Tilak Doshi Contributor
Energy
I analyze energy economics and related public policy issues.
In a landmark address on February 27th to the Bundestag, the German parliament, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a stunning shift in the country’s defence posture and its energy policies in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Commentators might be forgiven if they were reminded of Samuel Johnson’s adage that nothing better concentrates the human mind than the hangman’s noose. Russia’s invasion constituted the largest military attack of one state against another in Europe since the Second World War, marking in Scholz’s view a turning point in the continent’s history.
Germany’s Radical Policy Turnaround
In a sharp reversal of Angela Merkel’s policy of free riding on US support for NATO, Germany’s new Chancellor vowed to increase military expenditure to above 2% of GDP. This will make Germany — hitherto the laggard in defence readiness with armed forces that were “more or less stripped bare” during Merkel’s 16-year reign as noted by its Chief of Army — the largest spender on the military in Europe with significantly higher defence expenditures than in the United Kingdom and France. An Irish political commentator tweeted “Germany [is] basically doing what Donald Trump demanded that they do — to widespread ridicule — for the four years of his Presidency. I know it galls people to hear it, but Trump was right about some very big things.”
In another radical departure from the timorousness of the Merkel years, Scholz agreed to deliver arms including anti-tank weapons and Stinger missiles to Ukraine directly and through third countries. The Chancellor also signalled another major turn in its policy towards economic and financial sanctions on Russia, coordinating with the G7 bloc to exclude key Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment system and constraining the Russian central bank from supporting the ruble with its ample foreign exchange reserves.
Scholz’s announcement of a turnaround in German energy policies have been equally striking. Germany is overly dependent on Russia for its energy supplies, accounting for 60% of its gas imports, as well as 50% of its coal and 35% of its oil. The previous Merkel government, which focused on ever closer economic relations with Moscow and a pacifist foreign policy, heavy dependence on Russian gas was not seen as a key source of energy security vulnerability. Her government strongly supported the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline which would have doubled shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany. By transporting the gas under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, Nord Stream 2 by-passes Ukraine and other East European countries which provide major routes for existing Russian gas supplies reaching Europe.
Back in November, former President of the European Council Donald Tusk said that the approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia was the outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “biggest mistake”, in comments which supported the warnings from former President Donald Trump who had imposed sanctions on the pipeline. In July 2021, President Joe Biden, in his continued zeal to revoke every decision made by the preceding Trump administration, waived those sanctions to “mend” relations with the Merkel government. On 22nd February, in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognition of the independence of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, Scholz suspended the certification process of the completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. This was followed shortly thereafter by the Biden administration re-imposing US sanctions on the pipeline.MORE FOR YOUHere’s The List Of 317 Wind Energy Rejections The Sierra Club Doesn’t Want You To SeeRevisiting The Blame For High Gas PricesWhy Do ‘Fracking’ Opponents Ignore Its Moral Benefits?
Perhaps in an even more striking reversal of long-settled German energy policy – which aims for a rapid transition from fossil fuels and reliance on renewables for all of the country’s energy needs — Economy Minister Robert Halbeck said that “there were no taboos in deliberations” concerning options to extend the operations of the country’s coal and nuclear power stations or in importing liquified natural gas (LNG). Halbeck is a member of the Green party which ensured the subordination of EU energy policy to the goal of net zero emissions for Europe by 2050.
In Germany’s about-turn in energy policy, the government is now considering options to extend the operations of its coal power plants beyond 2030. The country had previously committed to a full exit from coal by that date. To reduce dependency on Russian gas imports, Halbeck is also not ruling out options to extend the life-span of its three remaining nuclear power plants. The country is now accelerating plans to build two LNG terminals in order to diversify its dependence on Russian gas imports. Germany has significant storage capacity — the biggest in the EU — at around 23 billion cubic meters (bcm) and now plans to expand this by 2 bcm and intends to bring in regulations to ensure minimum storage requirements on private companies.
Biden’s Incoherent Energy Policies
If a modicum of energy realism has descended upon Germany after the shock Russian invasion of Ukraine, it would seem that the Biden administration – which joined Europe in the climate crusade immediately after it took office and which put “fighting climate change” as the country’s top national security concern – continues to pursue an incoherent energy policy that borders on ridiculousness.
Having cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline to transport over 800,000 barrels per day of oil from Canada to the US Gulf Coast refiners on his first day in office, President Biden revoked US sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as already mentioned. After issuing a series of executive orders in the first weeks of his presidency which halted oil and gas leases on federal lands and in the Alaskan Arctic refuge – essentially waging a regulatory war on US oil and gas production – the Biden presidency continues to implore OPEC to increase oil production as US gasoline prices surged to multi-year highs and approach $4.00 a gallon. The OPEC group including kingpin Saudi Arabia have repeatedly rebuffed these requests from the US, most recently last week.
In what may plausibly be termed as energy masochism – driven by its climate change obsession — the Biden administration continues to favour the interests of the likes of Russia and Iran at the cost of those of its presumed allies. On February 18th, in an act of bizarre timing, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) revised its policy for approving natural gas pipelines and export terminals which will adversely impact the already fraught permitting and construction process of new US LNG export facilities. FERC by law must vouch that projects are in the public interest and won’t have a significant environmental impact but which now includes greenhouse gas emissions in its environmental analysis.
In yet another instance of energy policy incoherence which further empowers Russia’s energy leverage over Europe, the Biden administration abruptly withdrew support for, and thereby killing, the Eastern Mediterranean natural gas pipeline project in January. It did this without consulting its closest allies in the Mediterranean region, Israel, Greece and Cyprus. The ‘EastMed’ pipeline, designed to bring natural gas from the offshore fields of Israel and Cyprus across Greece to Italy and Bulgaria, was supported by Mike Pompeo, the previous US Secretary of State when he was in office. Yet another source of much needed diversification of natural gas supplies for Europe has thus been vetoed by President Biden.
But perhaps US energy policy incoherence is best exemplified by John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy. Straight out from the “you can’t make this up” file, Kerry stated surreally in an interview on BBC Arabic last week that he hoped Vladimir Putin would “stay on track” in the fight against climate change on the day Russia unleashed the invasion of Ukraine.
