Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources. Here's an article about the discussion while Reagan was president: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/climate/europe-russia-gas...
In contrast, the US has invested staggering amounts of money into work on energy independence (triggered by the OPEC embargo in the 70s). This led to research in solar, wind, and fracking, which eventually led to significant improvements.
2. The energy jugular vein of parts of Europe is exposed to those who are happy to hurt Europe. I think France is mostly okay due to nuclear power (yes some are down for delayed maintenance, but they still have a lot being generated).
Yes, yes, it's all more complicated than any simple summary can make it. But lack of energy for a country can quickly lead to a lot of dead people. A country is unwise if it ignores the issue. In contrast, I think it's quite reasonable to take steps to ensure that any necessary energy will be available in the future.
It is utterly inexcusable that Germany continued to rely entirely on Russian gas after the invasion of Crimea in 2014 at the very latest. We didn't have a single LNG terminal!
Pick your mix of blind stupidity and outright corruption, but I lean heavily towards the latter.
Look no further than Gerhard Schroder (ex Chancellor of Germany). He was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline between Russia and Germany. He later became manager of Nord Stream 2, he joined the board of directors of Rosnef (biggest Russian oil producer) and 20 days before the Russian invasion he joined the board of directors of Gazprom
The whole issue is self inflicted by the German government. So far Russia adhered to the supply contracts. The stakes are high for Russia here. If Russia would not adhere to the contract even in these times, other contract partners like India and China would likely reconsider their long term contracts.
It was Europe which decided not to by cheap Russian gas anymore and to ground their own economy. Instead Europa has to buy gas now on the spot market for about ten times the price. So Russia is more than happy by adhering to the contract and watching Europe to inflicting the damage themselves.
If the West would have decided to buy their NLG somewhere else 5 years ago, Russia would have invaded the Ukraine even with less considerations.
But tbh even since the 1970s, we know peak oil is coming. Nuclear fission and fusion plus full electrification of industry, transport and homes, and renewable energy investment should be absolutely critical. This is what taxes and governments are for!
Jumping on the US bandwagon so late is a mistake though, given the current situation it'd be best to stay neutral realistically (like Armenia, Georgia, etc.) and use the time to achieve the above. Ideology is nice, but realpolitik keeps the lights on.
America won the landgrab lottery and sits on plenty of oil and gas, which makes this kind of talk really cheap right now. Having a democratic neighbor like Canada with equal resources and 1/10th of the population also helps. Europe is not in that position and I wish people would understand that.
Seems like it should be even more of a focus than no? If North America is concerned _and_ has enough resources with teamwork, then it must be a pretty big deal. "Told you so" always feels cheap, even more so when it's right.
If only Europe was on good terms with Canada and America and had LNG terminals to import natural gas from it's allies and other middle eastern countries who are happy to sell natural gas to europe instead of solely relying on russian imports...
Nuclear in Germany got shut down, and Europe could have chosen the US as a trading partner over Russia (I am assuming as a non-economist, non-FP expert).
If I were on a jury to decide if European leader should have acted differently in the last decade regarding energy stability, I know where I lean.
That was during the cold war 40 years ago and the US couldn't have said otherwise at this time given how entrenched and polarised the conflict was.
The EU has been built on the concept of collaboration. It's not for no reason that Macron called a couple weeks ago for being careful not humiliating the Russian civilisation (with of course sanctions being necessary), to fend off the risk of seeing the same thing repeating itself in a few generations. History demonstrated that many times.
Those warnings from the US are usually transparent geopolitical self interest. That’s not to say it’s incorrect, just that Europe does not need the US new world bumpkins to teach them about energy policy or dictate its foreign relations. It is perfectly capable of managing and mismanaging its own interests.
> Those warnings from the US are usually transparent geopolitical self interest. That’s not to say it’s incorrect, ...
All countries speak for their own self interest... but the warnings can also be correct.
If millions of Europeans freeze or starve, that hurts the US greatly too. Their economies are deeply intertwined, and there's enough shared history that many in in the US would feel it personally.
> just that Europe does not need the US new world bumpkins to teach them about energy policy or dictate its foreign relations. It is perfectly capable of managing and mismanaging its own interests.
All countries manage their own interests; no one would expect otherwise. But thinking "they're new world bumpkins, they have nothing worth listening to" is a terrible idea. Sometimes the new kid on the block has learned something. The US is often happy to steal good ideas from anyone, regardless of age. The US has lots of problems (who doesn't?), but it also has many advantages - not just due to the "luck of the draw", but due to careful investment to turn potential advantages into real ones.
> I think France is mostly okay due to nuclear power (yes some are down for delayed maintenance
To the contrary, they have had to scale back nuclear because the rivers they use for cooling are too warm [1].
