large assets.
If you're about to say, what about the poor pensioners on a fixed income, see my first paragraph.
Nearly all gas turbine power stations can also run on oil. Oil is usually a backup method in case the gas supply is disrupted, but it is possible for them to run on oil continuously. The exact oil type required differs, but some can use Diesel/Petrol/Kerosene/ethanol/hydrogen or sometimes even unrefined crude oil.
With gas prices so high, many are already running on oil, and that's part of the reason Diesel/Petrol prices are so high, even though the price of crude oil hasn't gone up much for months.
On charts of power generation, they still show up in the 'gas' category, even if they're burning oil. As far as I know, apart from the tanker of fuel arriving every 10 minutes day and night there is no way to know what they're burning.
Also, I highly doubt some of these can run on crude oil. Before this claim the only type of device capable of such fuel ranges I knew of is the main battle tank. It makes more sense to me that a tank is designed for versatility, and a gas turbine for efficiency on a single precise fuel. What's exactly the catch here?
I'd like a source on these claims
> Its multiple-fuel combustion system allows switching from one fuel to another while running under load.
Note that gas turbines are very flexible with fuels because it's a continuous combustion process and done at very high temperatures. That means you don't care about flamefronts, knocking, octane figures, etc. All that matters is that whatever you burn ends up hotter that when it started, which is kinda the definition of a fuel. Also, no expensive high precision parts of the engine touch the flame - all combustion is over by the time you get to the turbine blades (which are film cooled anyway, so even the combustion gases don't touch the blades)
> Oils: Includes crudes and other refined residuals that are heated to acceptable levels to enable the needed viscosity for gas turbine combustion.
https://www.ge.com/content/dam/gepower-new/global/en_US/down...
I would guess the main limiting factor will be that these machines cost tens of millions of dollars, and even with a small probability of the wood gas damaging the machine, the owner will say no to any experimentation.
Having said that, the manufacturers do tend to like to add extra things to the spec sheets of their turbines, so might well support trials of such things.
It's obviously gonna be needing extra infrastructure for heated feed pipes (to keep the wood gas from condensing) and high temperature valves, filters, and flow meters. You might be needing gas composition sensors and a feedback system to deal with the fact wood gas can be pretty variable in its composition.
I would imagine you might also tap off some of the post-combustion hot gasses from before (or even after) the turbine to act as thermal input to your gasifier too. That wouldn't be strictly necessary, but should improve efficiency.
If the EU doesn't come to their senses and embrace realpolitik, they are looking at literal deindustrialization and a plunge into mass poverty and social unrest. BMWs aren't built nor homes heated with unicorn butterfly karma.
The realpolitik is speeding up the transition off oil and gas, and energy independence.
I agree on the transition, but where are the bids, construction, etc for new LNG terminals and other replacements?
All I see is "Putin bad" talk and no action on what's actually required. But hey, at least no more Russian athletes and violinists!
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_...
I’m not sure that’s an accurate summary of the situation.
> "If the goal is a quick and complete collapse of the Russian economy, then no, sanctions are not working because the Russian economy is still functioning. But if the goal is to weaken Russia economically over time, then sanctions are 100% working."
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/01/1109033582/are-sanctions-actu...
Sure, there is some pain - but there's this little thing called import substitution. The Chinese and Turks are happy to oblige (machines, vehicles). The sanctions are just making Russia more independent and resilient.
If anything, people have underestimated Russia in a big way. Well, those who weren't paying attention.
I agree it’s not working as well as we’d all hoped, but to say it’s strengthening russia is not in alignment with what all expert opinions i’ve heard so far are saying.
The point you just ceded was exactly my point. Not all experts agree. You said originally that sanctions were “obviously not working”. If it was so obvious, wouldn’t the experts agree?
Either way, I’m not resting my entire world view on the word of one man in an npr article. So attacking him doesn’t matter to the point. I’m saying I’ve yet to hear anyone credible, i.e. outside of comments sections, say what you are saying. Instead of attacking the expert I’ve cited, maybe bring your own expert to the table?
Just make sure they’re old, are definitely an economist, they love putin, and have never studied polisci in their life.
This are the gas future prices from tomputer's comment [1],[2]:
Q4 22 166.570
Q4 23 114.925
Q4 24 74.050
The industry doesn't seem to expect continuously high prices.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32109948
[2] https://www.theice.com/products/27996665/Dutch-TTF-Gas-Futur...
Not to mention the unfairness of choosing one industry full of workers to say, "sorry, you're going to go jobless for the greater good," to.
It is often disheartening to see how many people of HN don't realise what is happening (and, frankly, has been happening for 8 years) and then read cold opinions devoid of empathy. What is the compromise when the other side's goal is extermination?
Control, integration, subjugation, colonization, there are a lot of other words that are more fitting without the "genocide" hyperbole.
On top of the rhetoric that Ukrainians as a people shouldn't exist.
There is no doubt that it is genocide and termination.
The accepted definition is in Article 2 of
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-...
Russian propaganda amply demonstrates their intent. The physical part is also well-established. For example Russian filtration camps have been use to "process" then relocate over a million Ukrainians. Including over 250,000 children who will be raised with propaganda about not being Ukrainian.
You may prefer mealymouthed substitutes for calling a spade a spade. But I condemn you for normalizing genocide by refusing to use its proper name.
Maybe we in the west should stop being stupid. Just a thought.
The first condition is intent, specifically intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Russia has provided ample evidence. For example https://uacrisis.org/en/justification-of-genocide-russia-has... is a translation into English of an article from Russian media laying out what "denazification" actually would entail. The following passage is typical and demonstrates intent:
Denazification will inevitably also be a de-Ukrainization – a rejection of the large-scale artificial inflation of the ethnic component of self-identification of the population of the territories of historical Little Russia (Malorossiya) and New Russia (Novorossiya), begun by the Soviet authorities.
There are many similar statements from all corners of Russian controlled media. Intent is abundantly clear.
As for the second component, we need to establish a physical element. Many Russian war crimes qualify. But I specifically pointed to https://www.state.gov/russias-filtration-operations-forced-d... because the forced relocation of children for the purpose of erasing their ethnic identity is directly listed in the treaty.
Do you still refuse to acknowledge that Russia has met the definition of genocide established in international law by treaty? If so, then on what grounds do you argue that this ISN'T genocide?