Geopolitical Realism and Energy Realism
Author and energy commentator Rupert Darwall states concisely that geopolitical realism requires energy realism. Keen observers of realpolitik and energy affairs with an understanding of basic economics such as President Putin are under no illusions. While Europe was busy deconstructing its modern energy infrastructure in the vain hope that the erratic powers of the wind and the sun are enough to power modern civilization, President Putin was doing all he could to develop Russia’s fossil fuel resources.
In late 2020, Professor Fritz Vahrenholt – with a career that included positions in Federal Environmental Agency in Berlin and as minister for energy and environment in Hamburg state — stated baldly in a German TV interview that climate science was “politicized”, “exaggerated”, and filled with “fantasy” and “fairy tales”. He predicted that Europe “will reach the [climate policy] targets only if they destroy the European industries.” He castigated Germany as a country “in denial when it comes to the broader global debate taking place on climate science”. He went on to characterize Europe’s recent push for even stricter emissions reduction targets as madness akin to Soviet central planning that is doomed to fail spectacularly.
Perhaps it takes a Putin with the hangman’s noose to convince Germans that Prof. Vahrenholt is right on the mark.
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I have worked in the oil and gas sector as an economist in both private industry and in think tanks, in Asia, the Middle East and the US over the past 25 years. I focus on global energy developments from the perspective of Asian countries that remain large markets for oil, gas and coal. I have written extensively on the areas of economic development, environment and energy economics. My publications include “Singapore in a Post-Kyoto World: Energy, Environment and the Economy” published by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (2015). I won the 1984 Robert S. McNamara Research Fellow award of the World Bank and received my Ph.D. in Economics in 1992.
AS GERMANY’s GREEN DREAM BECOMES A NIGHTMARE, ASIA AND RUSSIA POWER AHEAD WITH NUCLEAR POWER
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/as-germany-s-green-dream-becomes-a-nightmare-asia-and-russia
By P Gosselin on 13. February 2022
Asia goes nuclear while Europe goes bust
By Fred F. Mueller
During the past few decades, a quiet but all the more important divergence has begun to evolve between Asia and Europe: their respective attitudes towards climate change and nuclear energy. In their crusade against what they perceive as a looming climate catastrophe, most European nations are focusing on reducing carbon emissions.
Among them, Germany has taken the lead. Its first step was to scrap its fleet of nuclear power stations. Coal-fired plants are being decommissioned one after another even before the nuclear decommissioning is completed. The ultimate goal is a net-zero society, exclusively powered by renewables, mainly solar and wind.
It’s a green’s dream that is slowly morphing into a nightmare for ordinary people.
Asian countries barrel ahead with nuclear power
In stark contrast, the far more pragmatic Asian countries have preferred to pay lip service and care about their people.
Instead of fatally crippling their energy infrastructure, they are increasingly opting for nuclear power.
Clear leader Russia takes the lead
More and more nations have already installed, or are on the brink of installing nuclear power stations. In this field, Russia has clearly taken the lead, followed by China, South Korea and Japan. These four nations have mastered and developed native nuclear technologies of their own and are now exporting them.
Among them, two behemoths stand out:
Russia as the clear world leader in the field of exporting nuclear power generating plants
China, a rather new kid on the block, but with a high potential to quickly evolve as another key player in this field.
French are doing OK, while electricity price in the UK is about to double, the French for 2022 have limited price rise to only 4%.
I assume the output of France’s nukes are metered. It is only fair that French rate payers should continue to benefit from the sound energy investments their leaders made in the past, while foreign rate payers should now pay much higher rates commensurate with the unsound investments their leaders made in unreliable and so-called renewable energy.
Yes, I got a place in the south and as far as I remember with EDF currently 1kWh =18 euro cents. However standing charge is about 10 euros/month.
“French are doing OK”
Because the French have energy security due to Nuclear power… when the main point of success there happens to be the condition that the rest of EU has embraced, the self destructive path of no energy security what so ever, plus the total absence of competition in/to the Nuclear power arena in EU.
But, Vuk,
France still is a part of Europe and EU.
It will still face hardship, regardless, if EU is in a hardship, either as in political or economical.
No matter how ok the French are, in some regard, still, a weak and weakening Eorope translates as a weak and weakening France.
Same could be said for UK too, even in the proposition of Brexit, I think.
cheers
That’s completely illusory. Wholesale prices in France are often the most expensive in Europe because they are running with a shortage of capacity due to ageing nuclear plants that haven’t been replaced. Macron issued an edict limiting retail price rises, but bankrupting EdF by degrees. With prices now at a new level of crazy that bankruptcy will be sooner rather than later, making it even harder to even keep the existing nuclear fleet operational, never mind replacing bits of it.
Actually France – last I heard, France was in Europe – not only already generates 80% of their electrical power from nukes, but has also ordered another 14 new nuke generating stations. Germany is already going to terminate the early termination of their nuke plants, and likely, with the new administration, going to partner with France to build more of them now that Russia has proven itself an unreliable supplier and persona-non-grata amongst the nations of the world with their attack on Ukraine.
Look, energy policy in Germany right now is to accelerate roll out of renewables – more, quicker.
anything else is a very temporary fix… there’s no change in direction.
Germany Brings Forward Goal of 100% Renewable Power to 2035 – Bloomberg
“Germany plans to rapidly accelerate the expansion of wind and solar power, bringing forward a target to generate almost all the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 15 years to 2035.
The Economy Ministry, which also oversees energy and climate policy, proposed new legislation on Monday that aims to roughly triple the annual additions from onshore wind and solar facilities. Offshore wind capacity is set to more than double.”
And yet more lies spewed by the lie spewing liar.
Plans are dreams, and the facts contradict.
Didn’t you read the text ?
If yes, do it again and try to understand.
Griffter, take Krisha’s advice. For once, read it all. Even the big words.
“and try to understand.”
That would be a first for the griffter.
Do you know what Habeck said yesterday ?
“Security of energy supplies is more important t the moment then the protection of the climate”.