And they have resorted to importing power:
"That means France is importing power at a time it would normally be exporting it and EDF is buying electricity at high market prices, just as Europe is scrambling to find alternative energy supplies to Russia."
That's very patronising. All these "warnings" were distant echoes of internal debates Europe has been having for decades. They're nothing that Europe didn't know about already.
It's like saying "European policy makers have been warning USA about the dangers of repelling the right to abortion". Playing the role of Captain Obvious isn't helpful.
Additionally, Europe isn't Europe. Europe is a collection of sovereign states. Eastern Europe has been warning some western European countries about the dangers of relying on Russia for decades (no, USA's expert advice was not required to reach this conclusion).
The difficulty here in the UK is that we're caught up in it inadvertently.
Despite common perception, only 3% of our gas comes from Russia. Half is North Sea and a third from Norway, with the rest shipped in from elsewhere in the world.
Unfortunately it doesn't matter that only 3% comes from Russia, because prices are set in a market where other countries have more reliance on Russia. The UK ends up paying more as a result.
(To be clear our energy policy is terrible; it just so happens that on this one point it isn't our fault).
here's an archive of a tweet with replies from 2018 where the idea was being mocked, fun reading if you enjoy some schadenfreude. Plus the German delegation laughing at the idea
Can someone explain to me why the US is the next source for energy rather than directly from the much geographicly closer Middle East, which the US spent a significant amount of political & military resources bringing into its sphere for its own energy needs?
> Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources.
Thankfully the fact checkers were there to save us. "Germany only imports a fraction of it's energy from Russia" with the smug faces, silly music and everything.
Yeah, because the US wanted especially Germany to buy US LNG instead of Russian gas. The latter worked since the 69s, it worled all the wayvthrough the Reagan admin and the end of the cold war, the fall of the soviet union until Putin turned nuts. All in all, tgat bad dependency worked nicely for 50+ years.
> Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sources.
The alternative point of view is that Europe is in an energy crisis because it decided to sanction Russia over Ukraine, and Russia responded in kind. The decision to sanction Russia, while morally justifiable, was not strictly necessary and was in part driven by EU's alliance with the US. If the EU had been a really autonomous subject it would have taken in account its own interests first in this crisis.
Cutting Russia off was pretty much the only sensible choice and the problem is entirely because they also rely on such a source for energy, had they not been so needy of Russia there wouldn't be a problem, when Russia is a problem state you shouldn't be giving them power or leverage over you at all and they were always likely to do something that would be problematic, nothing they have done is unexpected, Europe walked right into Russias hands and it was clear to see.
It's the same reason why a lot of the world needs to back away from China ASAP or else we will be in this situation again just with a range of other resources/manufacturing in the not to distant future.
>> it would have taken in account its own interests first in this crisis.
Europe did take account of its own interests
The primary interest of Europe is to put a stop to Russian aggression and genocide.
The RUS govt itself has said that it will not stop at Ukraine, which it also states has no right to exist, and that Poland and the Baltics are next.
Aggressors and autocrats will only stop when they ARE stopped by an outside force. Every other "negotiation" or appeasement is taken as a sign of weakness or permission. Destroy entire cities in Chechnya, Syria, Georgia? No opposition? OK, must be fine. Occupy and annex Crimea & Donbas? A bit of tut-tutting, but no real opposition, must be fine. So, we get the Ukranian war and threats against Poland and the Baltics, and just yesterday against the British isles.
Not being killed is the first interest of Europe.
Not being subjugated to an authoritarian regime is a close second.
Maintaining low energy pricing and high availability is definitely lower than both.
Just because the US is showing leadership and many countries agree that genocide is bad and should be sanctioned does not mean that the agreeing party is somehow not independent. Stop carrying Putin's water.
The US has invested staggering amounts of money into work on anti-nuclear lobbying in France, a country which wanted an independant Europe on civilian and military nuclear. Hallstein, a former personnality of the nazi party ironically contributed to the European energetic dependence to the USA and Russia notably.
Economic interdependence is good to maintain peace. Especially after the Cold War I can understand this incentive to strengthen the relations with Russia. The mistake was to continue to believe in it after Putin took Crimea in 2014.
>Economic interdependence is good to maintain peace.
False. Even before Ww2, European countries were still economically interdependent and yet still WW2 happened. What maintains peace is democratically elected leaders and separation of powers so that no single mad-man can ever singlehandedly turn a nation to war. That's why we had peace since WW2, democracy. Which Russia rever really had. So being dependent on countries with corrupt undemocratic governments where one leader can do whatever he feels like with no real opposition to stop him, was the real issue.
> Economic interdependence is good to maintain peace.
I think history has plenty of counter-examples. Interdependence also provides incentives for one to either take over or extort the other. Taiwan and mainland China are interdependent, and that situation is tense.
