7 ms·

It'd also hit Europe very hard. Natgas is like a third of European electricity generation and much of the heating. Europe has supplies for the winter but if t

by retrac 5y ago

It'd also hit Europe very hard. Natgas is like a third of European electricity generation and much of the heating. Europe has supplies for the winter but if the conflict is extended and the embargo maintained, millions of Europeans would be under heat rationing and rolling blackouts beyond 2022. It wouldn't be a humanitarian disaster with some planning but it's certainly not going to be popular, nor particularly good for the economy.

moltar 5y ago
But EU shall not worry because the US can readily supply it at even higher price.
- retrac 5y ago
  It's not that there isn't sufficient natgas to offset most of the Russian production. The LPG terminals, pipelines and other infrastructure required for that doesn't exist yet, and even if we started crash construction projects today they wouldn't be online in time to prevent a disruption. That said, such construction clearly needs to start anyway.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    Europe isn't able to do such quick emergency projects anymore. The environmental review to see what kind of salamander's might be woken up by the digging would take years alone.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      Events like a war going on in Europe can change such policies. We have a madman at the door and continuing to finance his war makes us co-responsible. It is the least painful option anyway (the other being letting him to realize his goals of resetting Europe to pre-1997 state as he stated in his recent speech, or direct military conflict with NATO that nobody wants for obvious reasons - and in both cases, climate change would be the least of our worries).
    - nate_meurer 5y ago
      Same in the US.
  - coffeefirst 5y ago
    Yes. If it takes two years to get off Russian gas, so be it. Start today. And seize some oligarchs’ assets to help pay for it.
  - rectang 5y ago
    The West is looking for ways to impose effective sanctions. Investing in increased trade between the US and Europe which also hits Russia seems like a promising approach. Russia is obviously geographically closer than the US to Europe. Once an investment is made and the infrastructure built, to what extent could American natgas compete with Russian on price if there is a return to normalcy?
    - adventured 5y ago
      US exported LNG can't compete with pipeline gas from Russia on price, nor on volume. There is no answer, unfortunately, in US LNG exports to Europe. That's merely a very small bandaid on a serious energy wound. It's impossible to push US LNG exports high enough to offset the pipeline supply from Russia, no matter what we do. At best it can relieve a bit of the pricing pressure while Europe figures out something else (nuclear, bolstering their own natural gas production, increased renewables).
- lumost 5y ago
  If the us could feasibly supply the gas via LNG at cost then I’d imagine it would have been done. The best bet would be for all energy suppliers to max production, however there is good evidence that that is already the case due to preexisting energy shortages. Next step would be shutting down energy intensive operations such as bitcoin mining, gold mining, driving, potentially some steel production and shipping activities.
throwaway5752 5y ago
That is why it is only being contemplated in response for a brutal and unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country. It wasn't contemplated lightly. And Putin flagrantly leverages this power over Europe... paying for the privilege of enriching a neighbor that has now made it clear is your determined enemy is less unpopular than you may realize.
bobthechef 5y ago
zihotki 5y ago
It's a pity, but what else we can do to stop the agression? As an European, I'm ready to bear the costs if it will help to stop the agression and the war. Spring is coming and it should be enough time to prepare for the next winter. edit: spelling
- modzu 5y ago
  - sharken 5y ago
    What expansion is that exactly, there are talks but no concrete plans although Putin would like us to think so. And besides that, NATO or the west should not refrain from having these talks no matter what Putin says. If Finland or Sweden wants in, they should be allowed to the same day they ask.
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    Every time this proposition comes up, I'm going to repost this comment (I apologize in advance for the repeat): This is valuable reading, from a military historian frequently posted on HN: https://acoup.blog/2022/02/25/miscellanea-understanding-the- https://acoup.blog/2022/02/25/miscellanea-understanding-the-... Here's one of the many good bits: ---- Instead, the clearest understanding of Putin’s complaints about NATO is that they are reflections of his real fears, but that as diplomatic negotiating tools, they were red herrings, designed to create exactly the sort of smokescreen that some media personalities worked to create and exploit domestically. The ‘tell’ here in many ways were the initial demands, which amounted to rolling back NATO positions to pre-1997 status; such demands would be utterly unacceptable to NATO countries (like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland) who would thus be left outside NATO’s line of protection. Putin – and the Russian Foreign Ministry – knew those demands were obvious non-starters, that’s why they made them – presumably to generate that smokescreen and to try to divide NATO internally. But the demands themselves were never serious, as Putin’s actions this week prove. ---- The "promise Ukraine won't join NATO" demand was not made in good faith and conceding it would not have mattered.
martinko 5y ago
This is why abandoning nuclear was a horrendous mistake.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  I think history will ultimately judge this as the Merkel administration's biggest shortcoming.
  - Hokusai 5y ago
    Is not that the nord stream 2 pipeline? Germany was able to buy Russian gas without problem. Why build the new pipe? It seems that Germany thought that Russia was a rational player interested in growing their economy, but it seems that it was just power play for personal aspirations.
    - nate_meurer 5y ago
      Good point, maybe so.
    - iszomer 5y ago
      Or when it's framed as "global competitors playing dirty games"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt3Zv-e4n1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt3Zv-e4n1M
    - AnonymousPlanet 5y ago