Let me clarify my motives for you.
I am not happy with the approach the West has taken in towards this conflict. Most particularly the coup in 2014 and the urging of non settlement early. It has cost the lives of thousands of young Ukrainian men. And for very little purpose. The formerly Russian/ high Russian population areas are going back to Russia. Full stop. This was extremely obvious from the beginning. There was an equitable path forward early, even the return of formerly Russian territories did not have to happen. But the West has become blind and stupid as well as belligerent. Reality is going to smack them squarely in the face soon I think and no amount of propaganda will prevent it.
It did not have to go down like this. A lot of lives could have been saved and suffering prevented. I don't control what Russia does (and I agree, they are looking for geo strategic and economic gain, not to "defend poor Russian speakers"), but anyway, I expect a whole let better from nominal liberal democracies. If you are going to be callous and continue with the murder and deception that has been the defining characteristic the Western order, at least be smart about it. But we have been both callous and stupid. I'm not happy about it. I'll be even less happy if it heats up even more killing millions.
Also, I don't really like extreme bullshit propaganda. I try to see the truth and proclaim the truth best as I can understand it.
Hopefully that clarifies my position.
The Russian speaking areas do not want to be part of Ukraine after the 2014 coup. The one that was full of Western intelligence and US politicians, including the wife of Iraq war proponent Robert Kagan who is currently serving under Biden.
Many of these areas were part of Russia up until the Soviet Union, most particularly Crimea which was part of Russia from the 1700s until 1954. The people there are Russian. And, there wasn't really an issue until the coup which outset a democratically elected president. After that Russia took Crimea back (with a vote by the locals for whatever that is worth). The other breakaway republics were indiscriminately shelled for over 8 years. Over 14,000 people were killed which is nearly 3 times the amount of civilian casualties Russia has inflicted to date.
Also, Russia has been invaded along this (open) route a few times over the past couple of hundred years. Hitler and Napoleon. Millions died. Putins older brother in fact died as an infant during the Nazi siege.
So when Ukraine starts talking about getting nukes, joining NATO, have literal Nazi brigades attacking the breakaway republics and amassing hundreds of thousands of troops in the East to attack the breakaway republics and "get Crimea back" the Russians will just sit there? No, they will not. Now, again, their other aim is to get exclusive control of the Black Sea and take the oil and agricultural rich areas of the east, as well as increase their population. And we handed them a figleaf like dummies. They have a lot of legal ground. Putin is actually a lawyer (a fact lots of people don't know).
Let the people chose their destiny. Like we did in Kosovo when we wanted to put an airbase there. But no, that doesn't apply in this case. So it has heated up to this. I hope it settles down but the longer it goes on the worse for Ukraine. We should be urging peaceful settlement, not adding fuel to the fire.
The President of Ukraine is one of those Russian speaking Ukrainians that you're talking about. Why don't you ask him whether he would prefer to be part of Ukraine or Russia?
According to polls, Russian speaking Ukrainians overwhelmingly want to be in an independent Ukraine. And the longer the fighting goes on, the stronger that support gets. Strip away Russian propaganda, and "Russian speaking Ukrainians want to be in Russia" turns out to be a fantasy.
It is likewise only in Russian propaganda that Ukraine was looking to get nukes, or was on a course to join NATO. The "breakaway republics" in fact were invaded by Russia in 2014. Yes, the "green men" weren't wearing their Russian military insignia, but nobody was actually fooled. And satellite photos confirmed that the artillery was being fired from Russian territory. See https://iphronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Joint-repo... if you doubt me.
I'm not happy with everything we did involving Euromaiden. But Russia had set a democratically elected leader on a course to take over and become a Russia-friendly dictator. Ukraine need look no farther than Belarus to see how that story turns out. Describing it as the overthrow of a democratic regime is at best a half-truth. Probably no more than a quarter truth.
When it comes to legal issues, Russia HAS no legal ground other than a military, a willingness to lie, and other people's unwillingness to confront them.
Let's talk about the whole Nazi thing. It is true that the Azov battalion started as white supremacists, and got absorbed into Ukraine's military. (Then toned down the whole white supremacist thing a lot.) However this problem exists on both sides, and there are likely more white supremacists fighting on the Russian side than the Ukrainian. If this comes as a surprise to you, start with https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-neo-nazis-fighting-ukraine/3... for some of the basics. Worse yet, Russia has actively solicited, and received, international support from white supremacist organizations. Supporters like Steve Bannon opened doors, and are part of how we have Russian propaganda being spewed over Fox News by people like Steve Hannity.
Despite Russian rhetoric about "denazification", it is Russia that has sought out and obtained support from neo-Nazis and those sympathetic to them.
And so we see that again and again, you are consistently misinformed. You've swallowed Russian propaganda on issue after issue. This is in addition to your unwillingness to call a spade a spade and recognize Russian genocide as what it is.
I would advise against compounded the many many bad moves that have been made so far but it's free world.
What I stated is historical and geopolitical fact. Without (near as I can tell) much bias. It's not propaganda, it's the truth. Yes, Russia has traditionally been an expansionist power. Yes, they are looking for advantage.
But a whole lot of ethnic hatred and stupidity and Western involvement has made this even easier for them.
You can read https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/193514/Nuclear%20Backed%20%E2%... for a Polish report on the same, and how Russia used nuclear posturing to keep the world from more emphatically calling Russia on its brazen lies.
Apparently the conclusions of multiple organizations, ranging from widely respected NGOs to national governments, seem ridiculous to you. That does not mean that they are ridiculous. It merely means that you've accepted a dose of Russian disinformation. Which they've been very competent at packaging.
But no, you just keep repeating propaganda lines and claiming that sourced statements are ridiculous. While offering no sources for your claims, and ignoring a variety of sources that you have been provided.
Lies do not become fact merely by being repeated enough. And Russian lies about spontaneous uprisings and Ukrainian atrocities do not become fact simply because you can't accept that those uprisings were conducted by Russian soldiers, and the shelling of Ukrainian civilians in 2014 began with Russian artillery operating on Russian territory. Confirmed by ballistics, satellite photos, and testimony from the people who were shelled.
Sources that you currently believe which say otherwise should be viewed with suspicion. Because they are lying to you.