I think it's the other way around. If the relationships are already peaceful, then it's much safer to have interdependence. Think Canada/US, or the various countries within the EU.
Ironically, Europe is now becoming dependent on Chinese LNG imports, much of which comes from Russia. The sanctions are not working.
>The more desperate Europe becomes about its energy supplies, the more China’s policy decisions will have the power to affect the bloc. As Europe attempts to wrestle out of its dependence on Russia for energy, the irony is that it is becoming more dependent on China.
Germany is neither sunny nor windy, and is maintaining an anti-nuclear stance for the moment. I'm sure it will try a renewable play, waste tons of money for marginal results, and end up burning its local coal deposits instead. That or concede to Russian demands.
Instead of what? Making the switch will require tremendous effort that must come from something else, which Germany will necessarily lose (not produce). Likely this would be distributed through the economy so that there will be a bit less of everything else - shoes, haircuts, food, etc.
If China buys from Russia at discounted prices because the demand for russian oil has fallen, and then resells at a higher price to Europe, it's not quite true that the sanctions are not working. Russia's bleeding out as well.
Russia’s economy is contracting so in what sense are sanctions not working? They aren’t 100% effective but they do appear to be having an effect and long term the effects, if sanctions remain, will force Russia into a pseudo vassal client of China.
Most economies worldwide have been contracting this year, along with price inflation on commodities including food.
If the intent of Russian sanctions was to increase prices of food and fuel in USA to harm the working poor in USA, then Russian sanctions are going great.
The problem is that a contracting economy doesn’t faze ordinary Russians outside of Moscow and St Petersburg all that much.
They were already poor. They’ll get a little poorer. But they’ll have enough to eat and enough to heat their homes. And they’ll still believe that Russian pride is intact, and that’s all that matters.
The entire sanctions approach fails so spectacularly because the capitalist Western ideology sees everything in terms of money and wealth. Outside of the west, most people will happily suffer if they believe that their pride and identity is being protected. This is something Americans just don’t understand at all.
The European gas sanctions specifically aren't working:
1. The gas is just being arbitraged via China. It's a commodity, it makes no sense to stop buying from source A and start buying from source B if B is willing to buy from A.
2. Gazprom is now making record-breaking profits.
Europe is now facing an unprecedented and mostly self inflicted crisis of the type that didn't occur even during the cold war. The Russians claim they are willing to fill up to half of Nord Stream 2 the moment Germany decides to accept it. If that's a lie then the energy crisis is real. If it's not a lie then European leaders are manipulating the public - sanctioning Russia so they feel good and virtuous whilst simultaneously claiming the sanctions are the other way around and there's nothing they can do to get more gas.
Sanctions on non-commodities like chips, specialist tools, infrastructure access? That can work and is probably having an impact. Sanctions on a commodity that can be moved around as a liquid? That can only work in theory if everyone does it despite the huge incentives to defect.
My understanding is that the gas China is reselling is not from Russia, or at least mostly, rather Middle East. Russian energy exports to China are small and without an obvious immediate way to increase it. It is also had that China has no use for si they are a beneficiary too.
Maybe it's because I'm not American, but having someone talking about how much worse it is in Europe compared to the US while saying things like what I quote below, doesn't really entice me to continue watching the video much further, no matter how much I agree that Europe is fucked at the moment.
> (31:36) You guys wanna see what the Chinese and the Europeans are bitching about, 'cause this is so much fun. (all laughing) Europe's already in recession.
> We are looking at an energy induced depression that is affecting multiple continents probably already, but not here. This is a good problem.
> This gives us a competitive advantage in everything.
Is it generally considered funny and/or OK to shit on others misfortune while laughing about it? Bragging about how much better it is for you that others feel pain about something?
>Is it generally considered funny and/or OK to shit on others misfortune while laughing about it? Bragging about how much better it is for you that others feel pain about something?
The video is from a talk at an Iowan Pork Producer Industry event, not an academic presentation. His audience (the Iowan Pork Industry) was likely very happy to hear this news, given that it is bad for their competitors.
>Maybe it's because I'm not American
I wouldn't extrapolate Iowan pig farmers to all United States citizens.
Probably catering to his audience. His books are much more even, and when he's gone on podcasts he points out how he'd like to be wrong about what he sees. That particular laugh also came off as rather forced.
Simple fact is though that America is the big winner in a European energy crisis. We get to sell Europe all the excess energy we can pump out while simultaneously gaining all the European industry that can leave/requires cheap energy.
Isn't shitting on U.S. culture (e.g. "oh at least we don't do x!") while driving home with a Big Mac one of the most Euro things to do? I've seen various shades of this in the U.K., France, Italy etc. I'm not sure I would be getting out the small violins tbh as the friendly animosity is kind of funny. Western Europe is essentially NA-lite economically and politically anyway.