The first sentence of a Green I accept.
Yeah, after he got his war.
Correction after
he got his warPutin started an illegal unjustified, unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.Habeck called for war, arming the Kiev Junta all during the election.
Greens are known as the war-party.
bonbon
It’s rare that I say nasty things on wuwt but in your case, I’ll make an exception
you’re a fracking idiot
are you from Putinland by any chance?
Bonobo is an avowed Marxist. He reads Russian propaganda and, worse, he believes it. He is an idiot.
If Putin a problem with the Ukraine, he might be able to justify going after the government and the military supporting it. Just take his army and meet them on the field of battle.
But he is too cowardly to do that. He is bombing women and children, innocent people who have nothing to do with whatever grievances Putin has. That is evil. And anyone supporting his doing that is evil as well.
You will never wash the blood off.
Coming out with the phrase “Kiev Junta”, should get you permanently banned here.
I hope you are removed from here for good.
If I had a AK47 and found you, I would put it in your mouth pull the trigger, and splatter what little nasty perverted brain cells in that skull all over the walls.
I have family in Russia and friends in Ukraine.
They would do the same as me.
NATO HAS SPREAD OUT ALL OVER EAST EUROPE, AFTER PROMISING IN 1990 NOT TO SPREAD BEYOND EAST GERMANY
EACH TIME RUSSIA PROTESTED
FINALLY, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
THE WEST GOT ITS SANCTIONS AND RUSSIA WILL GET UKRAINE, IN DUE TIME.
No justification for Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Putin simply wants to create a new Russian empire from the remnants of the old Evil Empire.
The Russian military continues to commit atrocities as it did in Chechnya and elsewhere and is led by war criminals.
Putin is mad at NATO so he kills women and children who have nothing to do with NATO. Great logic there, m0r0n. I guess Putin just doesn’t have the gonads to confront NATO.
Did he try to rein in NATO by cutting off a lot of Europe’s energy? No. Easy for him to do, painful for NATO. That alone shows how pitiful your excuse is for his war on Ukraine.
Exactly. I’ll bet that in Lao Tzu’s “The Art of War”, it says “Rule #1: Do not poke the bear!”
Peoples who suffered decades under Soviet repression ASKED to join Nato.
As a result of this insane invasion of a democratic country Putin will achieve the exact opposite of what he claimed.
Next country to join Nato will be FINLAND.
Devil’s advocate – Is that official policy now?
Sorry, but when it comes to the Devil and advocacy;
Guess who the best and the very Top brass body there happens to be in matters of advocacy!
Congratulations, you guessed it right… yes it is, it happens to be the Devil.
Simple advice, if allowed, please please do not compete there under any circumstance, as you may very well end up with your soul striped to pieces.
(or if you a special case…then your mind and “heart” instead, then)
oh, that is silly!
“Look, energy policy in Germany right now is to accelerate roll out of renewables – more, quicker”
Unreliables are just that, hence the German U-Turn, griff. Bitter pill to swallow, eh?
More windmills does not mean more wind. If you believe it does you should seek damages from the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent etc
Actually the u-turn started several months back, when they agreed to consider nuclear and natural gas as green power sources.
Get a grip, griff. Things changed with the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Whether it’s a long-term change or just a knee-jerk reaction, we’ll see.
Any invader would love to strafe wind and solar “farms”. Much easier than trying to mess up a real power plant.
Any source of power is vulnerable, as Russia is showing with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
Sure, which is why nations must have a strong military- which Germany just discovered.
Vulnerable yes, but the risk of things going terribly wrong (for your own side) in attacking a nuclear power station doesn’t really compare to taking out a few windmills.
There is some good news for the Russian people…
CNN to stop broadcasting in Russia
Wrong and delusional as usual, Griffendope.
griff, call Putin and tell him you are trying real hard, but the cat may be out of the bag.
Griffy,you must be suffering with a bad case of “Ostrichitis”.
You and your employer wish
Griff,
Even the powerful German Green Party (in coalition with SPD) have agreed that they will have to extend the life span of coal plants. They said: “Even the powerful German Green Party (in coalition with the SPD) have agreed that they will have to extend the life-span of coal plants. They said: “Short term it may be that, as a precaution and in order to be prepared for the worst, we have to keep coal-powered plants on standby and maybe even let them operate”. Don’t let dogma and indoctrination get in the way of absolute necessity when it slaps you in the face!
I may be contradicting myself, but is it true the official government policy hasn’t changed? That the changes are only being discussed at this point? For once, is it possible the griffster could be right?
There is a big difference between policy changes and talking about policy changes. I think that might be his point.
All of the above. They are redefining what is considered green to include NG and nukes, and planning on more wind turbines. As far as actual changes versus consideration of them, it’s both. Here is one change:
“Germany is seeking to cut its reliance on Russian gas by restarting plans for utility firm Uniper to build a liquefied natural gas terminal (LNG), according to a report Sunday from business newspaper Handelsblatt.”
“ Germany has plans to build two LNG terminals to become independent from Russia’s oil, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a Bundestag meeting on Sunday.”
https://www.ibtimes.com/russia-ukraine-conflict-how-germany-plans-end-dependence-russian-gas-3416109
Well, have you a computer model to predict how many Germans wil be dead cold from cold when all that cornucopia of energy will be available?
I think you may be right — everything is just talk now and official policy has not changed.
Question — Why no EV armored fighting vehicles? No solar-powered cruise missiles?
#foodforthought
griff knows more about Germany’s energy policy than Germany’s chancellor. Got it.
griff:
I ask again:
I look forward to your response.
Evidently, it takes a war for Germany to decide the Energiewende is a failure. If they really want to reduce CO2 emissisions, building more nuclear is the only viable option.
They have world class engineering- they could probably build the best nuclear reactors in the world. Perhaps they’re not contributing to fusion research- if not, they should get on it now.
Germany and France jointly developed the new 1600 MW EPR design (European Pressurized Reactor). One is under construction in France now; two have been completed in China and one is supposed to go online in Finland this summer. Two are in early construction stages in the UK (Hinkley Point C). 12 others are planned — notably 6 in India — but no construction started.