If not, what exactly of my point do you take issue with? The claims on Russia geo strategical intent? The history of invasions into Russia through Ukraine in fairly recent times? That Crimea is not historically Russian?
These are all facts my friend. Not propaganda.
I wish you would take a more rational and less emotional view of the situation but I can't say I'd do differently in your circumstance. I am concerned where the irrationality leads however. It has so far caused nothing but trouble for Ukraine. And the trouble is spreading.
There are Russian backed terrorists that are temporarily occupying Ukrainian territory, these terrorists shot down a civilian airliner and killed hundreds.
> The majority of people in Crimea did not wish to rejoin Russia?
Theres no been no real referendums so we will never, but the partisan posters that keep appearing in Crimea would suggest that no the majority dont want to join Russia.
> All people on what is (formerly now) Ukraine territory were happy with the post coup Ukrainian government? Is that what you are saying?
All the people on occupied Ukrainian territory may not be happy with the government they may also not be happy be conscripted by the FSB backed terrorist occupiers either to fight against their brothers. But it doesn't matter because not everyone needs to support a government for it to be legitimate.
> These are all facts my friend. Not propaganda.
None of these are facts.
> I wish you would take a more rational and less emotional view of the situation but I can't say I'd do differently in your circumstance. I am concerned where the irrationality leads however. It has so far caused nothing but trouble for Ukraine. And the trouble is spreading.
The most rational view of this situation is to send the heaviest weapons possible to Ukraine, because the only rational way this ends is with a lot of dead Russian soldiers, and that needs to happen as soon as possible.
Keep in mind Kyiv is only 50km from the border with Russia, and Russia failed to take it. This was has less been about a denial of reality and really been about seeing just how much a paper tiger the Russian armed forces are, turns out they are worse then pretty much anyone expected.
If Russia is doing so well why are there own propagandist and military complaining about how well Ukraine is striking there C&C and ammo depots?.
Why has Russia made so little gains in the past two weeks?.
Russia has already failed the only question is how badly there loses get before they leave.
That’s the question, how many dead Russian soldiers, how many more ships from the Black Sea fleet have to sink, how many more helicopters and planes have to crash and how many more tanks need to cook off?.
> Or will it take millions in big urban centers and widespread starvation?
The intentional starvation of urban centres certainly sounds like genocide to me, and you really have to ask yourself what kind of capable military acts like this?. Russian threatens because it’s there only option, if they could they would of taken Ukraine already.
This compounded the general fact that logistical troubles are one of the great weaknesses of the Russian military machine.
Examples.
- Offering well-sourced factual claims is not craziness.
- I'm not Ukrainian. I assure you that the California coast is not under any current threat.
- The military facts on the ground say that Russia cannot successfully take much more territory than it already has, and is extremely unlikely to be able to sustain what it has already taken.
- You are continuing to ignore the very real issues that I raised about genocide, etc.
Here is a fact for you to consider. Russia lost the Cold War in part because they didn't have the economy to be a counterweight to the USA. And economic trends have not gone in their favor. By GDP, Russia last year was only slightly more important than Florida. Thanks to sanctions, they are rapidly reducing in geopolitical importance. Not fast enough, I grant. But they aren't in a sustainable position.
Also I would not be so sure the coast of California is safe if this keeps going.
"By GDP". Ya ya ya. Debt based scripts being passed around from VCs and overpriced healthcare are actually the same as resources in hand. That scheme totally isn't going to blow up and there are perpetual motion machines.
"Thanks to sanctions". More denial of reality.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum... for more.
Meanwhile you continue to avoid calling Russian genocide by its proper name. You continue to claim that Russia had legal justification. You continue to deny the truth of Russian actions, and continue to blame Ukraine's situation on the West rather than on the country doing the invading.
The truth is that it is a tragedy that Ukrainians are faced with the choice of fighting for their sovereignty or submitting to a genocidal Russian oppression. The record of Russian rule being terrible is supported by extensive history, current events, and ongoing Russian policy. By contrast the specter of Germany launching another invasion through Ukraine is rather ridiculous given the current culture of the German people and government. And Russia wore that excuse rather thin after using it to justify decades of tyranny over the Eastern Bloc during the cold war.
I wish you would portray my position honestly, engage with the truth of Russian crimes, and start accepting facts. I also wish you wouldn't support a genocidal dictatorship.
But from what I see they might be in even worse trouble then I had thought. We might be as well.
There is no genocide (yet anyway and hopefully ever). Please stop using hyperbole. It does your point no favors.
That said, I agree that further conversation is useless. At this point it should be obvious to anyone reading the thread that I try to source my facts, and report on what is true whether or not I like said facts. It should also be clear that you fail to engage with either facts or sources which do not agree with your world view. And your world view has been heavily shaped by Russian disinformation campaigns.
My final word is that I condemn you for believing and then wanting to appease a genocidal dictator. While refusing to engage with documented evidence of the many crimes that he is lying about.
Feel free to respond however you like. I'm done with this conversation.
Whilst it’s obviously not all rainbows and sunshine for the Ukrainians you really refuse to admit that it only took 4 HIMARS to slam Russian logistics. 30 ammo depots and command and control points have been vaporised in a couple of weeks, and Russia has no counter.
> There is no genocide (yet anyway and hopefully ever). Please stop using hyperbole. It does your point no favors.
You can try and redefine the word genocide all you want, but that does not change the fact that the Russians are committing genocide in Ukraine per them UN definition of the word.
All of Ukraine, will go back to Ukraine, this includes Crimea. The Russians will leave or die, the Ukrainians have only just started getting HIMARS and M270s and they are already slaughtering Russian ammo depots and command and control centres.
When the NASAMS turn up the Russian missiles and planes will start falling out of the sky at a much higher rate. Then the net that these two systems provide will expand out as the Ukrainians push back.
Russias army doctrine is setup in such a way that practically everything is centralised, its why they occupied the same airfield over 20 times, even though the Ukrainians kept attacking it. This centralised doctrine is highly suspect ile to weapons like HIMARs and M270s as they target the bases and depots that the Russians are working from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Chornobaivka_attacks
The easiest way to save the most lives in this conflict is to get Russia to leave Ukraine as soon as possible.