"Is it generally considered funny and/or OK to shit on others misfortune while laughing about it? Bragging about how much better it is for you that others feel pain about something?"
No it isn't. I'm American btw. Sorry, some people are jerks.
I'm Indian, not any of the groups mentioned by him, and I too found him way too cringe-inducing. He came across too strongly as trying to push some agenda. I did not feel like sticking around long enough to find out what the agenda was.
>Maybe it's because I'm not American, but having someone talking about how much worse it is in Europe compared to the US while saying things like what I quote below, doesn't really entice me to continue watching the video much further, no matter how much I agree that Europe is fucked at the moment.
Watch the video from the start. He takes a similar "ha ha serious" sarcastic view toward everything, including (for example) the potential for Russia to use nuclear weapons (7:35).
Basically, this is an inside look at American nationalism. Most Americans would not cheer at the misfortune of allies and major trading partners, but there is a segment of nationalists, probably voters of a certain you know who.
Funnily enough, if we look at the most dumb recession criterion (2 consequent quarters of negative growth), the EU is definitely not in a recession while the US is.
> Is it generally considered funny and/or OK to shit on others misfortune while laughing about it? Bragging about how much better it is for you that others feel pain about something?
This is consistent with the American stereotype in several places… Though it is not consistent with my experience with American, but then I don’t tend to hang out with loud obnoxious jerks.
So I watched basically every bit of video that includes Zeihan and I have never once been able to actually confirm the stats he says. That paired with how convenient it is that as the world is going into turmoil we have an academic-ish person taking a bold pro-american stance I am very wary of trusting/promoting him.
If you want to take away that global supply chains are fully breaking down and that demographic trends are going to lead to labour shortages I do think that is pretty unassailable.
But he also says that the Chinese navy is only a coastal force and can't power project into the Indian Ocean to protect its trade routes, which is utterly wrong. Or the bit where he says about only ~10% of German electricity comes from wind + solar (while claiming they built out wind + solar to a theoretical 200% of daily capacity, and it's mostly just idle). It's actually 33% which is too wide of a miss for me to trust any numbers he states.
(Aside: His arrow at the start of the clip points to Waterloo, not Marshalltown.)
I was thinking about Peter Zeihan as well when I saw this item. I'd be keen to find someone who communicates as well as he does but has opposite conclusions, because he certainly seems to string a lot of real data into interesting narratives. He seems to be the geopolitical answer to Adam Curtis.
I agree - his narrative is largely a lullaby about how great america is. He gets somet things very wrong, like e.g. how china cannot produce anything of high quality. But many of his points are well justified, like this energy crisis or the looming pensions/welfare crises in europe. Europeans seem to care less about these than zeihan does. His predictions are not to be taken verbatim (they are linear extrapolations based on demographics trends), but some of them will surely pan out. (Some of them will not, like e.g. how japan was not ruined despite its abysmal demographics).
I'm willing to entertain the idea that I find him engaging because he reinforces a narrative that I'm drawn to. But he comes with reasonable sounding receipts so its hard to see how he overstates his case.
Every time Peter Zeihan is brought up there's a comment like this, and every time said comment lacks any examples of actual misinformation. Sometimes the occasional mention of one of his past predictions that didn't/hasn't (yet) come true, but no actual examples of misinformation.
This lends his argument more credence in my mind, not less.
Meh, it's not gonna be the end of the world. Prices for consumers will increase (maybe around 3x), but if the poorest are helped accordingly it's not so bad and will actual push people to be more responsible.
This whole crisis actually mostly show how absurd our energy grid is, and the poor strategic choices made in the previous decades. It also pushes for much needed reforms and investments (300 billions in renewables announced a few days ago).
> but if the poorest are helped accordingly it's not so bad
Prices for consumers increasing thricefold will send a major part of the population deep into debt (e.g. >20% of the German population have no financial reserves at all, living paycheck to paycheck) and drop a major part of the middle class down to the living standard of the (pre-2020) lower class.
I mean, sure, you're right, it's not the end of the world, we will recover from this and hopefully emerge with renewables everywhere, but even if we manage this crisis optimally, the next few years will be quite rocky both politically and economically here in Europe.
And I'm quite scared what happens if we should fuck up, because...
> and will actual push people to be more responsible
... this whole mess can also, alternatively, push people to extreme, simple "solutions" offered by more extremist parts of the political spectrum instead. :/
>Meh, it's not gonna be the end of the world. Prices for consumers will increase (maybe around 3x),
No, more like 10X.
>but if the poorest are helped accordingly it's not so bad and will actual push people to be more responsible.
This is not a case of "government can cap the bills" or "government can provide subsidies to help pay for higher bills" or, even, "government can ration electricity". Setting aside the inflationary and other side effects of doing so, *SUBSIDIES AND RATIONING DON'T MATTER IF THERE IS NO SUPPLY*.