      Nord Stream 2 was put in place by her predecessor Gerd Schröder. Merkel was never in favor of it.
- Sol- 5y ago
  Most of e.g. Germany's gas consumption is from heating, not electricity. So nuclear plays a minor role, though admittedly even needing just 10% less gas might be the difference of being able to procure what you need from non-Russian suppliers or rationing. (Sure, heating and electricity is kind of equivalent if many households had heat pumps, but they don't.) Nuclear or not, the horrendous mistake was not reducing dependence on Russian exports even when their aggressive foreign policy was apparent even 10 years ago. That was inexcusible complacency.
throw0101a 5y ago
> It'd also hit Europe very hard. Natgas is like a third of European electricity generation and much of the heating. By percentage of their gas imports that come from Russia: DE, LT, PL, and IT at about 50%; FR and NL at about 20%. * https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/15/business/energy-environment/russia-gas-europe-ukraine.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/15/business/ener... * https://archive.fo/iUJ7j https://archive.fo/iUJ7j By volume, mostly Germany and Italy: * https://i.redd.it/qs12fw6kmdj81.jpg https://i.redd.it/qs12fw6kmdj81.jpg
- sharken 5y ago
  Which will make it harder for Germany and Italy to enforce effective sanctions towards Russia. Hopefully they will do the right thing and support Ukraine anyway they can. A good indication is going to be if Germany will support the exclusion of Russia from SWIFT: https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/germany-open-to-cutting-russia-off-swift-but-must-weigh-consequences-fin-min https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/germany-open-to-c...
  - turbinerneiter 5y ago
    There is a lot of pressure put on Germany right now regarding SWIFT. The exclusion from SWIFT will hit Germany hard, as it will also mean the end of gas delivery. The resulting outages, rising gas prices, the profiteering of the new gas vendors will also have an affect of public support for the sanctions. It will also be a boost for the alternative systems, that China already built. In the end, this might backfire really hard. I do however also not have any better ideas. I'm happy that I'm not the one having to make that decision.
    - asplake 5y ago
      I don’t believe that removal from SWIFT means an end to payments. Much more likely it makes the process considerably more manual, still worthwhile for larger trades. Really it’s the hit to the volume of trades that does the damage. However, they might have to rely on the two parties (or their banks) having a bank in common. That gets harder as the banks themselves get sanctioned. Edit: see correspondent bank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondent_account https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondent_account (13 years out of investment banking on the technology side. Never touched SWIFT directly but was involved in more than one in multi-bank project)
dimitar 5y ago
Ukraine itself is proof of how undisruptive is lowering natural gas use as it reduced it's own imports back in 2014. Natural gas has a lot of substitutes in electricity generation and other uses, and demand will fall as prices rise (good for global warming anyway). Energy poor households can get help, so no one will freeze to death, without subisizing the natural gas. Spring and Summer are holding which makes this the best time to act. Advanced market economies like the ones in the EU are very resilient to supply shocks like this and Eastern European countries can be helped. Over the long term dependence on insane dictators is also bad for the economy and diversification and decarbonization are good!
- parineum 5y ago
  You seem to be assuming that the substitute for natural gas plants isn't coal.
  - TheCoelacanth 5y ago
    It may be short-term, but long-term coal is being priced out of the market by cheaper sources.
dtx1 5y ago
Speaking as a german, i'd be happy to wear another pullover and deal with rolling blackouts, when the alternative is war.
- MandieD 5y ago
  Pullis gegen Putin
  - rectang 5y ago
    https://translate.google.com/?sl=de&tl=en&text=Pullis%20gegen%20Putin&op=translate https://translate.google.com/?sl=de&tl=en&text=Pullis%20gege... > Sweaters against Putin XD
jacquesm 5y ago
That's too bad then. I'll drain the pipes here and we'll live without heat. Fortunately it is a relatively mild winter and we're getting towards the end of it. Compared to what Ukraine is going through right now that's a very small price to pay, it is ridiculous to be standing there on the one hand hand wringing about the Ukrainian hardships and on the other to buy our fossil fuels from the aggressor directly financing the war.
- rastignack 5y ago
  > That's too bad then. I'll drain the pipes here and we'll live without heat. Fortunately it is a relatively mild winter and we're getting towards the end of it. And with cold showers of course.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I've lived like that for years. This really doesn't bother me. This is the most clear case of first world problems that I can think of. Places like hospitals and so on is a different matter.
    - Tainnor 5y ago
      I really hate cold showers or being cold in Winter in general... but if that's what it takes to support Ukraine, then it's worth it.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Very small price I would say.
      - reitanqild 5y ago
        That's the spirit! I stand with you!
    - rastignack 5y ago
      I have a new born and a 2 years old daughter. I’ll pass of course.
bjelkeman-again 5y ago
There is a good article at The Guardian, discussing replacing the Russian gas. The conclusion seem to be that this will be very hard and take a long time. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/25/how-can-europe-wean-itself-off-russian-gas https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/25/how-can-eur...
- rectang 5y ago
  That rings true. It reminds me of the US reducing its dependence on foreign oil, which was also very hard and took a long time — but was worth it.
  - pirate787 5y ago
    US oil dependence was largely ended through unexpected/unplanned technological innovation -- fracking and horizontal drilling opened up many reserves, and improved deep water drilling tech added more offshore capacity. It also happened pretty rapidly, from about 2005 to 2015.
axiosgunnar 5y ago
> It'd also hit Europe very hard. If I lived in Europe I wouldn't care. No matter the cost (taxes etc.), no matter if I would have to wear multiple jackets at home. I would still be in favor.