The behaviour of the Russian army towards the non-combatants so far has been aligned to what you could expect of this concept — mass murder, rape as a weapon, "filtration" camps, forced deportations, burnt ground tactics. These are not singular cases, it's the pattern everywhere the Russian army is or has been active.
It's not even the first attempt in the history — the last one was less than a century ago.
[0]: https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1510910740261134338
"mass rape, mass murder etc".
Look, I don't think the Russians are innocent in this at all. Obviously they have economic incentive and don't mind killing some folks to get what they are after. They don't want to kill everyone though or they would act very differently.
It's not genocide. Very simple. Even by a stretch of the word to include removing Nazi elements from the armed services.
It's even worse.
Here is what I do know. As of last week less then 5,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed so far in the campaign. Contrast that with the US did during Iraq, or even in Raqqa. Was that genocide? No, it was just we didn't care. Which is pretty disturbing especially now as we try to proclaim moral high ground and talk about atrocities.
This is not genocide either and false flags and exaggerations abound on all sides.
Edit: responding to the comment below because I'm obviously on a time out at this point:
`As delivered by Ambassador Michael Carpenter`
This is a guy, with a strategic national interest, who addressed the org you are talking about with some claims. Not an series of independently verified facts.
Have bad things happened? Yes. It's a war. Have Russian soldiers done some bad things? Almost certainly. Is there widespread or systemic murder of civilians and rape by Russian troops? No, that is not happening. And it makes sense as it would be counterproductive to Russia's aims.
In short. Unadulterated bullshit.
This is summary post from some ambassador. Read the original report at the OSCE website: https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/3/e/522616.pdf
These are independent verified facts.
They literally ask for permission to rape the Ukrainians from their partners.
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-rape-russian-soldier-wife-by...
They literally executed civilians in Bucha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre
If you want to learn more about the Russians armed forces sexual crimes in Ukraine you can find a depressingly large article here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_2022_Ru...
> This is not genocide either and false flags and exaggerations abound on all sides.
It is literally genocide per the UN definition of the word.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Russians are easily doing at least the last (forced transfer of children) and are arguably doing the first, and second based on the terrible conditions they leave the cities they level in leaving the Ukrainians to die in the street.
> No, that is not happening. And it makes sense as it would be counterproductive to Russia's aims.
The rape and deportation of locals to Russia is par for the course for the USSR's and Russia's conflicts. They did the exact same thing in Chechnya. If you want to learn more about the terrible crimes that Russia has committed in Ukraine and past wars (like Chechnya) look up what a 'filtration camp' is.
This isn't counterproductive to Russia's aims, it _is_ one of Russias aims.
> In short. Unadulterated bullshit.
In short, it's the Russian army doing Russian army things, at this point it seems they are incapable of conducting wars without committing a tonne of war crimes.
> That's unadulterated bullshit and I think both of us know it.
I think there's some pretty well documented cases of both of those things within the past few months alone. I'm not sure it's bullshit at all.
In this context the Russian soldiers are telling you that you're a "Nazi" because you're speaking Ukrainian, served in the army (no matter how long ago), or have a Ukrainian flag in your home, a tattoo or a haircut they don't like, or just camouflage-styled clothes and therefore don't deserve to live. A shot in the head usually comes after, sometimes worse than that.
This is a story of _each_ village in my area near Kyiv that came under the occupation for just a month. Probably would have been one for my family too if we hadn't fled to safety in time as we'd be considered, in your words, "Nazi elements" too.
Do I really need to link the photos of mass graves, bodies hastily burned to conceal the evidence and accounts of the survivors? Even this is a small fraction as we're not seeing what's happening in the currently occupied areas (there are only some accounts).
How different does it need to be? Does the pointless flattening of Mariupol fall under your definition? Or do we need to wait and see what happens if Russia wins this and there's no real visibility at all?
It is genocide, very simple; heck, Putin is pretty up front about the intent to destroy the Ukrainian people as a people, because he views the existence of that identity distinct from Russia as anathema.
And even without Putin’s statements the piles of evidence from the acts on the ground admit no other explanation.
Bucha, Irpin, Kharkiv, Mariupol etc... It's all there, anyone denying this is either utterly blind or a Russian apologist, these are all war crimes. And Putin's (convoluted) rhetoric has arrived at a single point: that Ukraine are not their own people or culture.
The latest Russian missile attack was on a civilian shopping center FFS! This isn't war conventional between militaries, this is terrorism on civilians when Ukraine attacks on Russian munition depots in Ukrainian territory or some other military target is successful.
Russia has bombed Lviv and Kyiv as well when similar successful military strikes took place with civilian casualties.
The truth is that this is really looking less like a proxy war and more like a hyper-localized World War, if Iran is really supplying UAVs to Russia and China and India is buying their energy to bypass sanctions than the BRICS alliance looks like the geo-political strata is shaking out; one cannot help but feel that if this isn't fought qnd won then Taiwan will be the CCPs next move as it is starting to crack under it's own myopic weight as the Zero COVID policy is taking it's toll and making internal civil war inevitable as the bank freezes/bail-ins are happening there.
I’m not sure why these distinctions are relevant. In my mind, if an army is indiscriminately bombing and shelling my city, it sure feels like a genocidal act.
i live in a large flat in London with my partner. fully electric, no gas, but the building was awarded for being ultra efficient.
i used to pay £60/month for the electricity in summer and £100/month in winter. now it’s £80 during summer. winter heating involves shorts and tshirt. usual amenities: large oled, dishwasher every day, washing machine every other day etc etc
> There is no alternative anyway - Russia is a fascist totalitarian state that declared war against Europe and is using gas a weapon.
sure, but inflation reached historical highs before the war even started:
https://www.ft.com/content/088d3368-bb8b-4ff3-9df7-a7680d4d8...
luckily for the today’s politicians, Russia invaded Ukraine, so now they can point to Putin instead of analysing what they did wrong (spoiler: we actually know what they did wrong).
Another factor is how many open surface areas they have and the size of windows. I had an apartment that I rarely heated in the winter because it was wrapped on 5 of 6 sides by other apartments and the only exposed surface was a wall. Other apartments had multiple outside-facing walls/roofs.
In hindsight it was an obvious preparation for the war, making sure that Europe had lower gas reserves so that installing sanctions on Russia would hurt more.