Define 'poorest' because gas and electricity bills are predicted to reach an average of £5000. That isn't affordable for even some in the middle class.
I get where this comes from, but at least in France and Germany it's not questioned that there will be assistance and even direct intervention from the gouvernement on the electricity market. We're talking about democracies with strong socialist components after all.
And also, Macron will definitely do everything to avoid another Yellow Jackets episode...
YES! Jesus christ it shows how shortsighted parlementary democracies are. And many individuals: Becoming semi-powerindependent has been possible and cheaper for a long time with Solar Panels. It doesn't heat your house though. But really, who needs to heat so much anyway? Just heat one room, wear a jumper, and visit your friends or the pub instead.
But no, instead of calling for behavioral change, what do the politicians say now? Subsidize!
Thank god I live in Switzerland. The most democratic country in the world, and Europe's least dependent on Russian Gas.
Almost half of the Swiss gas imports are from Russia, and let's add to that a part of the EU imports - which probably more than half originate from Russia as well. But making extraordinary claims was always at the heart of Swissness, right?
"Geopolitical tensions around the Ukraine conflict between Russia and a not truly consistent US/European conglomerate are straining and the word “sanctions” is being touted with rising frequency. But by analysing flows it’s clear that any material sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports are unlikely to materialise. If this were to happen, Europe would have much more to lose than Russia. In this insight we’ll explore why."
Basically, Russia depended on Europe for about half of its fossil fuel export market in 2020, a steep drop from 2010 when Europe made up about 80% of the exports.
Unfortunately the geopolitical prediction was a bit off:
> "Given just how huge the ramifications would be for Europe, as well as how toothless flow sanctions would be without blocking Russian exports, which in turn would put the entire world into a different place, we deem it most likely that current tensions will be solved diplomatically."
As a European, we know - we've already lost ~25% of the value of our savings and purchasing power between double-digit inflation and the Euro crashing >20% in less than a year.
But our governments are so committed to this path, there's no way back.
Personally I don't care whether it's Ukrainian or Russian oligarchs charging the gas transit fees, I just want peace and stability. Then we can invest heavily in nuclear fission and fusion and renewable energy sources.
Peace and stability is how we are in this mess. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Western Europe did nothing, to keep the peace. Russia was emboldened to continue the campaign to annex the rest of Ukraine because they knew no one was going to stop them. And outside of monetary and weapons aid they were mostly right, the Ukrainians are in this fight by themselves. Everyone else is making excuses about keeping the peace and not letting the price of gas get too high.
When Russia annexed Ukraine nobody anything, including the US. Besides, of course, working with Ukraine behind the scenes to prepare for a potential similar event. And that oreparation worked, didn't it?
I like how HN ignores the historical context when it comes to Russia, gas and Europe. This history goes much further back than 2014...
>As a European, we know - we've already lost ~25% of the value of our savings and purchasing power between double-digit inflation and the Euro crashing >20% in less than a year.
We've lost a lot more during the covid money printer bull run of 2020-2022 when house prices went though the roof. Good luck affording a house now that our wages are worth less and our energy bills are higher.
As a European, I want this tumor at our doorstep excised. We fooled ourselves into believing trade would magically bring Russia in line; absolutely nothing bears this out. Russian rulers have been a horrible influence on humans in our continent for centuries (remember, Russians have to live there largely in squalor every day for as long as the country exists).
I do hope future generations don't suffer the consequences of our need for 'peace' (a more factual description would be self-delusion). Actual peace means an excision like we did with Nazi rule. There can be no trace left, or else it'll keep festering for more centuries still.
The issues with these articles is that they focus on money, and the price of energy, which leads people to believe either consciously or not that something can be helped with money. It can't. There is a fundamental supply constraint that has nothing to do with money.
People will consume less, either because prices rise and they choose not to pay them, or by rationing, or by random blackouts (gas-outs?).
I still feel like I don't after reading the article.
Somewhat tragic that energy conservation, in the age of climate change, requires Russia stopping supplies in the middle of a gas shortage to be politically viable.
If you go there, every barge is covered in solar panels (at least in Germany, Belgium where I was recently). Lots of wind farms, great public transportation and train systems. Etc etc.
Europe is doing well compared with Russia or red american states, but they got seriously swerved off course for about a decade there due to populist pro-fossil fuel movements and are now trying to course correct, like more solar manufacturing, EV and batteries.
Again, they're relatively doing well but not up to their previous own high standards.
Readit News
In contrast, the US has invested staggering amounts of money into work on energy independence (triggered by the OPEC embargo in the 70s). This led to research in solar, wind, and fracking, which eventually led to significant improvements.
