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Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I remember US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe, over many decades, about the dangers of depending on Russian energy sourc

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-reagan.html 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. 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-and-exports.php 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.

latchkey 4y ago
> 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. 2018, even Trump... https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241 https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241
- willcipriano 4y ago
  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.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    What I remember is that fact checkers mostly focusing on Trump’s frequent conflation of natural gas and all energy. He would often, either carelessly or deliberately misleadingly, say things like “60% of Germany’s energy comes from Russia” when it was actually 60% of Germany’s natural gas, and natural gas accounts for only around 20% of Germany’s total energy. That seems like a reasonable distinction for fact-checkers to highlight.
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      Oh then it isn't a big deal then. Nothing for Germans to worry about.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Almost correct. Things to worry, but not the end of the world neither.
        DIARRHEA_xd 4y ago
        hef19898 4y ago
        As an perceived autist due to my nationality, it is hard to catch sarcasm without the /s at the end. Seriously, since when is it ok to insult people, in your case autists and Germans, on HN?
        TMWNN 4y ago
      - tshaddox 4y ago
        But it's already a big deal just with the true parts. No need to resort to false parts to make it sound like a big deal.
- cdiddy2 4y ago
  On multiple occasions too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5MJEMHZZsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5MJEMHZZsI
- hef19898 4y ago
  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. Now that changes an Europe will adapt.
  - scottLobster 4y ago
    "adapt". There's decades of pain and death for millions in your use of the word, pain and death that could have been avoided, and will undo much of whatever the that 50+ year dependency produced. Also say what you will about US policy, we may not be altruists but we're a far lesser evil than the Russians have ever been from a European perspective. Cheap energy from Russia has been a Faustian bargain for at least the last 15 years.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Soviet gas was a reliable thing for 50+ years, that changed only in 2022. And couod you please explain how millions are going to die in Europe over the change from gas to some other renewable source of heating? Seriously curious here, because I see that shit repeatef all iver the place without any reasonable explanation whatsoever.
      - scottLobster 4y ago
        Obviously it won't be direct or all at once, but serious inflation kills. Economic recessions kill. Suicides and overdoses increase, and European energy prices are climbing so high people literally freezing to death might not be unheard of if winter is cold enough. And even those who can make it through will be seriously diminished economically. Peoples' livelihoods will be destroyed. One thing's for sure, the vaunted European social safety nets are going to have a hell of a stress test over the next few years. I hope they're up to the task.
    - Brometheus 4y ago
      Yeah, until you elect DeSantis or Trump again. Thanks.
- dashundchen 4y ago
  And before that 2014, Obama after the invasion of Crimea https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit/obama-tells-eu-to-do-more-to-cut-reliance-on-russian-gas-idUSBREA2P0W220140326 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit/obama-tells...
- benj111 4y ago
  "even trump" I think that tends to undermine the point though.
  - latchkey 4y ago
    I was helping with the mis-remembering, not making a point. Trump is a clown and the fact that 'even' he got this right, just goes to show how bad it was for Germany to depend primarily on a single point of failure.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      That single point of failure delivered reliable for 50+ years. Common, a crowd like the one on HN should get at least the basics right before predicting the end of western civilisation.
      - latchkey 4y ago
        Past performance does not always guarantee future results.
    - benj111 4y ago
      Or maybe he's just a clown and wrong about this aswell. Or maybe he was right but for the wrong reason. It's like saying that dinosaurs exist and pointing to some passage in the Bible.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
wewxjfq 4y ago
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.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  Yes, but the French are out there with a full nuclear-based energy system. There's no reason for them to be the only country to do this.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- chucksta 4y ago
  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.
  - dwheeler 4y ago
    > "Told you so" always feels cheap, even more so when it's right. "Told you so" doesn't solve anything in the short term, but it might spur stronger future efforts. > America won the landgrab lottery and sits on plenty of oil and gas, which makes this kind of talk really cheap right now. I think that misses a key point: There's a big difference between potential and actual advantages. In the 1970s the US imported a huge amount of energy, making it vulnerable to external extortion... just like Europe now. Then OPEC pulled the trigger, and it was devastating to the US. Ordinary citizens waited in long lines to get just a little gas... which galvanized the public as well as its government. The 1970s energy crisis caused a fundamental shift in US policy. It caused a top-to-bottom focus in the US on ensuring energy and food independence. You couldn't breathe in the 1970s or 1980s without hearing about energy. Walt Disney's Epcot center had at least one pavilion dedicated to the topic. Often the US can't keep a focus on one topic over many years (it often acts like a kid with ADHD), but this is an area where it did focus continuous resources over a lengthy time. Yes, the US has some geographic advantages, but it couldn't take advantage of many of them decades ago; investment was necessary. The US couldn't use shale in the 1970s, for example, so its "geographic advantage" was not an advantage at the time without investment. The US created an entire branch of government (Department of Energy, founded August 4, 1977) to have a long-term focus on the issue. It invested crazy sums of money, including in research, and as I noted those investments finally resulted in independence about 30-40 years later. > 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. Yes, the US and Canada work together, and that has led to lots of benefits for both. But it is NOT true that manna fell from heaven; massive multi-decade investments were planned and executed specifically to produce these advantages. Europe is different, but it has its own advantages. Europe has an extremely well-educated workforce and has incredible technical prowess. It also has lots of capital. And Europe has lots of countries with different strengths and weaknesses, which often leads European countries to be really good at international cooperation. Europe could have used those advantages to improve its energy security. The most obvious is nuclear: Germany is in real trouble for energy, while France has lots of nuclear power plans and simply doesn't have the same level of risk. Or drill offshore, or whatever. No option is perfect, but Europe does have lots going for it. It's not that Europe wasn't warned. The US did so, repeatedly. After all, the US had experienced a shock, so it knew what such shocks could do. And while I think altruism played a part, it's not just that. The US & Europe are deeply linked, so serious harms to Europe also harm the US. The US has great incentive to ensure Europe doesn't spiral into a situation where many Europeans are dying from freezing or starvation. The US has repeatedly begged Europe to deal with its dependency on Russia. But in the end, the Europeans have to decide what they're going to do. I can imagine the US trying to help Europe with some energy issues, but the Atlantic is big; the US can only do so much now to help Europe in the short term. It's possible that this will spur changes in Europe today, just like the 1970s energy crisis spurred changes in the US. But it may be a painful process in the meantime.