> 1600€/year
Something really doesn't add up here. If your bill is so high, why haven't you done anything to mitigate it? Can you add insulation?
What's the temperature kept at in the heating months? How much would lowering it lower the costs? Is there a possibility of putting solar collectors on the rooftop and heating with hot water? Even in winter they can get water up to 35-40 Celsius, which is considerably higher than comfort temperature.
The U.S is relatively fine. Europe is being screwed over by the virtue-signaling policies. Europe canceled cheap long term Gazprom contracts and is now buying expensive gas (including from Russia!) on the spot market. Europe buys expensive liquid gas form the U.S.
Meanwhile, China is laughing and buys cheap Russian commodities using RMB instead of Dollars or Euros. India resells Russian oil.
The policies are a disaster, and Europe suffers from not standing up to Nuland, Lindsay Graham et al.
Luhansk/Donetsk are lost. Europe needs to deal with that and ensure that it stops there (don't give me that nonsense about Peter the Great or other propaganda).
It's war. We have to win it. Yes that is expensive, but Russia commits genocide in the areas they occupy, so there is no alternative.
The UK may have left the EU, but we still have millions of Eastern Europeans living here.
Whether this sentiment stays when winter comes and energy prices really start to bite is another question - but right now our attitude towards Russia is driven by our own emotions - nothing to do with American virtue signalling.
You can't understand anything Russia does until you understand that it has a bully's mindset. Anything you negotiate with them just emboldens them to do more to you later. When confronted, they escalate but there is a lot less muscle behind that than it seems.
Therefore any negotiation of the kind that you describe will embolden them to reach for more as soon as they think they can. Appeasing Russia will no more prevent further aggression than giving Czechoslovakia to Hitler avoided WW 2.
Also you completely misunderstand the war situation. The current phase has been a war of attrition with a slow retreat. The Ukrainian counteroffensive will come in August or September, once Russia's ability to wage war has been exhausted. From projects that I've seen, it is an even bet whether there will be a COMPLETE Russian collapse before the end of the year. (Yes, they won't even get to keep Crimea.)
If you want to understand the military situation in detail, I recommend https://www.understandingwar.org/publications. You don't have to follow it in detail. For example if you'd read https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offens... a couple of months ago, you'd understand everything you need to understand to realize that Russia won't be able to hold the territory that they have taken.
How would we know what appeasing Russia will do when it has never been tried? Not all wars are like WWII. What if this is the same as the Finnish winter war, where Stalin was eventually content with Karelia and some other small parts?
That said, the organization does have a pro-US military bias, but works to create neutral and factual reporting. If you don't like their bias, you can double check with a variety of other sources with different biases. For example https://www.aljazeera.com/where/ukraine/ does not take a pro-US position.
Also, appeasing Russia HAS been tried. We let them take part of Georgia. We let them take part of Ukraine 8 years ago. We let them have a free hand in Syria. And through that all, we continued to treat them as a normal country. Germany in particular proceeded on a "business as usual" policy. We even raised only minimal objections when they were caught trying to manipulate elections in a variety of countries including the USA. (Without Russian assistance Trump would have never been President.)
The result has been the current full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Offering full support to Ukraine is a reversal of our previous policies.
US definitely provoked Russia in Ukraine, including the 2014 coup
many people choose to believe Russiagate simply because they can't admit to themselves that Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate
There is an alternative: heat pumps. The problem is the upfront cost, which needs to be lowered through economies of scale.
The same therm of natural gas that would have been burned in a domestic gas boiler, if burned in a modern combined cycle gas electricity plant, can provide 2-3X the amount of domestic heat via heat pumps even in the coldest conditions. In shoulder seasons it's more like 3-4X.
The load we need to expand electricity production for is EVs, which use a ton of it comparatively.
https://iwae.com/shop/4-to-5-ton-18-seer-variable-speed-mrco...
Germany is a manufacturing powerhouse. Why can't they build them?
Sure. Can you get millions, though?
Even something comparitively simple like toilet paper took months at the start of the pandemic.
Yes, but government can provide a demand signal far more clearly and immediately than the market can. That's what the Defense Production Act is for in the US.
The lack of federal tax incentives for air source heat pumps is also an an issue. Frustratingly there is a 30% credit for ground source heat pumps, which are far less scalable because they require an expensive trench or well.
And with the support for energy embargoes already falling to 32% in Germany[0] in mid July this seems like the most likely outcome.
Question is will Russia then attempt to hurt Europe by blocking gas deliveries like it is doing now with Nord Stream 1.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-germany-gas-i...
Sorry for the naive question, but are the Nord Stream gas deliveries:
1. blocked because sanctions dont allow for commerce/transactions,
or
2. blocked to hurt the customer (Europe) by not transacting even when transacting is possible?
I also hate to say, but, at that particular moment, the man was right.
This is why political extremism is bad. Nobody in Europe listened to him. Had him be more respectful, polite and balanced in his communication, maybe he could have convinced Germany to anticipate what they're scrambling to do now...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liGZGGQTYQk
It is sad to see a /r/redditmoment on Hacker News.
I'll reword rmbyrro's comment in another way. Trump was right, and the German envoys laughing at him on camera (including Heiko Maas, the foreign minister), was wrong, on the biggest German blunder in 80 years. Just in July alone we've had
a German minister stating that becoming dependent on Russian gas was a "grievous mistake", and that his country is begging (yes, begging) for turbines from Canada "with a heavy heart"
* His government stating that entire industries might "collapse"
* Rationing of gas announced
* Local municipalities planning warm buildings that those without heat in their homes can visit during the winter
Again, this is the greatest German catastrophe in 80 years. It is an existential threat to the German (and, thus, European) economy and nation. It is also 100% self-inflicted. You know this.
Instead of acknowledging that Trump was right on this issue, people like you can only resort to some variant of "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" | "Trump = Hitler and even Hitler every now and then did something right" | etc., etc.
People have been saying this since the 1980s:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod_pipeli...
And my situation is rather in the best-case bucket. Lot's of people live in badly insulated houses or flats that have much higher energy costs. I guess it won't matter that that much for upper middle class families - maybe they postpone their expensive vacation or don't buy another SUV but everyone that is poor or just survives without any chance to buildup reserves this could get nasty.