The problem with all new reactors is they take too long to complete — roughly 10 years from start of construction to commercial service plus three or more years of regulatory approval on the front, and accruing substantial cost overruns along the way. The French Flamanville EPR reactor started construction in 2007 and it won’t be in service until 2023 at least. If the Finnish EPR completes on schedule construction will have taken 17 years.
Even in China, the two EPR reactors took 9 years to build.
This is why it is so important to refurbish and extend the life of current reactors, and why Germany’s decision to shut down perfectly viable units is so dumb.
Commercial fusion power is so far over the horizon it’s not worth discussing.
SMR, which those are not, SHOULD reduce construction time to years, less then 5, not including lawsuits.
Once “assembly line” type construction is implemented, .2 years or so MAX would be reasonable to “assume”, less lawfare that is.
It’s a very long slog from a successful working demonstration reactor to something that can be commercially deployed at scale, and not just for technical reasons.
You’ve no doubt heard the Max Planck quote “science advances one funeral at a time”? In the case of commercial nuclear power, that funeral belongs to a career regulatory bureaucrat.
The economics of SMRs is extremely bad unless assembly line construction is implemented and they start getting built by the many dozens to hundreds. The problem is that there isn’t a market for many dozens to hundreds so there is unlikely to be the level of investment to get the various SMR designs through demonstration, a winning design chosen by the market, factories constructed for the winning design, and that design put into widespread use.
By the way, I’m a PhD in Nuclear Engineering (Fusion emphasis). I gave up Fusion when it became apparent to me that I’d never see a commercial Fusion reactor in my lifetime as the economics of Fusion (if it can ever be made to reach engineering breakeven) is thoroughly dominated by existing (and newer design) fission reactors. It’s apparent that SMRs will continue to be dominated by existing fission reactors for several decades too.
Boomers do that, and the kids notice.
Check out NuScale, the first plant with 8 reactor vessels. Already licensed and to be built in Idaho on US government land to circumvent all the local political crap. Reactor vessels are small enough to mass produce.
Of course there are, at this time, no foundries to build the vessels in the US. Hell, the reactors for US Nuclear Aircraft Carriers and Sub are produced in Canada.
If you have seen my past rants on this subject, you would know I believe plants COULD be brought on line rapidly if sited at old retired coal plant locations since all infrastructure needed is already there. These easy sites at several a year and as the siting requires more infrastructure, more lead time would be required, but there would be the time while the existing coal sites are built.
Now I would say that once the retirement of old wind and solar begins, and society has figured out unreliables were just a scam, the new nuclear could replace that capacity BUT since the unreliables were never needed, that would not be the case.
t
Germany is working on Fusion, part of ITER and the Wendelstein 7x Stellerator record setter. In spite of massive de-industrialization propaganda.
https://www.ipp.mpg.de/w7x
WUWT will not decide this issue, it will be discussed. Let WUWT stick to CO2 squabbles.
WUWT is a science blog, not a climate blog.
Agree, ‘climate’ is not science.
I think that they have not decided that the Energiewende is a failure. I guess that they decided to simply enter a “pause”; like the “pause” in Global Warming.
yuh, well I suppose when Putin is assassinated or he pulls out of Ukraine and applogizes, then the Germans will return to their green fantasy- otherwise, I wouldn’t bet on it- it looks like Germany is in shock- glad to see it too as they can add a lot to NATO
Even the Germans have come to realize, you cannot fight a war with wind and solar.
The remaining nuclear plants will continue to produce for at least 10 to 15 more years
Retired coal plants will be reactivated for at least 10 years.
Russia Pipeline Gas Supply to Europe
Fossil fuel provides about 70% of Europe’s primary energy
Natural gas provides about 20%; of that about 20% for electric power generation, the rest for heating and industrial processes.
Russia provided Europe and Turkey with 200.8 and 198.97 billion cubic meters of gas (bcm), in 2018 and 2019, respectively;
Russia provided 174.9 bcm in 2020, because COVID reduced economic activity.
Russia provides about 40% of annual EU gas requirements. See Note
Other gas suppliers are: Norway 22%, Algeria 18%, Azerbaijan 9%
Germany, Italy and Turkey received 45.84, 20.80, 16.40 bcm, respectively, in 2020. See URL
http://www.gazpromexport.ru/en/statistics/
LNG from Elsewhere Replacing Russian Gas
In case of no gas flow from Russia, 200 bcm/y, Europe would have a 40% shortfall, of which about 10% to 15%, or 20 bcm/y to 30 bcm/y, could be offset by diverting LNG from other sources; gas and other spot prices would be at new highs.
NOTE: In 2020, Russia provided the following percentage of gas to Europe, by country:
* Members of the EU.
Bosnia + Herzegovina 100%, N. Macedonia 100%, Moldova 100%, *Finland 94%, *Latvia 93%, Serbia 89%, *Estonia 79%, *Bulgaria 77%, *Slovakia 70%, Croatia 68%, *Czechia (Czech Republic) 66%, *Austria 64%, *Greece 51%, *Germany 49%, *Italy 46%, *Lithuania 41%, *Poland 40%, *Slovenia 40%, *France 24%, *Netherlands 11%, *Romania 10%, Georgia 6%.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/russian-gas-dependence-in-europe-by-country
What Germany aught to do is ask, maybe better to demand that Pres. Biden pumps more natural gas to replace that provided by Russia since he, i.e. Biden, is responsible for them having to curtail purchases from Russia. I’m sure they could make a good case for that. It might even sink through the haze and get the point across to the Pres.
That isn’t what the German govt is saying…
Germany Brings Forward Goal of 100% Renewable Power to 2035 – Bloomberg
All the better, bring the impossible to achieve goal sooner.
Of course, griff, you know this accelerated time frame is based on getting the most graft before the voting populace votes this group of crooks out.
EXCERPT from:
THE UKRAINE PLOT IS THICKENING WITH GERMANY AND FRANCE BARELY IN LOCKSTEP WITH US/UK-LED NATO
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-plot-is-thickening-with-germany-and-france-no-longer-in
US Futile Search for 200 bcm/y of Natural Gas Elsewhere
If Russian pipeline gas supply to the EU were interrupted, adequate quantities of gas would need to be found elsewhere.