by retrac 5y ago

moltar 5y ago

But EU shall not worry because the US can readily supply it at even higher price.

retrac 5y ago
It's not that there isn't sufficient natgas to offset most of the Russian production. The LPG terminals, pipelines and other infrastructure required for that doesn't exist yet, and even if we started crash construction projects today they wouldn't be online in time to prevent a disruption. That said, such construction clearly needs to start anyway.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  Europe isn't able to do such quick emergency projects anymore. The environmental review to see what kind of salamander's might be woken up by the digging would take years alone.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    Events like a war going on in Europe can change such policies. We have a madman at the door and continuing to finance his war makes us co-responsible. It is the least painful option anyway (the other being letting him to realize his goals of resetting Europe to pre-1997 state as he stated in his recent speech, or direct military conflict with NATO that nobody wants for obvious reasons - and in both cases, climate change would be the least of our worries).
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    Same in the US.
- coffeefirst 5y ago
  Yes. If it takes two years to get off Russian gas, so be it. Start today. And seize some oligarchs’ assets to help pay for it.
- rectang 5y ago
  The West is looking for ways to impose effective sanctions. Investing in increased trade between the US and Europe which also hits Russia seems like a promising approach. Russia is obviously geographically closer than the US to Europe. Once an investment is made and the infrastructure built, to what extent could American natgas compete with Russian on price if there is a return to normalcy?
  - adventured 5y ago
    US exported LNG can't compete with pipeline gas from Russia on price, nor on volume. There is no answer, unfortunately, in US LNG exports to Europe. That's merely a very small bandaid on a serious energy wound. It's impossible to push US LNG exports high enough to offset the pipeline supply from Russia, no matter what we do. At best it can relieve a bit of the pricing pressure while Europe figures out something else (nuclear, bolstering their own natural gas production, increased renewables).
lumost 5y ago
If the us could feasibly supply the gas via LNG at cost then I’d imagine it would have been done. The best bet would be for all energy suppliers to max production, however there is good evidence that that is already the case due to preexisting energy shortages. Next step would be shutting down energy intensive operations such as bitcoin mining, gold mining, driving, potentially some steel production and shipping activities.