We’ve been phoning it in since the Clinton era and assuming that “norms” and oligarchs would keep Russia at bay. End of the day they got tanks, nukes and are learning what they can get away with.
Thing is that energy is traded in EEX (https://www.eex.com/en/) so everyone who is trading there is feeling Germany's stupid decisions. For example Sweden is not in EEX and has no problem with high energy prices.
Other countries now have an enormous economy entering the market, driving up prices and effectively controlled by Russia, as Russia supplies most of the gas. Russia and most eastern european countries have a poor relationship.
Now money is expensive and there's no time to build alternatives. And Russia knows this.
I will link to only one as people need to do their own homework.
Here is such an example: https://www.rferl.org/a/Germanys_Gas_War_Nabucco_Vs_South_St...
"So I think that when both the Russians and the other players want to find a lobbyist, they very naturally look at Germany first. In this respect, I am not surprised that Schroeder and Fischer were the two [chosen]," he said.
The same is true in the US, Japan, Canada, France, New Zealand, UK... all of these countries have been nerfing their nuclear plant programs due to pressure from "green party" lobbyists that are veiled Russian interests.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit-idUSBREA2P0...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/trump-scolded-germany-for...
“Germany represented 46 % of the total brown coal consumption of the EU in 2021, followed by Poland (19 %), Czechia (11 %), Bulgaria (10 %),Romania (6 %) and Greece (5 %).”
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
Meanwhile poland is being fined for extracting said coal.
Increasing insulation and installing and building more heat pumps are obvious ways to save on gas. Italy used some big EU subsidies to pay 100% of people's home and house renovations. Would something like that be possible in Germany? 50% subsidy for insulation renovation. Run all the styrofoam, rock wool and glass wool factories nonstop in three shifts. Found new heat pump factories. Train employees.
Somehow you see your neighbour a "foreigner" that eats your dinner and steals your money! You are not a nice guy.
Without cooperation you can't acomplish much as an individal human being nor as an individual country(bigger or smaller).
Maybe your neighbour is already helping you with cheaper food or whatever he is producing since his energy bill is now lower.
Suddenly: money everywhere, zero red tape, worry about compliance later, get it done now.
So, if the political will is there, things are possible, and I can easily imagine our country going a lot harder than that if the danger was imminent enough.
As a Dutch person whose country is equally dependent on gas (but happens to be sitting on gas as well, which can’t be used for political reasons), I’m flabbergasted by the optimism of the politicians.
Yes, it may be fine, but why bet on it? Why isn’t there more central EU coordination in case there actually will be a gas shortage, and we need to divide the gas? Who gets what and who should deliver to whom?
Look no further than back to early Covid again, remember the disparities and chaos wrt borders? When people finally realized the potential gravity of the situation, politicians went full "each man to himself". Saying "we distribute gas elsewhere while you are freezing" isn't part of any regular elected politicians playbook, don't you think?
To your first question, I haven't met anyone who openly doubts he'll be fine personally. The situation is tense, but not meteor heading towards dortmund tense.
Vs. with natural gas, there aren't so many people shivering in the dark now that all the carbon-neutral, Green, anti-global-warming, NIMBY, etc., etc. opposition can just be ignored.
Solution #1. Capitulate to Putin and treat Russia as a regional power that can gobble and punish its neighbors when they stray too far.
Solution #2. Forget about the climate for the next 5 years, turn on all coal, nuclear powerplants.
Solution #3. Put the Euro printer in overdrive and pay whatever price needed for the little natural gas that's out there and the expense of transportation.
#3 is probably the worst, but also - the easiest for a fickle and weak political class to do. So, that's what's happening.
Won't be surprised if we get hyperinflation in the EU in the winter. The ECB barely functions in good times with its one monetary policy, but different budgets nonsense.
Nuclear power is perfectly compatible with climate goals.
So they are likely not in shape to be turned on again.
Similarly, if they were willing to say "fuckit, this may end up being extremely expensive in 10 years but we need it now or we freeze to death", they could start building (potentially) unsafe reactors in unapproved locations with inadequate documentation of their material supply chains and have that ready by February. Yes, there are long lead times for things like approved reactor pressure vessels. But if you're willing to go back to Hanford, Washington [0] safety standards that all goes out the window, and the math on deaths almost certainly still works out.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
Natural gas is now green in some circumstances. I'm not sure what to make of this.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/06/europe-natural-gas-nuclear-a...
Just not environment friendly.
Especially for "longer living" species like humans.
I don't understand why its supper common for people not understand that climate and environmental friendly often overlap but are not always the same and sometimes in direct conflict.
For climate protection nuclear power is currently probably the best choice we have (globally).
But for environmental protection and protection of human health it isn't.
Anyway coal is worse for both and tbh. the German green party should have focused on getting out of coal not nuclear power.
If we give him Donetsk and Luhansk, he'll just be back for more + Moldova in 5-6 years.
Don't worry though, America is repeating the same mistakes with China. So, its not just Europe.
(and drugs are not fundamentally different from any low-margin manufacturing critical item)
There have been tons of parliamentary MPs expelled in the last 6 months and complete bans on opposition parties.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-suspen...
https://twitter.com/JustFollowingP3/status/15472268766320721...
Maybe Joe Biden doesn’t want Trump to know about Hunter Biden’s business dealings there, but I can only guess …
Just say that Russia is no different than China or the USA. It is reasonable for them to have their own monroe doctrine over former USSR nation-states.
I can tell that a real NATO deployment to D & L would dramatically change the strategic goal setting of Russia, materially alter the outcome, but not sanctions if that's what you are suggesting as deciding the fate of these places.
If Germany starts freezing in the winter with no Russian gas, you’ll start hearing about “bringing about peace” real quick.
First financially, then physically once the pipes run dry.
You can’t fix the infrastructure at that scale this quickly and winter isn’t far away.
Option #4 is ration gas. It won't be pleasant but it's possible.
I'm on the fence about an all electric future- we simply don't have the grid capacity in most parts of the world - but the Germans and French who control the EU should have been developing SMNR years ago. They are now in an energy checkmate situation with a hostile country with an economy the size of Italy. Not clever,
But has RR actually shipped one of these?
In the end I see it as having multiple independent energy-generating clusters (each building, or each city, or each country) and sharing excess energy outside the cluster only when needed.