The result is that while things aren't perfect:
1. The US is a net energy exporter: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/imports-...
2. The energy jugular vein of parts of Europe is exposed to those who are happy to hurt Europe. I think France is mostly okay due to nuclear power (yes some are down for delayed maintenance, but they still have a lot being generated).
Yes, yes, it's all more complicated than any simple summary can make it. But lack of energy for a country can quickly lead to a lot of dead people. A country is unwise if it ignores the issue. In contrast, I think it's quite reasonable to take steps to ensure that any necessary energy will be available in the future.
Pick your mix of blind stupidity and outright corruption, but I lean heavily towards the latter.
It was Europe which decided not to by cheap Russian gas anymore and to ground their own economy. Instead Europa has to buy gas now on the spot market for about ten times the price. So Russia is more than happy by adhering to the contract and watching Europe to inflicting the damage themselves.
If the West would have decided to buy their NLG somewhere else 5 years ago, Russia would have invaded the Ukraine even with less considerations.
But tbh even since the 1970s, we know peak oil is coming. Nuclear fission and fusion plus full electrification of industry, transport and homes, and renewable energy investment should be absolutely critical. This is what taxes and governments are for!
Jumping on the US bandwagon so late is a mistake though, given the current situation it'd be best to stay neutral realistically (like Armenia, Georgia, etc.) and use the time to achieve the above. Ideology is nice, but realpolitik keeps the lights on.
Germany 'Totally Controlled By Russia' (2018)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LLZBVTid4I
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If I were on a jury to decide if European leader should have acted differently in the last decade regarding energy stability, I know where I lean.
The EU has been built on the concept of collaboration. It's not for no reason that Macron called a couple weeks ago for being careful not humiliating the Russian civilisation (with of course sanctions being necessary), to fend off the risk of seeing the same thing repeating itself in a few generations. History demonstrated that many times.
Yeah, we wouldn't want to be humiliating a civilization that's currently killing another one. That would be too tough. /s
I mean, if its so obvious that even Trump can figure it out, how dumb are you???
All countries speak for their own self interest... but the warnings can also be correct.
If millions of Europeans freeze or starve, that hurts the US greatly too. Their economies are deeply intertwined, and there's enough shared history that many in in the US would feel it personally.
> just that Europe does not need the US new world bumpkins to teach them about energy policy or dictate its foreign relations. It is perfectly capable of managing and mismanaging its own interests.
All countries manage their own interests; no one would expect otherwise. But thinking "they're new world bumpkins, they have nothing worth listening to" is a terrible idea. Sometimes the new kid on the block has learned something. The US is often happy to steal good ideas from anyone, regardless of age. The US has lots of problems (who doesn't?), but it also has many advantages - not just due to the "luck of the draw", but due to careful investment to turn potential advantages into real ones.
To the contrary, they have had to scale back nuclear because the rivers they use for cooling are too warm [1].
And they have resorted to importing power:
"That means France is importing power at a time it would normally be exporting it and EDF is buying electricity at high market prices, just as Europe is scrambling to find alternative energy supplies to Russia."
1. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threa...
That's very patronising. All these "warnings" were distant echoes of internal debates Europe has been having for decades. They're nothing that Europe didn't know about already.
It's like saying "European policy makers have been warning USA about the dangers of repelling the right to abortion". Playing the role of Captain Obvious isn't helpful.
Additionally, Europe isn't Europe. Europe is a collection of sovereign states. Eastern Europe has been warning some western European countries about the dangers of relying on Russia for decades (no, USA's expert advice was not required to reach this conclusion).
Despite common perception, only 3% of our gas comes from Russia. Half is North Sea and a third from Norway, with the rest shipped in from elsewhere in the world.
Unfortunately it doesn't matter that only 3% comes from Russia, because prices are set in a market where other countries have more reliance on Russia. The UK ends up paying more as a result.
(To be clear our energy policy is terrible; it just so happens that on this one point it isn't our fault).
https://archive.ph/cLWvW
now Europe is staring down the barrel of a 25x increase in electricity cost this winter
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2018, even Trump... https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit/obama-tells...
Now that changes an Europe will adapt.
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I think that tends to undermine the point though.
The alternative point of view is that Europe is in an energy crisis because it decided to sanction Russia over Ukraine, and Russia responded in kind. The decision to sanction Russia, while morally justifiable, was not strictly necessary and was in part driven by EU's alliance with the US. If the EU had been a really autonomous subject it would have taken in account its own interests first in this crisis.
Cutting Russia off was pretty much the only sensible choice and the problem is entirely because they also rely on such a source for energy, had they not been so needy of Russia there wouldn't be a problem, when Russia is a problem state you shouldn't be giving them power or leverage over you at all and they were always likely to do something that would be problematic, nothing they have done is unexpected, Europe walked right into Russias hands and it was clear to see.
It's the same reason why a lot of the world needs to back away from China ASAP or else we will be in this situation again just with a range of other resources/manufacturing in the not to distant future.
Europe did take account of its own interests
The primary interest of Europe is to put a stop to Russian aggression and genocide.
The RUS govt itself has said that it will not stop at Ukraine, which it also states has no right to exist, and that Poland and the Baltics are next.
Aggressors and autocrats will only stop when they ARE stopped by an outside force. Every other "negotiation" or appeasement is taken as a sign of weakness or permission. Destroy entire cities in Chechnya, Syria, Georgia? No opposition? OK, must be fine. Occupy and annex Crimea & Donbas? A bit of tut-tutting, but no real opposition, must be fine. So, we get the Ukranian war and threats against Poland and the Baltics, and just yesterday against the British isles.
Not being killed is the first interest of Europe.
Not being subjugated to an authoritarian regime is a close second.
Maintaining low energy pricing and high availability is definitely lower than both.
Just because the US is showing leadership and many countries agree that genocide is bad and should be sanctioned does not mean that the agreeing party is somehow not independent. Stop carrying Putin's water.
[0] https://livre.fnac.com/a2917645/Vincent-Nouzille-Les-dossier...
False. Even before Ww2, European countries were still economically interdependent and yet still WW2 happened. What maintains peace is democratically elected leaders and separation of powers so that no single mad-man can ever singlehandedly turn a nation to war. That's why we had peace since WW2, democracy. Which Russia rever really had. So being dependent on countries with corrupt undemocratic governments where one leader can do whatever he feels like with no real opposition to stop him, was the real issue.
I think history has plenty of counter-examples. Interdependence also provides incentives for one to either take over or extort the other. Taiwan and mainland China are interdependent, and that situation is tense.
I think it's the other way around. If the relationships are already peaceful, then it's much safer to have interdependence. Think Canada/US, or the various countries within the EU.
>The more desperate Europe becomes about its energy supplies, the more China’s policy decisions will have the power to affect the bloc. As Europe attempts to wrestle out of its dependence on Russia for energy, the irony is that it is becoming more dependent on China.
https://www.ft.com/content/1e20467a-5b53-42b7-ad89-49808f7e1...https://archive.ph/APcGS
The gas is not coming back. The ministry of economy instructed city energy utilities to "stop investing" into their gas infrastructure...
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If the intent of Russian sanctions was to increase prices of food and fuel in USA to harm the working poor in USA, then Russian sanctions are going great.
They were already poor. They’ll get a little poorer. But they’ll have enough to eat and enough to heat their homes. And they’ll still believe that Russian pride is intact, and that’s all that matters.
The entire sanctions approach fails so spectacularly because the capitalist Western ideology sees everything in terms of money and wealth. Outside of the west, most people will happily suffer if they believe that their pride and identity is being protected. This is something Americans just don’t understand at all.
1. The gas is just being arbitraged via China. It's a commodity, it makes no sense to stop buying from source A and start buying from source B if B is willing to buy from A.
2. Gazprom is now making record-breaking profits.
Europe is now facing an unprecedented and mostly self inflicted crisis of the type that didn't occur even during the cold war. The Russians claim they are willing to fill up to half of Nord Stream 2 the moment Germany decides to accept it. If that's a lie then the energy crisis is real. If it's not a lie then European leaders are manipulating the public - sanctioning Russia so they feel good and virtuous whilst simultaneously claiming the sanctions are the other way around and there's nothing they can do to get more gas.
Sanctions on non-commodities like chips, specialist tools, infrastructure access? That can work and is probably having an impact. Sanctions on a commodity that can be moved around as a liquid? That can only work in theory if everyone does it despite the huge incentives to defect.
FTA: >Through these emergency measures, Europe looks to weather the coming winter, even if pipeline flows are 80 per cent lower than at normal times.
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Watch a few minutes of this, starting from the given timestamp:
https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=1746
Europe is in more trouble than I imagined.
> (31:36) You guys wanna see what the Chinese and the Europeans are bitching about, 'cause this is so much fun. (all laughing) Europe's already in recession.
> We are looking at an energy induced depression that is affecting multiple continents probably already, but not here. This is a good problem.
> This gives us a competitive advantage in everything.
Is it generally considered funny and/or OK to shit on others misfortune while laughing about it? Bragging about how much better it is for you that others feel pain about something?
The video is from a talk at an Iowan Pork Producer Industry event, not an academic presentation. His audience (the Iowan Pork Industry) was likely very happy to hear this news, given that it is bad for their competitors.
>Maybe it's because I'm not American
I wouldn't extrapolate Iowan pig farmers to all United States citizens.
Simple fact is though that America is the big winner in a European energy crisis. We get to sell Europe all the excess energy we can pump out while simultaneously gaining all the European industry that can leave/requires cheap energy.