The US stated, it is putting together a “global strategy” to increase gas production among allies, in case of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The State Department, led by Senior Adviser for Energy Security Amos Hochstein, has in the last six to eight weeks been putting together a global strategy exploring contingency options to redirect and increase gas supplies from different parts of the world, a senior US official said,” CNN reports Sunday. “This has included talks with firms in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia”.
The next section shows how unlikely would be this “global strategy”
Up to 40% Additional LNG Carrier Loads, if Russian Pipeline Gas Supply to Europe were Stopped
Brussels career bureaucrats make the same myopic mistakes as Washington career bureaucrats
Washington Career Bureaucrats: The only beneficiaries of their “Electrify-Everything” actions are:
1) Subsidized, multi-billion companies that supply the wind and solar systems, and
2) Utilities, that sell much more high-priced electricity, due to implementing the tens of millions of heat pumps that do not work on colder days, and electric vehicle that have marginal usefulness and are very expensive, compared to efficient gasoline vehicles
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/poor-economics-of-electric-vehicles-in-new-england
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/electric-bus-systems-likely-not-cost-effective-in-vermont-at
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/heat-pumps-are-money-losers-in-my-vermont-house-as-they-are-in
Everyone else gets screwed with higher taxes, fees and surcharges, and higher household electric rates, as happened in Denmark and Germany.
People are told to grin-and-bear-it, and to sacrifice, because they are “fighting” climate change, a la Don-Quixote tilting at wind mills, while the wind/solar-subsidy-collecting elites cruise around in private jets and yachts.
Brussels Career Bureaucrats: They likely have little hands-on experience in the energy sector. They urged EU countries not to sign long-term gas supply contracts with Russia, because that would send the wrong “virtue signal” regarding “weaning the EU off fossil fuels”. Just google, if you find this incredible.
Their myopic decisions did not foresee EU spot prices for natural gas would become “volatile”, i.e., about 5 to 10 times the prices of Russian gas, under long-term contracts.
Naïve career bureaucrats likely thought Russia would supply enough gas to lower spot prices, but Russia did not.
Various folks, including Brussels bureaucrats did not take any blame for their stupidity.
Instead, they tried besmirching Russia, but the gas system operating data did not co-operate.
However, Russia made sure to reliably provide pipeline gas, to clients with signed long-term contracts, as confirmed by Brussels, Germany, Turkey, etc. i.e., Russia was not to blame for high spot prices.
Russia has no contractual obligation to supply gas to the EU spot market.
Russia has no contractual obligation to fill the EU above- and belowground gas storage reservoirs
This was known by Brussels career bureaucrats, prior to their myopic decisions.
The net result was Europe’s energy costs increased by at least $200 BILLION per year, which offsets any benefits from Europe’s international trade.
NOTE: There is some consolation in all this. After all, there is the important “benefit” of strengthening the US/UK/EU long-term policy of squeezing/diminishing Russia.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/luongo-eu-sanctions-russia-equal-suicide-cop
LNG Consumption in Europe: Historically, the EU has imported very minor quantities of LNG, because LNG prices are about 25% to 30% higher than pipeline gas bought from Russia, under long-term contracts. That will always be the case, due to cost differences of applicable technologies.
The recent, cleverly-designed sanctions imposed on Russia did not include any restrictions on energy and materials flow from Russia to avoid additional price increases on world markets
Russia will make money, which will partially offset the cost of fighting in Ukraine, and of the long-lasting sanctions
The US/UK-led NATO will send more weapons and disguised trainers/mercenaries to Ukraine to increase the cost of fighting Ukraine
The end result will be more death and destruction lasting more than a few days.
Calculation of Additional LNG Carrier Loads
Assume an average LNG carrier capacity at 170,000 m3, equivalent to 76,500 metric ton of LNG
In 2020, world LNG demand was 360 million metric ton, equivalent to 4,706 LNG carrier loads/y. See URL
The 200 bcm/y of pipeline gas supply from Russia is equivalent to 1903 LNG carrier loads/y
There would need to be an enormous, worldwide increase in LNG carrier loads of about (4706 + 1903)/4706 = 40.4%, if Russian gas to the EU were stopped. See table
There would be a gigantic, additional strain on the world’s LNG system, which would send spot prices to unprecedented levels for many years.
At present, Europe lacks the capacity to receive and gasify that many carrier loads.
At present, there is a significant shortage of large-capacity LNG carriers
NOTE:
https://www.rivieramm.com/opinion/opinion/lng-shipping-by-numbers-36027
https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/natural-gas/liquefied-natural-gas-lng/lng-outlook-2021.html#iframe=L3dlYmFwcHMvTE5HX091dGxvb2svMjAyMS8
Well, chi’drens, when the evil stupid people are allowed to steal elections this is what happens.
All elections have consequences, but those of stolen elections are far more serious, as such elections also erode the morality of the electorate and its ability to resist tyranny.
When the SCOTUS ruled, in the “stolen valor” case, that freedom of speech allowed lying outright for personal benefit, the erosion of morality was set in stone in the US.
Prime example? Venezuela.
You need to distinguish between what they have to do in emergent circumstances, and what their unchanged base policies are. You also need to consider how very much they are benefitting from net zero efforts, relative to where they would be otherwise. Much/most of those solar and wind electrons would now be coming from Russia, as oil, coal, gas, had they not moved along as much as they did, when they did.
Bigger pic, even partially pricing in fossil fuel political/security risk will move us down the road to greener energy supplies, in toto, faster than all of the bureaucratic pronouncements and edicts combined. Kind of like a carbon tax from the Imaginary Guy In The Sky…
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts
I’d love to be piloting a fighter jet invading a country dependent on solar and wind “farms”. It would be a shooting gallery. Tons of fun. My understanding based on talking to the people building a solar “farm” near me is that if one panel goes out- the full array will go down. The array might include scores of panels. One quick straffing run over a solar “farm”- even a large one- would probably knock it out. I imagine it wouldn’t take much to knock out a wind turbine either.
Why bother with the panes or turbines, the transmission lines would guarantee that ALL of the power from these generally remote “power” sources won’t get to the end user.
No expensive, high tech missiles required, just guns.
Solar panels are wired in series in order to get the voltages needed. Take out any panel in a string and the entire string goes out. The other strings are unaffected.
To reduce wiring costs, it’s a safe bet that each row is a string, so take out the first panel in each row. Take out the last panel as well, just in case each row is two strings.
Perhaps, but there are hundreds of solar farms and thousands of turbines in the UK (about 11,000)… as opposed to about 100 conventional power station and 7 nuclear plants
Perhaps. They are all, by their very nature, remotely located and the transmission lines from them are easily severed. So who cares how many?
In any case, no need to take out wind and solar, they are INTERMITTENT. The conventional and nuclear plants are all that need to be eliminated since solar eliminates itself on cloudy days and every night and wind eliminates itself every time there is calm weather.
As has been explained on this site, and to you directly, wind and solar are a net reduction of the wealth of society. Something built that is totally unnecessary that requires 100% redundancy by other generation means. The resources, both material and manpower, wasted on the construction COULD be building houses, hospitals, roads, refrigerators, cars, etc. etc. that would INCREASE the total wealth of society.
A rising tide lifts ALL boats, a richer society makes all citizens more wealthy.
Our current “homeless” in the US get all kinds of free stuff, and have plenty extra to buy their drugs. Hell, those on welfare in the US have a higher standard of living than 90% of the worlds population.
Imagine using all the money wasted on unreliables to help people. 5 or 10 percent of the worlds population now living on less than a US welfare recipient could be getting close to that standard of living. Of course you griff, being a leftist, can’t get on board with that since that 5 to 10 percent would probably be POC. It is much more important for liberals to virtue signal than do something that could actually HELP PEOPLE.
End Rant.
11,000 VS. 107
And the power output is still less than 10%.
Why would anybody waste their time taking out the wind/solar? They don’t really produce anything anyway.
Why would anybody waste their time taking out the wind/solar? They don’t really produce anything anyway.
Sorry, this is completely wrong! They do provide a rich source of public subsidies for the investors, and a means of virtue-signalling for self-regarding dimwits like Griff.
“and thousands of turbines in the UK (about 11,000)”
Poor birds.
So when, as happened recently, wind was around 2% of generation for many days, the solution is to build another 539000 windmills?
Thank for doing the math! LOL
God, you’re an idiot, Griffter. There might be hundreds of solar farms, but there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers and many millions of bullets. It would only take a single soldier with a rifle one shot to knock out a whole string of solar cells. That one soldier could take out an entire solar farm in a few minutes. A soldier wouldn’t even be needed, any old nut who has infiltrated the target country could do it, probably even with a shotgun loaded with buckshot. No armored platoon would be needed like it would take to be able to take out a nuclear power plant.
A sharpshooter with a high powered rifle could take out a wind turbine with a few well placed shots to the blades near the hub. It would be harder than taking out a hapless solar farm, but still relatively easily done.
Actually, all it would take is a low-altitude sonic boom by a fast jet to blow every single solar panel to smithereens.
bob,
Western Europe is not without energy resources, they just chose not to develop them, choosing instead to source what they needed to balance / back-up their expensive and unreliable renewables from the shady guy down the street.
As to your second point, it doesn’t take a Cray to figure out that the left will try to take advantage of their self-imposed crisis to agitate for their Rousseauian utopia of (a lot fewer) people living harmoniously in a state of nature.
“Western Europe is not without energy resources, they just chose not to develop them, choosing instead to source what they needed to balance / back-up their expensive and unreliable renewables from the shady guy down the street.”
Agree on the “not without resources”. But at an order of magnitude lower than the Russian supplies. As with US shale, it’s the economics, stupid. Blame the laws all you want, but it’s the magic of the marketplace that mostly slowed down Western European fossil fuel production.
“But over the last 15 years, largely because of geology, that production base gets wiped out. ”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/02/why-europe-cant-shut-off-russian-gas/622925/
“Blame the laws all you want, but it’s the magic of the marketplace that mostly slowed down Western European fossil fuel production.”
How oily! Yes, economics dictates that sourcing conventional fuels should always take place at the margin, but ‘the laws’, aka having the state’s regulatory thumb on the economic scale, ensures that, when the shtf,there are no nukes or coal plants in operation that can continue to run for extended periods using fuels already on site while alternative fuel sources are secured.
BOOB understands that. All leftists just want the people in the middle, the low education voters, to be mislead by their bs.
See my Rant to griff above. This is about ideology. Leftists HATE people, they don’t care how much damage they do to society with all the wasted resources for unreliables, as long as they get their way.
BOOB has told us he made his living from oil, but they are dirty nasty scoundrels and all deserve to d!e. The “all deserve to d!e” I added, he actually never said that. I just take that from the tone of so many of his posts.
BTW, To BOOB: Who is going to decommission all the wind and solar, you have yet to answer.
Have to call you out on this Bob.
Gas exploration in Britain has been suspended by activist action.
In the February 16th edition of “Business”,the CEO of Cuadrilla,Francis Egan in response to a piece by a journalist,gave this statement.
Two Lancashire gas exploration wells flowed very high quality gas.Just 10%of gas recovery from the Bowland Shale would supply the Uk with 50 years of current Uk demand.
The value of just 10% of the in place British resource would equate to 3.3 trillion pounds. The tax levied would raise nearly 200 billion pounds for benefit of the population.
Do you approve of such activist action?
All on one smallish island.
“Activist vision” or no, the relatively low quality of these deposits, relative to most in the CONUS, coupled with the infrastructure you would have to build from almost nada, dictates that it’s n’gonna happen.
People conveniently forget that CONUS shale CAPEX is a firm, unchanging, ~30% of that required to maintain R/P’s in a country with the least worst shale reservoir quality, the bet infrastructure and business climate in the world, Ben Dover environmental, safety and responsible care regulation/enforcement, and a pretend bonding system for asset retirement. Your elected officials, no matter the party, are much wiser
Even in the CONUS, pimping shale development this decade echoes our Repubs claim that they are “Almost, just about, nearly, ready to propose an overhaul of the ACA that will be cheaper, better, more inclusive”. And they always will be….
Pure gibberish, BigOilyBoob. You must write by loading a shotgun with random words and firing it at a blank wall. Try making just one point in an intelligible way. Stay on point, don’t succumb to your urge to squirt verbal Demorrhea all over yourself.
“Stay on point, don’t succumb to your urge to squirt verbal Demorrhea all over yourself.”
Sadly, that’s all the BigOldBoob knows how to do.
Hell BOOB, infrastructure in UK? Really? The UK is only 600 miles N to S, how hard would that be if the all powerful government decided to allow it.
You do need to up your game some.
BUT, you again brought up retirement of oil assets. So as to the question YOU refuse to answer: Who is responsible to decommission all the solar and wind?? You never answer because you KNOW it will be the US taxpayer.
And in reality that is probably fair since our taxpayer subsidies are what built them in the first place, unlike OIL and Natural gas, paid for by entrepreneurs and then paid off by the end product users, not through the coercive force of taxation.
Word salad Bob arrives. Benefits of windmills…that is funny
The Dwarf ex mayor of South Bend stated the Leftist, Liberal and BigOilBob policy on “energy”, “We don’t want permanent solutions to a temporary problem”.
What is the temporary problem of which he speaks? Being able to import Russian oil, NOT the ever accelerating rising cost of fossil fuels in the US due to Democrat obstruction.
Gas $5.00 on average in Cali, LOL! And California COULD be fossil fuel “independent” if they would just allow drilling and fracking.
“And California COULD be fossil fuel “independent” if they would just allow drilling and fracking.”
BOOB, I once visited my brother in law in Huntington Beach. The house was owned by an oil company, and there were oil wells in a strip behind back to back houses. So no drilling there. No “pollution” I could see even though the well was running really quietly right behind the house.
So as all liberals you say “uneconomical”. Of course all the items you mentioned are uneconomical, the regulations perpetuated by the regulators, extreme leftists all, were written to ensure they were uneconomical.
The only problem with the price of gas in Cali is that the price per gallon charged to individuals is not based on their net wealth or a percentage of their government income when they don’t have a net wealth and that EV owners are not charged for the road they drive on. So, as a communist/socialist/liberal, you should be all on board with billionaires, movie stars, etc. paying thousands of dollars per gallon of gas. That would pay for a whole bunch of bureaucrats to verify the rich weren’t cheating, and what little left over after the swamp got its share, could go to help the poor to buy gas.
Finally, BOOB, who is going to pay for the decommissioning of all that solar and wind. The 40 to 50 year old still standing inoperable wind turbans in Cali tell me no one. I have noticed you no longer mention all the “costs” to taxpayers for plugging old oil wells since I started asking you that, LOL.
THUMS, Las Cienegas, all trash cans/eyesores. Every area surrounding these century + old LA oil developments is dead set against them. Mainly because they are less than economically marginal and because the land is so much more valuable for alt. development than for stripper oil. Even the much trashier, but more profitable inland Brea-Olnda field has been largely plugged out for houses. Linn Energy is just trading $ to delay the inevitable rabbit ear pulling when asset retirement time comes,
“Finally, BOOB, who is going to pay for the decommissioning of all that solar and wind. “
The operators. Equipment will be updated, hauled off. I’m sure that some of the operators will try and cheat, but since the trash is on the surface and not below, they won’t be able to get away with it for long.
The fundamental difference between green sites and fossil fuel fields is that their value doesn’t drop. By definition, unless a mistake was made originally, they are the best available. So, these sites will be used for centuries, providing rent money for the owners.
blob sinks to telling bald-faced lies.
So BOOB, you finally answered, but you REALLY know that there is NO MONEY by bond or any federal requirement for those “operators” to set aside funds for decommissioning, do I call BS on you BOOB.
Was it Iowa that passed a state law requiring a decommissioning plan that stopped all planned wind projects in their tracks?
The developers had never even been asked for a decommissioning plan.
That is why you answered so obliquely, just bs.
BTW, if the FF sites are sooooo bad, how are the oil companies selling them for residential housing?
You are really funny BOOB.
“So BOOB, you finally answered, but you REALLY know that there is NO MONEY by bond or any federal requirement for those “operators” to set aside funds for decommissioning, do I call BS on you BOOB.”
The repsonse I “finally” gave has been the same I’ve given here, overr and over. As for the “bond”, yes I know. And per my earlier post, I also know why. Since green projects will not deplete, as will fossil fuel fields and sites, they will be handled like every other industrial project.
“BTW, if the FF sites are sooooo bad, how are the oil companies selling them for residential housing?”
Cal LA fields are so old that the mineral owners own the surface area required for field development as well. And in Brea Olinda the field was spread out over enough area that the surface development economics dictated selective restoration to exploit the residential value. The other Cal LA fields might or might not be similarly valuable to exploit. Hope so, but not optimistic. To plug many, many, wells to get real estate access to a few concentrated drilling and production facilities will be a money loser. So, I predict decades of foot dragging on plugging, abandonments, surface restorations, with the city or state stepping in to foot most/all of the bill.
“BOOB” RU the Drake from middle school? If so, still I remember your cool comeback. Let’s see — oh yeah. HEY, **** YOU, MAN!”. I hope you know that we were laughing WITH you. Also, sorry about the lunch money. I’m not that guy anymore….
Hey Drake, since Clyde has opened the door widely to irrelevant wool gathering, you reminded me of mine.
20+ years ago. Took off from Santa Barbara at the crack of dawn to check on some tubing rotator installs going on at the Brea Olinda field. East on 101, almost to the 5, right lane, choking traffic, ~8AM. Who comes along in the left hand lane, in a fully tweaked hot rod convertible. but ol’ Lantern Jaw himself, on his way to U Studios to start tonight’s Tonight Show. He pointed at the 5 exit and 7 lanes of walking speed traffic parted for him to come across and exit south. Cal road royalty….