TillE 4y ago
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.
- hnhg 4y ago
  Outright corruption doesn't seem far-fetched: https://twitter.com/minna_alander/status/1561354139464044544?s=21&t=zmMBH21SsiT5RIrAG_OzFw https://twitter.com/minna_alander/status/1561354139464044544...
- ploppyploppy 4y ago
  Germany's elites were almost certainly corrupt in this.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    "Almost"?!
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  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
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    There have been more reasonable explanations of the causality of that. To wit, that multinational energy deals of that magnitude require political investment and certainty to be tenable. Schroder's involvement was a tacit acknowledgement of this reality, and gesture of political good faith. Or put another way, neither Russia nor Germany would have contemplated the project without serious indications of political support.
- 4y ago
ren_engineer 4y ago
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 https://archive.ph/cLWvW https://archive.ph/cLWvW now Europe is staring down the barrel of a 25x increase in electricity cost this winter
bigbaguette 4y ago
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.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >careful not humiliating the Russian civilisation Yeah, we wouldn't want to be humiliating a civilization that's currently killing another one. That would be too tough. /s
  - bigbaguette 4y ago
    This kind of reasoning is why war never ends
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      And with your reasoning, Hitler would have enslaved all of Europe and Japan all of Asia or the former Yugoslav nations would have massacred each other. The Allies let Hitler annex Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia because "hey, let's not start a war with Nazi Germany", and then let Putin annex Crimea because "hey, let's not start a war with Putin's Russia", but talking and diplomacy only gets you so far and after that, unfortunately, war requires tough measures that hurt everyone, because while you sit around, more people are dying and you're setting a precedent for the future that it's ok to invade other countries and kill innocent people, because you previously let others get away with it before in order to avoid war.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        The usual line is that Hitler rose to power because of Germany's humiliation in WWI. I'm not really a fan of the theory, but I'm assuming that's what is being referenced.
tomatotomato37 4y ago
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?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
danans 4y ago
> 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." 1. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threaten-frances-already-tight-power-supply-2022-07-15/&ved=2ahUKEwiPyf7HsvH5AhVzKkQIHUuPCzoQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw13XQfbckoQGDqY004bHJaP https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threa...
- hef19898 4y ago
  So, no rain or cooler temperatures anymore? I knew climate change was bad, I didn't know it reached apocalyptic levels already.
  - danans 4y ago
    The problem is that high demand periods (i.e. for air conditioning) correlate with conditions (high temperatures) that are making the nuclear plants difficult to operate. It doesn't matter so much for the summer demand if nuclear runs at full capacity in cold weather. Part of the issue is that these plants are using rivers for cooling, which by definition have less thermal mass than larger bodies of water like oceans. The long term issue is that climate change is pushing these river temperatures consistently higher over time.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      One of the reasons why nuclear goes so well together with renewables like PV. Actually said that we have more coal plants than nuclear ones in Germany. But that is hibdsight, at the time the decisions were almost reasonable.
qznc 4y ago
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.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >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.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    All the time during the cold war the rather close economic ties between the west and the USSR (grain, gas...) helped to keep communication channels open and reduce the risk of the cold war turning into a hot one in Europe. Not seeing this is quite, well, short sighted.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Grain and gas trade didn't prevent WW3, but fear of mutual annihilation from nuclear weapons did. Same how current grain and gas trade between Russian and the west didn't stop it invading Ukraine.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        Sure, MAD helped. As did all those wars in Korea, Vieynam and Afghanistan (there was one involving Russia way beforw the US went there, based on the ignorance of history in this thread I thought it makes sense to add). More than one thing can be true at the same time, especially in a complex world
dougmwne 4y ago
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.
- landemva 4y ago
  Let's let EU stand on it's own and chart it's own direction. And USA should also resign from NATO.
- dwheeler 4y ago
  > 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.
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    Yes, along with a massive superiority complex that led the grandparent to ask “why didn’t those Silly Billies just listen to us?” The US is not a purely good faith big brother of Europe, as much as Americans would like to think it is. Saying bumpkins was a jest, but also true. The US has short and uneventful history in comparison to most old world countries. Its horizon ends at the ocean for the most part and for most US leaders, understanding the rest of the world is optional. Saying “why didn’t you just invest in energy self sufficiency” is completely unhelpful. EU leaders know the value of energy, but realpolitik is a thing.
throw310822 4y ago
> 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.
- toss1 4y ago
  >> 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.
- ChildOfChaos 4y ago
  How is that an alternative view? It's the same. 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.
Tomis02 4y ago
> US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe 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).
frozencell 4y ago
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. [0] https://livre.fnac.com/a2917645/Vincent-Nouzille-Les-dossiers-de-la-CIA-sur-la-France-1958-1981 https://livre.fnac.com/a2917645/Vincent-Nouzille-Les-dossier...
kcartlidge 4y ago
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).