They can’t, though. Apartment buildings are too efficient at packing people together to have enough per capita roof square metrage for panels. Practical wind turbines are huge. A typical wind turbine blade is longer than the height of a 10 story building. Geothermal is also rather impractical as a source of energy, due to low thermal conductivity of the rock.
> In the end I see it as having multiple independent energy-generating clusters (each building, or each city, or each country) and sharing excess energy outside the cluster only when needed.
You are describing here exactly the current status quo. That how energy works right now.
I think looking at national threats by their GDP is kind of weird. Afghanistan led to the downfall of the USSR but had basically nothing going for it economically. The US also blew decades of effort and money. ISIS plowed through its region with sheer mongol-like savagery and managed to wreak havoc in major western countries sometimes as well. America went basically all out trying to stop Vietnam, then one of the poorest countries on earth, and got nowhere.
Gas is currently cheap and that makes Russia’s economy look small. If prices, say, quintuple globally and Russia keeps pumping out the same quantity, that’s a huge jump despite few internal changes and they’d have the world by the balls. Meanwhile, the Swiss could decide to all retire tomorrow permanently and drop their relatively huge GDP (half of Russia’s) to 1% of what it is now and the world would probably shrug and move on.
Russia is depended on globally for food, fuel, and loads of random resources. They’re just temporarily considered cheap while some things (eg banking) are currently considered high value. That could change very quickly.
This is ahistorical. The US in no way, shape, or form when "all out" trying to stop North Vietnam. It was a poor country, but it was heavily armed and resupplied by the USSR and China, including leveraging some of the newest fighter jets, SAMs, etc. the USSR had to offer.
What would be considered "all out" if not dropping the most bombs in human history, and double the amount of WW2? There is no higher level.
Categorically false. There were huge swaths of Vietnam that were off limits to bombing.
>Laos is the most bombed country in world history due to the US trying to stop Vietnam.
Yes, with a fraction of the warplanes, airmen, etc. due to advances in technology like strategic bombers and cluster weapons. The overall air efforts are incomparable to what transpired in WWII.
>What would be considered "all out" if not dropping the most bombs in human history, and double the amount of WW2?
If only there was a term to encapsulate such a concept...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war
>There is no higher level.
There absolutely is a higher level. Google what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of WWII.
I live not far from there. Seen the range of the damage first hand. The extent of the damage in SE asia is far larger and people are still de-mining the area.
And civilian deaths were colossal in Vietnam. Rapes and massacres (that includes by Americans, yes) certainly weren’t just directed at combatants. Just because American deaths were low doesn’t mean the US didn’t go all out on obliterating the country unlike anything they’ve done before.
Btw, the fire bombings in Japan were far more disastrous than the nuclear weapons. I suggest you Google them. The nuclear weapons were more of a major spectacle. Vietnams bombings exceed even the Japanese fire bombings, both of which destroyed their entire countries. The napalm and agent orange attacks most certainly weren’t fine tuned either and had massive effects on Vietnamese civilians—lasting even to today. Burning and poisoning the earth will do that.
We need to quickly transition now to force the government to fund improved transmission and supply. Our governments aren't great at building things for future needs, but when your citizens are in danger of going without electricity, you bet your ass these politicians will do what needs to be done.
As an example, look at the mRNA vaccine development.
What a statement.
> It's really been the German greens hellbent on holding back nuclear across the EU
The German Greens, stalling investments into nuclear energy across the world. A powerful cabal.
IEA on France's energy mix: https://www.iea.org/countries/france A few articles on Germany being against nuclear: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-to-veto-eu-plan-to-l... https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/01/08/why-germans-rema...
… and right now you can see how "successful" they are with their nuclear power plants: so "successful" that they have to import energy because a lot of their nuclear power plants are currently offline, due to unexpected problems related to safety. Even better, the current hot weather also causes serious problems and reduces power output.
"Trump: Germany 'Totally Controlled By Russia'" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LLZBVTid4I
German bureaucrats laugh at Trump after he says the country could become totally dependent on Russian energy: https://twitter.com/marcusgilmer/status/1044604107997237249
Have to hand it to him this time...he was so right.
I mean, surely the explanation isn't that Trump is secretly a well informed and thoughtful person?
This was his version of simply yelling the same insult back at people he didn't like: and he really didn't like Merkel (or any European leader) because unlike the despots and dictators they wouldn't just suck up to him (notably Shinzo Abe figured him out immediately and went all in on the obvious play for favor[3])
[1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/18/japans-abe-nominated-trump-f...
You don’t have to not be a hypocrite to enjoy calling out others as hypocrites when it serves your purpose?
In fact, if anything, being a hypocrite makes it even easier since you don’t need to worry about if you’re being a hypocrite while doing it!
The problem is that the over “educated” and credentialed class of political elites weren’t ever taught elementary common sense in their textbooks, and have never operated within institutions that have held them accountable for it.
Ergo the outsized elite hatred for Trump among the managerial elite caste, who shone a spotlight on the astonishing triviality of their ineptitude.
Trump no erudite
Because this time solidarity is in Germany's interests, duh.
>Germany Blocks Joint Gas Purchases
>But resistance is coming from large natural gas utilities in Germany, like RWE, and from industrial customers as well. They want to buy their own gas and fear that they won't be allocated sufficient supplies by the EU.
Seems like the German definition of solidarity is that they get gas from others.
It's not like the US is in any way trying to be green.
Honestly, China is Earth's best shot at climate change.
1) Not self sufficient, they have to import food from the US
2) Burning nearly a million more cubic feet of coal per capita than the US does (and they have way more people, so that means they're really burning far far more coal)
Honestly I'm not sure how you thought that made any sense.
EDIT: (out of comment quota)
>China also installs more renewables than anyone else
I'm sure that's great for the companies producing those, I'm not convinced that will lead to them burning less coal (although their coming demographic collapse almost certainly will.) Germany was in a pretty similar situation too and the current situation is the consequence.
China does not have to import food from the US.
In all honesty, China and the US are unique nations in that they don't have to import anything from anyone. It's politically and financially convenient for them to import the things they import, so they do. But they are both perfectly capable of meeting their own needs with domestic production if the issue is pressed. Even where they don't currently manufacture a thing, they're both able to ramp up manufacturing of that thing in a timeframe unthinkable for other nations.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
2: https://www.statista.com/statistics/859266/number-of-coal-po...