throwaway5752 5y ago

That is why it is only being contemplated in response for a brutal and unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country. It wasn't contemplated lightly. And Putin flagrantly leverages this power over Europe... paying for the privilege of enriching a neighbor that has now made it clear is your determined enemy is less unpopular than you may realize.

bobthechef 5y ago

zihotki 5y ago

It's a pity, but what else we can do to stop the agression? As an European, I'm ready to bear the costs if it will help to stop the agression and the war. Spring is coming and it should be enough time to prepare for the next winter. edit: spelling

modzu 5y ago
- sharken 5y ago
  What expansion is that exactly, there are talks but no concrete plans although Putin would like us to think so. And besides that, NATO or the west should not refrain from having these talks no matter what Putin says. If Finland or Sweden wants in, they should be allowed to the same day they ask.
- stickfigure 5y ago
  Every time this proposition comes up, I'm going to repost this comment (I apologize in advance for the repeat): This is valuable reading, from a military historian frequently posted on HN: https://acoup.blog/2022/02/25/miscellanea-understanding-the- https://acoup.blog/2022/02/25/miscellanea-understanding-the-... Here's one of the many good bits: ---- Instead, the clearest understanding of Putin’s complaints about NATO is that they are reflections of his real fears, but that as diplomatic negotiating tools, they were red herrings, designed to create exactly the sort of smokescreen that some media personalities worked to create and exploit domestically. The ‘tell’ here in many ways were the initial demands, which amounted to rolling back NATO positions to pre-1997 status; such demands would be utterly unacceptable to NATO countries (like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland) who would thus be left outside NATO’s line of protection. Putin – and the Russian Foreign Ministry – knew those demands were obvious non-starters, that’s why they made them – presumably to generate that smokescreen and to try to divide NATO internally. But the demands themselves were never serious, as Putin’s actions this week prove. ---- The "promise Ukraine won't join NATO" demand was not made in good faith and conceding it would not have mattered.

martinko 5y ago

This is why abandoning nuclear was a horrendous mistake.

nate_meurer 5y ago
I think history will ultimately judge this as the Merkel administration's biggest shortcoming.
- Hokusai 5y ago
  Is not that the nord stream 2 pipeline? Germany was able to buy Russian gas without problem. Why build the new pipe? It seems that Germany thought that Russia was a rational player interested in growing their economy, but it seems that it was just power play for personal aspirations.
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    Good point, maybe so.
  - iszomer 5y ago
    Or when it's framed as "global competitors playing dirty games"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt3Zv-e4n1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt3Zv-e4n1M
  - AnonymousPlanet 5y ago
    Nord Stream 2 was put in place by her predecessor Gerd Schröder. Merkel was never in favor of it.
Sol- 5y ago
Most of e.g. Germany's gas consumption is from heating, not electricity. So nuclear plays a minor role, though admittedly even needing just 10% less gas might be the difference of being able to procure what you need from non-Russian suppliers or rationing. (Sure, heating and electricity is kind of equivalent if many households had heat pumps, but they don't.) Nuclear or not, the horrendous mistake was not reducing dependence on Russian exports even when their aggressive foreign policy was apparent even 10 years ago. That was inexcusible complacency.

throw0101a 5y ago

> It'd also hit Europe very hard. Natgas is like a third of European electricity generation and much of the heating. By percentage of their gas imports that come from Russia: DE, LT, PL, and IT at about 50%; FR and NL at about 20%. * https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/15/business/energy-environment/russia-gas-europe-ukraine.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/15/business/ener... * https://archive.fo/iUJ7j https://archive.fo/iUJ7j By volume, mostly Germany and Italy: * https://i.redd.it/qs12fw6kmdj81.jpg https://i.redd.it/qs12fw6kmdj81.jpg

sharken 5y ago
Which will make it harder for Germany and Italy to enforce effective sanctions towards Russia. Hopefully they will do the right thing and support Ukraine anyway they can. A good indication is going to be if Germany will support the exclusion of Russia from SWIFT: https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/germany-open-to-cutting-russia-off-swift-but-must-weigh-consequences-fin-min https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/germany-open-to-c...
- turbinerneiter 5y ago
  There is a lot of pressure put on Germany right now regarding SWIFT. The exclusion from SWIFT will hit Germany hard, as it will also mean the end of gas delivery. The resulting outages, rising gas prices, the profiteering of the new gas vendors will also have an affect of public support for the sanctions. It will also be a boost for the alternative systems, that China already built. In the end, this might backfire really hard. I do however also not have any better ideas. I'm happy that I'm not the one having to make that decision.
  - asplake 5y ago
    I don’t believe that removal from SWIFT means an end to payments. Much more likely it makes the process considerably more manual, still worthwhile for larger trades. Really it’s the hit to the volume of trades that does the damage. However, they might have to rely on the two parties (or their banks) having a bank in common. That gets harder as the banks themselves get sanctioned. Edit: see correspondent bank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondent_account https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondent_account (13 years out of investment banking on the technology side. Never touched SWIFT directly but was involved in more than one in multi-bank project)

dimitar 5y ago

Ukraine itself is proof of how undisruptive is lowering natural gas use as it reduced it's own imports back in 2014. Natural gas has a lot of substitutes in electricity generation and other uses, and demand will fall as prices rise (good for global warming anyway). Energy poor households can get help, so no one will freeze to death, without subisizing the natural gas. Spring and Summer are holding which makes this the best time to act. Advanced market economies like the ones in the EU are very resilient to supply shocks like this and Eastern European countries can be helped. Over the long term dependence on insane dictators is also bad for the economy and diversification and decarbonization are good!

parineum 5y ago
You seem to be assuming that the substitute for natural gas plants isn't coal.
- TheCoelacanth 5y ago
  It may be short-term, but long-term coal is being priced out of the market by cheaper sources.

dtx1 5y ago

Speaking as a german, i'd be happy to wear another pullover and deal with rolling blackouts, when the alternative is war.

MandieD 5y ago
Pullis gegen Putin
- rectang 5y ago
  https://translate.google.com/?sl=de&tl=en&text=Pullis%20gegen%20Putin&op=translate https://translate.google.com/?sl=de&tl=en&text=Pullis%20gege... > Sweaters against Putin XD

jacquesm 5y ago

That's too bad then. I'll drain the pipes here and we'll live without heat. Fortunately it is a relatively mild winter and we're getting towards the end of it. Compared to what Ukraine is going through right now that's a very small price to pay, it is ridiculous to be standing there on the one hand hand wringing about the Ukrainian hardships and on the other to buy our fossil fuels from the aggressor directly financing the war.

rastignack 5y ago
> That's too bad then. I'll drain the pipes here and we'll live without heat. Fortunately it is a relatively mild winter and we're getting towards the end of it. And with cold showers of course.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I've lived like that for years. This really doesn't bother me. This is the most clear case of first world problems that I can think of. Places like hospitals and so on is a different matter.
  - Tainnor 5y ago
    I really hate cold showers or being cold in Winter in general... but if that's what it takes to support Ukraine, then it's worth it.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Very small price I would say.
    - reitanqild 5y ago
      That's the spirit! I stand with you!
  - rastignack 5y ago
    I have a new born and a 2 years old daughter. I’ll pass of course.

bjelkeman-again 5y ago

There is a good article at The Guardian, discussing replacing the Russian gas. The conclusion seem to be that this will be very hard and take a long time. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/25/how-can-europe-wean-itself-off-russian-gas https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/25/how-can-eur...

rectang 5y ago
That rings true. It reminds me of the US reducing its dependence on foreign oil, which was also very hard and took a long time — but was worth it.
- pirate787 5y ago
  US oil dependence was largely ended through unexpected/unplanned technological innovation -- fracking and horizontal drilling opened up many reserves, and improved deep water drilling tech added more offshore capacity. It also happened pretty rapidly, from about 2005 to 2015.

axiosgunnar 5y ago

> It'd also hit Europe very hard. If I lived in Europe I wouldn't care. No matter the cost (taxes etc.), no matter if I would have to wear multiple jackets at home. I would still be in favor.