latchkey 4y ago

> 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. 2018, even Trump... https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241 https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241

willcipriano 4y ago
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.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  What I remember is that fact checkers mostly focusing on Trump’s frequent conflation of natural gas and all energy. He would often, either carelessly or deliberately misleadingly, say things like “60% of Germany’s energy comes from Russia” when it was actually 60% of Germany’s natural gas, and natural gas accounts for only around 20% of Germany’s total energy. That seems like a reasonable distinction for fact-checkers to highlight.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Oh then it isn't a big deal then. Nothing for Germans to worry about.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Almost correct. Things to worry, but not the end of the world neither.
      - DIARRHEA_xd 4y ago
        hef19898 4y ago
        As an perceived autist due to my nationality, it is hard to catch sarcasm without the /s at the end. Seriously, since when is it ok to insult people, in your case autists and Germans, on HN?
        TMWNN 4y ago
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      But it's already a big deal just with the true parts. No need to resort to false parts to make it sound like a big deal.
cdiddy2 4y ago
On multiple occasions too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5MJEMHZZsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5MJEMHZZsI
hef19898 4y ago
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. Now that changes an Europe will adapt.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  "adapt". There's decades of pain and death for millions in your use of the word, pain and death that could have been avoided, and will undo much of whatever the that 50+ year dependency produced. Also say what you will about US policy, we may not be altruists but we're a far lesser evil than the Russians have ever been from a European perspective. Cheap energy from Russia has been a Faustian bargain for at least the last 15 years.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Soviet gas was a reliable thing for 50+ years, that changed only in 2022. And couod you please explain how millions are going to die in Europe over the change from gas to some other renewable source of heating? Seriously curious here, because I see that shit repeatef all iver the place without any reasonable explanation whatsoever.
    - scottLobster 4y ago
      Obviously it won't be direct or all at once, but serious inflation kills. Economic recessions kill. Suicides and overdoses increase, and European energy prices are climbing so high people literally freezing to death might not be unheard of if winter is cold enough. And even those who can make it through will be seriously diminished economically. Peoples' livelihoods will be destroyed. One thing's for sure, the vaunted European social safety nets are going to have a hell of a stress test over the next few years. I hope they're up to the task.
  - Brometheus 4y ago
    Yeah, until you elect DeSantis or Trump again. Thanks.
dashundchen 4y ago
And before that 2014, Obama after the invasion of Crimea https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit/obama-tells-eu-to-do-more-to-cut-reliance-on-russian-gas-idUSBREA2P0W220140326 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit/obama-tells...
benj111 4y ago
"even trump" I think that tends to undermine the point though.
- latchkey 4y ago
  I was helping with the mis-remembering, not making a point. Trump is a clown and the fact that 'even' he got this right, just goes to show how bad it was for Germany to depend primarily on a single point of failure.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    That single point of failure delivered reliable for 50+ years. Common, a crowd like the one on HN should get at least the basics right before predicting the end of western civilisation.
    - latchkey 4y ago
      Past performance does not always guarantee future results.
  - benj111 4y ago
    Or maybe he's just a clown and wrong about this aswell. Or maybe he was right but for the wrong reason. It's like saying that dinosaurs exist and pointing to some passage in the Bible.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

wewxjfq 4y ago

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.

Pxtl 4y ago
Yes, but the French are out there with a full nuclear-based energy system. There's no reason for them to be the only country to do this.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chucksta 4y ago
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.
- dwheeler 4y ago
  > "Told you so" always feels cheap, even more so when it's right. "Told you so" doesn't solve anything in the short term, but it might spur stronger future efforts. > America won the landgrab lottery and sits on plenty of oil and gas, which makes this kind of talk really cheap right now. I think that misses a key point: There's a big difference between potential and actual advantages. In the 1970s the US imported a huge amount of energy, making it vulnerable to external extortion... just like Europe now. Then OPEC pulled the trigger, and it was devastating to the US. Ordinary citizens waited in long lines to get just a little gas... which galvanized the public as well as its government. The 1970s energy crisis caused a fundamental shift in US policy. It caused a top-to-bottom focus in the US on ensuring energy and food independence. You couldn't breathe in the 1970s or 1980s without hearing about energy. Walt Disney's Epcot center had at least one pavilion dedicated to the topic. Often the US can't keep a focus on one topic over many years (it often acts like a kid with ADHD), but this is an area where it did focus continuous resources over a lengthy time. Yes, the US has some geographic advantages, but it couldn't take advantage of many of them decades ago; investment was necessary. The US couldn't use shale in the 1970s, for example, so its "geographic advantage" was not an advantage at the time without investment. The US created an entire branch of government (Department of Energy, founded August 4, 1977) to have a long-term focus on the issue. It invested crazy sums of money, including in research, and as I noted those investments finally resulted in independence about 30-40 years later. > 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. Yes, the US and Canada work together, and that has led to lots of benefits for both. But it is NOT true that manna fell from heaven; massive multi-decade investments were planned and executed specifically to produce these advantages. Europe is different, but it has its own advantages. Europe has an extremely well-educated workforce and has incredible technical prowess. It also has lots of capital. And Europe has lots of countries with different strengths and weaknesses, which often leads European countries to be really good at international cooperation. Europe could have used those advantages to improve its energy security. The most obvious is nuclear: Germany is in real trouble for energy, while France has lots of nuclear power plans and simply doesn't have the same level of risk. Or drill offshore, or whatever. No option is perfect, but Europe does have lots going for it. It's not that Europe wasn't warned. The US did so, repeatedly. After all, the US had experienced a shock, so it knew what such shocks could do. And while I think altruism played a part, it's not just that. The US & Europe are deeply linked, so serious harms to Europe also harm the US. The US has great incentive to ensure Europe doesn't spiral into a situation where many Europeans are dying from freezing or starvation. The US has repeatedly begged Europe to deal with its dependency on Russia. But in the end, the Europeans have to decide what they're going to do. I can imagine the US trying to help Europe with some energy issues, but the Atlantic is big; the US can only do so much now to help Europe in the short term. It's possible that this will spur changes in Europe today, just like the 1970s energy crisis spurred changes in the US. But it may be a painful process in the meantime.

TillE 4y ago

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.

hnhg 4y ago
Outright corruption doesn't seem far-fetched: https://twitter.com/minna_alander/status/1561354139464044544?s=21&t=zmMBH21SsiT5RIrAG_OzFw https://twitter.com/minna_alander/status/1561354139464044544...
ploppyploppy 4y ago
Germany's elites were almost certainly corrupt in this.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  "Almost"?!
drexlspivey 4y ago
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
- ethbr0 4y ago
  There have been more reasonable explanations of the causality of that. To wit, that multinational energy deals of that magnitude require political investment and certainty to be tenable. Schroder's involvement was a tacit acknowledgement of this reality, and gesture of political good faith. Or put another way, neither Russia nor Germany would have contemplated the project without serious indications of political support.
4y ago

ren_engineer 4y ago

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 https://archive.ph/cLWvW https://archive.ph/cLWvW now Europe is staring down the barrel of a 25x increase in electricity cost this winter

bigbaguette 4y ago

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.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>careful not humiliating the Russian civilisation Yeah, we wouldn't want to be humiliating a civilization that's currently killing another one. That would be too tough. /s
- bigbaguette 4y ago
  This kind of reasoning is why war never ends
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    And with your reasoning, Hitler would have enslaved all of Europe and Japan all of Asia or the former Yugoslav nations would have massacred each other. The Allies let Hitler annex Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia because "hey, let's not start a war with Nazi Germany", and then let Putin annex Crimea because "hey, let's not start a war with Putin's Russia", but talking and diplomacy only gets you so far and after that, unfortunately, war requires tough measures that hurt everyone, because while you sit around, more people are dying and you're setting a precedent for the future that it's ok to invade other countries and kill innocent people, because you previously let others get away with it before in order to avoid war.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      The usual line is that Hitler rose to power because of Germany's humiliation in WWI. I'm not really a fan of the theory, but I'm assuming that's what is being referenced.

tomatotomato37 4y ago

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?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

danans 4y ago

> 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." 1. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threaten-frances-already-tight-power-supply-2022-07-15/&ved=2ahUKEwiPyf7HsvH5AhVzKkQIHUuPCzoQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw13XQfbckoQGDqY004bHJaP https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threa...

hef19898 4y ago
So, no rain or cooler temperatures anymore? I knew climate change was bad, I didn't know it reached apocalyptic levels already.
- danans 4y ago
  The problem is that high demand periods (i.e. for air conditioning) correlate with conditions (high temperatures) that are making the nuclear plants difficult to operate. It doesn't matter so much for the summer demand if nuclear runs at full capacity in cold weather. Part of the issue is that these plants are using rivers for cooling, which by definition have less thermal mass than larger bodies of water like oceans. The long term issue is that climate change is pushing these river temperatures consistently higher over time.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    One of the reasons why nuclear goes so well together with renewables like PV. Actually said that we have more coal plants than nuclear ones in Germany. But that is hibdsight, at the time the decisions were almost reasonable.

qznc 4y ago

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.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>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.
- hef19898 4y ago
  All the time during the cold war the rather close economic ties between the west and the USSR (grain, gas...) helped to keep communication channels open and reduce the risk of the cold war turning into a hot one in Europe. Not seeing this is quite, well, short sighted.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Grain and gas trade didn't prevent WW3, but fear of mutual annihilation from nuclear weapons did. Same how current grain and gas trade between Russian and the west didn't stop it invading Ukraine.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Sure, MAD helped. As did all those wars in Korea, Vieynam and Afghanistan (there was one involving Russia way beforw the US went there, based on the ignorance of history in this thread I thought it makes sense to add). More than one thing can be true at the same time, especially in a complex world

dougmwne 4y ago

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.

landemva 4y ago
Let's let EU stand on it's own and chart it's own direction. And USA should also resign from NATO.
dwheeler 4y ago
> 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.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Yes, along with a massive superiority complex that led the grandparent to ask “why didn’t those Silly Billies just listen to us?” The US is not a purely good faith big brother of Europe, as much as Americans would like to think it is. Saying bumpkins was a jest, but also true. The US has short and uneventful history in comparison to most old world countries. Its horizon ends at the ocean for the most part and for most US leaders, understanding the rest of the world is optional. Saying “why didn’t you just invest in energy self sufficiency” is completely unhelpful. EU leaders know the value of energy, but realpolitik is a thing.

throw310822 4y ago

> 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.

toss1 4y ago
>> 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.
ChildOfChaos 4y ago
How is that an alternative view? It's the same. 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.

Tomis02 4y ago

> US policymakers repeatedly warning Europe 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).

frozencell 4y ago

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. [0] https://livre.fnac.com/a2917645/Vincent-Nouzille-Les-dossiers-de-la-CIA-sur-la-France-1958-1981 https://livre.fnac.com/a2917645/Vincent-Nouzille-Les-dossier...

kcartlidge 4y ago

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).