They like playing the panic angle of course, and closing the tap once in a while, but I think it's mostly hot air
[0] https://www.statista.com/chart/27615/daily-russian-fossil-fu...
Coupled with solar, wind and existing hydro, it is our best path forward for sustainable future in the mid term. It is not just about being "green" or saving the planet from global warming. It is about energy independence.
People get quiet when they realize that the energy investors won't pay for it so you end up with Uncle Sam footing the bill. Any analyst just looks at the financial disaster that is Vogtie and it becomes impossible to justify investment. Unless the government bankrolls you.
In the US, we need to get comfortable with the government owning large swathes of energy production capacity. Until we are, and are willing to pay the taxes and authorize the disbursements to make these things happen, nuclear will not happen in the big way we need it to.
We F ourselves because we don't allow construction companies to do their jobs.
Construction costs money and time. Metallurgy costs money and time. And on and on and on.
I doubt we could build a reactor for less than USD5 Billion even with no regulations at all. This stuff takes time, and if you don't get it right, the damn things don't work. It's not like they work with less efficiency, they just don't work at all if any one of a thousand critical things is done incorrectly. Then that has to be fixed, and you try again. And so on.
And keep in mind, that's for designs we are familiar with and understand. Just imagine trying to build and scale out the new designs. When it comes to the new designs, what is it that we don't know that we don't know? How much time and money will those mistakes cost?
It's about a lot more than environmentalism.
Put in layman's terms: "This stuff is just hard."
Getting rid of regulations helps some. Getting rid of the need to actually make any kind of money by making the government shoulder the costs helps even more. But in the end, you're still left with constructing a nuclear plant. Which is an extremely hard problem that is enormously expensive to solve.
So put yourself in the place of an energy investor, what's s/he going to do? Raise USD5 Billion to spend on the hopes that we can actually construct one of these correctly and under budget in under 10 years? Or just keep slapping up wind farms and start pulling in his/her generation fee in less than a month?
The construction isn't the big cost - it's all the nonsense that we do to interfere with those trying to build the plants.
You need to contract for specialized materials to make components. Forge those materials incorrectly and it's PHYSICS that stops the project from working, not the government. Not lawsuits. Do you have an idea of how much it costs to enrich nuclear materials? Do you have an idea what the specs are for materials that can contain enriched nuclear materials? Materials that can contain a meltdown? What it takes to construct structures incorporating said materials?
I'll tell you right now that it will cost more than lawsuits about the hornbutted swallow losing its habitat or whatever. That's just reality.
More realistically, this is a time where most countries in EU should be scrambling to throw money at new energy projects and energy modernization. That should help with both the energy crisis long term, and focusing money on internal infrastructure seems to have good track records for reducing inflation. Reducing imports dependency from Russia, especially in a different currency, should strengthen the euro.
Most off grid systems have some sort of generator for the long stretches of cloudy days, and in a cold climate, pretty much everyone uses fossil fuels for heating off grid due to the energy density, reliability, and low cost.
Anything else starts being really cost prohibitive if you do the math on ‘I get X amount of heat during these long tail scenarios or the pipes burst/I freeze’.
Physics is a bitch.
The whole world is supposed to be off fossil fuels by now, and here we are hoping and praying Germany and the rest of the EU gets enough fossil fuels to burn this winter.
If humanity was to look at itself in the mirror, it would see an image stupid freaking hypocrite clown.
Solar, Nuclear, Wind, get after it, it's so late now it almost feels like a waste of time...
I've read from a few different places now that people who are part of Nordstream were powerful in German politics and had an incentive to push Gas over nuclear.
I'm sure there are multiple factors at play.
I used to think the great filter thesis stems from the natural hostility of the universe, but I'm now convinced it stems from the danger of monkey brain.
Below a graph from the Dutch TTF Gas Futures from the past 2 years. The contract price is in Euros and Euro cents per MWh.
https://www.theice.com/products/27996665/Dutch-TTF-Gas-Futur...
Edit: those are just numbers on a screen but in real life that means the energy/gas bill increases between 5x - 10x if this continues.
They've done the same for nuclear.
They've planned this invasion and freezing Europe this winter is all part of their plan.
Russia is not some bit player in Oil and Natural gas industry, 5 million barrels per day ? That is a huge amount of hydrocarbons to replace. Of course, Europe will scramble to find alternatives and before they go cold, will fuck the Global South again from its limited supplies, it already started happening - Pakistan got its NG supplier broke contract and sold gas under contract to Europe.
Europe is going to get screwed but in an effort save its ass it will create a frenzy in global south that would tip many countries into absolute choas.
And it's not only about finding other energy sources, it's also about using the energy in a smarter way. Better insulated houses and heat pumps work well here in northern Europe, why hasn't this been a priority the last ten years at least?
I'm paying much more for my electricity now even though we hardly use any natural gas in this country, because we're exporting electricity to countries that do, driving up our prices. Their shortsightedness is costing me money and adding more CO2 to our atmosphere. If it was only because of the war in Ukraine I wouldn't mind as much, but come winter and millions of people in other countries are going to burn expensive Russian gas to heat poorly insulated houses leaking heat like a sieve.
They absolutely should have seen this coming.
This is bigger than Germany closing some nuclear plants, although that obviously isn't helping. Despite knowing that natural gas is a fossil fuel that we need to stop using the cost of using it hasn't been high enough to dissuade using it. This sudden increase in cost and the crisis it has and will cause really shows that economy is the only thing that matters, people will continue burning whatever they can get as long as it's cheap, since the external cost of global warming isn't properly included in the price. Neither was security risks, and we're all paying for that now.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/873552/energy-mix-in-ita...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1235432/hungary-distribu...
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
I'm glad that there are still people who understand this. In the Netherlands 90% of the homes[1] still run on natural gas and that's not something we can "simply" replace. It is possible and will eventually happen but it will take years if not decades.
And that's just homes in the Netherlands. Take a look at the global energy mix[2] how much the world still depends on gas.
[1] https://www-cbs-nl.translate.goog/nl-nl/nieuws/2021/07/92-pr...
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix