4 ms·

Not sure how this applies, especially to Scandinavia. Sweden has lots of hydro, Norway has hydro, gas & oil. Russia also needs European money, since most of th

by Zanfa 5y ago

Not sure how this applies, especially to Scandinavia. Sweden has lots of hydro, Norway has hydro, gas & oil. Russia also needs European money, since most of their budget is energy export, that’s why even at the peak of cold war they kept selling gas to Western Europe. Sure, they can use gas to bully smaller countries and manipulate the gas market, but at the end of the day, they’ll keep the pipelines flowing. This is not new either, Russia’s used gas to threaten/pressure their neighbouring countries for 2 decades now. Yet almost all of them have consistently reduced imports/exports with Russia.

bullen 5y ago
Hydro cannot power current food transports from Spain or tractors for making food in Sweden. That infrastructure will never be possible at scale because battery energy density is too low. Trains will eventually become the primary transport but they can't replace trucks the last mile. Norwegian oil and gas discovery has peaked, exctraction EROEI is going down VERY fast and that is accelerating. Only Russia has any conventional coal, oil and gas left in the proximity. Reduced? I guess that's why they built Nordstream 2? Why do you think Germany has not started using Nordstream 2 yet?
- Zanfa 5y ago
  There's plenty of coal to go around, Estonia & Poland are two examples of nearby countries relying primarily on local coal for energy. Also, Germany is not Russia's neighbour.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    These days, ironically, Poland mainly burns Russian coal (EDIT erroneusly wrote "gas" initially). After years of indecision as to what to do with Polish coal plants, they got too expensive and underinvested to produce the required quantities of coal. The rest is imported from the East. So the whole "ah but we need coal for energy independence" is mostly a song and dance nowadays.
fuoqi 5y ago
>Russia’s used gas to threaten/pressure their neighbouring countries for 2 decades now. Like the US uses financial system to threaten/pressure countries all around the globe since Bretton Woods? Every country has its own tools to promote its interests. And funnily enough you often hear that Russia "pressures" countries in the form of simply demanding payment for already supplied resources, finding middle ground in the form of political solutions with countries unable to pay a fair market price, refusing to supply more than agreed by prior contracts, or simply by having a nerve to select a route for transportation of its resources.
- Zanfa 5y ago
  A common pattern for Russia is announcing unplanned railroad/pipeline maintenance when a country makes a political decision that Russia finds unacceptable. Or cranking up gas prices at random. Also harassing ships that are laying undersea power cables with unannounced military drills.
  - fuoqi 5y ago
    >A common pattern for Russia is announcing unplanned railroad/pipeline maintenance when a country makes a political decision that Russia finds unacceptable I don't see how it's relevant to the discussed gas topic, but I will play along. How exactly is it fundamentally different from the numerous US sanctions? Also this "pattern" is far from being a Russian invention. >Or cranking up gas prices at random. How exactly does Russia crank those prices "at random" if they are mostly determined by long term contracts tied to oil prices? At least it was the model preferred by Russia since it's allowed to properly plan investments into infrastructure. And BTW this model is a European invention (see the Groningen principle) with a very good reasons behind it. If you want "free market" spot prices, then supplier is in his full right to decide a price at which he's willing to sell his stuff (as well as a buyer has right to abstain from buying it), be it at random or not. Or do you think that other countries are somehow entitled to cheap Russian resources without striking a mutually beneficial deal? Though judging by some Western officials' statements, it looks like there is a lot of those who think that they indeed are. And while we are talking about prices, it's quite interesting how European courts retroactively change mutually agreed contract conditions to make them "fair" at the expense of the Russian side. Though those changes has backfired quite hilariously in this season. >Also harassing ships that are laying undersea power cables with unannounced military drills. Again I don't see a connection to the gas topic. And I haven't heard anything about such events and a cursory search hasn't showed any news like this. Care to provide a link?

by Zanfa 5y ago

bullen 5y ago

Hydro cannot power current food transports from Spain or tractors for making food in Sweden. That infrastructure will never be possible at scale because battery energy density is too low. Trains will eventually become the primary transport but they can't replace trucks the last mile. Norwegian oil and gas discovery has peaked, exctraction EROEI is going down VERY fast and that is accelerating. Only Russia has any conventional coal, oil and gas left in the proximity. Reduced? I guess that's why they built Nordstream 2? Why do you think Germany has not started using Nordstream 2 yet?

Zanfa 5y ago
There's plenty of coal to go around, Estonia & Poland are two examples of nearby countries relying primarily on local coal for energy. Also, Germany is not Russia's neighbour.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  These days, ironically, Poland mainly burns Russian coal (EDIT erroneusly wrote "gas" initially). After years of indecision as to what to do with Polish coal plants, they got too expensive and underinvested to produce the required quantities of coal. The rest is imported from the East. So the whole "ah but we need coal for energy independence" is mostly a song and dance nowadays.

fuoqi 5y ago

>Russia’s used gas to threaten/pressure their neighbouring countries for 2 decades now. Like the US uses financial system to threaten/pressure countries all around the globe since Bretton Woods? Every country has its own tools to promote its interests. And funnily enough you often hear that Russia "pressures" countries in the form of simply demanding payment for already supplied resources, finding middle ground in the form of political solutions with countries unable to pay a fair market price, refusing to supply more than agreed by prior contracts, or simply by having a nerve to select a route for transportation of its resources.

Zanfa 5y ago
A common pattern for Russia is announcing unplanned railroad/pipeline maintenance when a country makes a political decision that Russia finds unacceptable. Or cranking up gas prices at random. Also harassing ships that are laying undersea power cables with unannounced military drills.
- fuoqi 5y ago
  >A common pattern for Russia is announcing unplanned railroad/pipeline maintenance when a country makes a political decision that Russia finds unacceptable I don't see how it's relevant to the discussed gas topic, but I will play along. How exactly is it fundamentally different from the numerous US sanctions? Also this "pattern" is far from being a Russian invention. >Or cranking up gas prices at random. How exactly does Russia crank those prices "at random" if they are mostly determined by long term contracts tied to oil prices? At least it was the model preferred by Russia since it's allowed to properly plan investments into infrastructure. And BTW this model is a European invention (see the Groningen principle) with a very good reasons behind it. If you want "free market" spot prices, then supplier is in his full right to decide a price at which he's willing to sell his stuff (as well as a buyer has right to abstain from buying it), be it at random or not. Or do you think that other countries are somehow entitled to cheap Russian resources without striking a mutually beneficial deal? Though judging by some Western officials' statements, it looks like there is a lot of those who think that they indeed are. And while we are talking about prices, it's quite interesting how European courts retroactively change mutually agreed contract conditions to make them "fair" at the expense of the Russian side. Though those changes has backfired quite hilariously in this season. >Also harassing ships that are laying undersea power cables with unannounced military drills. Again I don't see a connection to the gas topic. And I haven't heard anything about such events and a cursory search hasn't showed any news like this. Care to provide a link?