No it isn't. I'm American btw. Sorry, some people are jerks.
Watch the video from the start. He takes a similar "ha ha serious" sarcastic view toward everything, including (for example) the potential for Russia to use nuclear weapons (7:35).
Funnily enough, if we look at the most dumb recession criterion (2 consequent quarters of negative growth), the EU is definitely not in a recession while the US is.
This is consistent with the American stereotype in several places… Though it is not consistent with my experience with American, but then I don’t tend to hang out with loud obnoxious jerks.
Empathy is in short supply overall.
If you want to take away that global supply chains are fully breaking down and that demographic trends are going to lead to labour shortages I do think that is pretty unassailable.
But he also says that the Chinese navy is only a coastal force and can't power project into the Indian Ocean to protect its trade routes, which is utterly wrong. Or the bit where he says about only ~10% of German electricity comes from wind + solar (while claiming they built out wind + solar to a theoretical 200% of daily capacity, and it's mostly just idle). It's actually 33% which is too wide of a miss for me to trust any numbers he states.
I was thinking about Peter Zeihan as well when I saw this item. I'd be keen to find someone who communicates as well as he does but has opposite conclusions, because he certainly seems to string a lot of real data into interesting narratives. He seems to be the geopolitical answer to Adam Curtis.
His talks are surely interesting.
This lends his argument more credence in my mind, not less.
Prices for consumers increasing thricefold will send a major part of the population deep into debt (e.g. >20% of the German population have no financial reserves at all, living paycheck to paycheck) and drop a major part of the middle class down to the living standard of the (pre-2020) lower class.
I mean, sure, you're right, it's not the end of the world, we will recover from this and hopefully emerge with renewables everywhere, but even if we manage this crisis optimally, the next few years will be quite rocky both politically and economically here in Europe.
And I'm quite scared what happens if we should fuck up, because...
> and will actual push people to be more responsible
... this whole mess can also, alternatively, push people to extreme, simple "solutions" offered by more extremist parts of the political spectrum instead. :/
No, more like 10X.
>but if the poorest are helped accordingly it's not so bad and will actual push people to be more responsible.
This is not a case of "government can cap the bills" or "government can provide subsidies to help pay for higher bills" or, even, "government can ration electricity". Setting aside the inflationary and other side effects of doing so, *SUBSIDIES AND RATIONING DON'T MATTER IF THERE IS NO SUPPLY*.
Good joke!
But no, instead of calling for behavioral change, what do the politicians say now? Subsidize!
Thank god I live in Switzerland. The most democratic country in the world, and Europe's least dependent on Russian Gas.
When outside temperature is -30 C pretty much anyone who does not want to freeze to death…
https://gazenergie.ch/de/wissen/detail/knowledge-topic/3-her...
https://www.vortexa.com/insights/products/reality-check-on-r...
"Geopolitical tensions around the Ukraine conflict between Russia and a not truly consistent US/European conglomerate are straining and the word “sanctions” is being touted with rising frequency. But by analysing flows it’s clear that any material sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports are unlikely to materialise. If this were to happen, Europe would have much more to lose than Russia. In this insight we’ll explore why."
Basically, Russia depended on Europe for about half of its fossil fuel export market in 2020, a steep drop from 2010 when Europe made up about 80% of the exports.
Unfortunately the geopolitical prediction was a bit off:
> "Given just how huge the ramifications would be for Europe, as well as how toothless flow sanctions would be without blocking Russian exports, which in turn would put the entire world into a different place, we deem it most likely that current tensions will be solved diplomatically."
But our governments are so committed to this path, there's no way back.
Personally I don't care whether it's Ukrainian or Russian oligarchs charging the gas transit fees, I just want peace and stability. Then we can invest heavily in nuclear fission and fusion and renewable energy sources.
I like how HN ignores the historical context when it comes to Russia, gas and Europe. This history goes much further back than 2014...
We've lost a lot more during the covid money printer bull run of 2020-2022 when house prices went though the roof. Good luck affording a house now that our wages are worth less and our energy bills are higher.
I do hope future generations don't suffer the consequences of our need for 'peace' (a more factual description would be self-delusion). Actual peace means an excision like we did with Nazi rule. There can be no trace left, or else it'll keep festering for more centuries still.
People will consume less, either because prices rise and they choose not to pay them, or by rationing, or by random blackouts (gas-outs?).
Somewhat tragic that energy conservation, in the age of climate change, requires Russia stopping supplies in the middle of a gas shortage to be politically viable.
I can't find the graph's I've seen but this is representative.
https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/blog_co2_emis...
If you go there, every barge is covered in solar panels (at least in Germany, Belgium where I was recently). Lots of wind farms, great public transportation and train systems. Etc etc.
Again, they're relatively doing well but not up to their previous own high standards.