I have considered the benefit from net zero efforts and the answer is:
< net zero
Actually gross zero, before taxes….
Sorry, Redge, in my opinion you are wrong, the “benefit” is net negative.. There are no benefits to the average person, just to crony capitalists and the politicians who support them through legislation and are supported by them through campaign contributions and bribes.
< net zero
Have i confused myself whilst trying to be clever?
< = less than
You were right the first time, sorry Redge, LESS THAN 0 was always correct.
No worries mate
All the best
emergent circumstances …?
The ‘benefits’ of the net zero policies are negative. The ‘benefits’ are going to Russia. Russia is the short term beneficiary of the net zero policies. China is the beneficiary in the long term.
The ’emergent circumstances’ that you see today are what you will see for a long long time, given most of Europe’s energy policy. If you can’t even take care of yourself, and you make significant demands/intrusions into affairs of others, those others are going to get very tired of your shit (ask your family … they will explain it to you).
Btw, it’s Robert Habeck, not Halbeck.
Democrats in the US have seen how Biden has shot himself in both feet with regard to fuel independence and are now wondering why he is limping so badly.
I think it’s because he’s forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other 😂🤣
I guess that Biden having his foot in his mouth when he shot it explains his present mental condition as well.
The EU fights back against red gas by going blue to support the White Russians-
Turn down your thermostat to defeat Russia’s gas dominance, energy watchdog says (msn.com)
Some sensible ideas there plus some not so sensible. If wind and solar worked as advertised, would the EU be in its current predicament?
Nations need to understand energy security is national security. Perhaps more importantly, nations need to understand that negotiation and playing nice won’t stop aggression from rogue nations such as Putin’s Russia.
When I was a kid, everybody understood the latter. Bullies back down when you stand up to them. Giving in only encourages them. This has been true since, I dunno, the beginning of time?
FJB Brandon’s political career consists of decades of leading from behind. His political leadings consist of sticking his finger in the wind and gauging where the Democrat party wants to go at that time.
The other distinguishing characteristic of our Dear Leader is his complete lack of judgment. He’s consistently wrong. He reminds me of King Lear — old before his time as someone Brandon’s age should be wiser.
political leadingsshould be political leanings.Still not a well-worded sentence even with that correction.
Well his handlers are really in charge. Biden just reads.
Not very well though. And put a number on the screen and who knows what will come out.
A few corrections to the record:
1) The Obama Administration opposed Nordsream 2 – Trump merely continued that opposition.
2) Regarding FERC and their decision regarding standards for LNG terminals, three of the five current members of FERC were appointed by Trump, not Biden.
3) Biden cancelled the Federal permit for the additional branch of the Keystone pipeline which was to cross Federal lands – the rest of the pipeline, which does not cross Federal lands, continues to operate and may increase its capacity with larger or more pipes without a Federal permit. The oil that was to be carried by the new section of Keystone is still being delivered by other means, including train transportation, which is more expensive and less safe than pipeline transport. But the oil continues to flow no matter how it is transported. The cancellation of Keystone’s Federal permit was all about symbolism not reality.
You’re out of date Duane.
WSJ
Biden’s Regulators Empower PutinFERC sets rules that will block new U.S. natural gas pipelines.By The Editorial Board
Feb. 18, 2022
…
In an act of bizarre timing, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday revised its policy for approving natural gas pipelines and export terminals. FERC by law must vouch that projects are in the public interest and won’t have a significant environmental impact. But now the agency plans to include greenhouse gas emissions in this analysis. The vote was 3-2, with two Republican commissioners dissenting.
***Here’s the kicker: The pipeline analysis may include emissions from upstream production and downstream consumption even though there’s no reliable way to measure either one. You can bet that regulators beholden to climate activists will assert that every new pipeline will massively increase emissions even though more pipelines are needed to transport natural gas to back up unreliable renewables, especially as nuclear and coal plants shut down. It won’t matter if the piped gas is replacing dirtier coal or helping to keep the lights on.
Duane has an emotional condition under which he cannot admit that Trump has ever been right about anything.
Which is quite a feat, since DJT has been eventually proven right about almost everything. 🙂
Yes, it’s called TDS. Apparently there is no cure, as it seems to drive the sufferer permanently insane.
Duane,
Thank you for your timely delivery of Democrat talking points. Does ROOTS Psaki send you her noted every day>
1) TRUMP! actually imposed sanctions on Nord Stream 2. Obama just TALKED, and with Obama, if his lips were moving, he was lying.
2) You were SCHOOLED by ResourceGuy on that LIE.
3) The VOLUME is GREATLY REDUCED, although the trains, which you surprisingly admit, like Jennifer Granholm admitted during the Colonial Access pipeline hacking, (a quote I can’t find now I am sure buried by your leftist colleagues) are a FAR worse method of transporting liquid fossil fuels.
Lucky for the Democrats that the person who owns most of those trains is a BIG supporter of Democrats. No quid pro quo there.
Tee up another one, two or three Duane. We will knock them out of the park like all the rest of your Democrat, leftist anti FF and, anti TRUTH talking points.
I was going to contradict Duane, but according to the FERC website, 3 of 5 commissioners were appointed or reappointed by Trump.
Mr Doshi,
Be absolutely sure that Delhi and Beijing are watching with both horror and foreboding at the extremely destructive financial warfare in full swing to destroy Russia’s economy, as EU and US, British notables blurted out. Financial warfare is actually war.
The issue is not Ukraine, but the failure of COP26 caused by the Big Three – Russia, China, and India, that refused to be destroyed economically.
Be absolutely sure these weapons will be turned against both India and China, sooner rather than later.
Some may think Prince Charles was joking when he stated at COP26 :
“we have to put ourselves on a war-like footing” and “we need a vast military-style campaign,”
Now see why Sharma wept that he could not deliver COP26 success.
Germany already was economically destroyed in two World Wars.
Be prepared.
The best way is to link up with the Belt And Road Initiative, knowing that anyway these weapons will be unleashed. Why wait, as President Putin said.
Do not let other Ukraine’s such as Kashmir, Nepal, Xin Jiang, Taiwan, Hong Kong, be used as the cover to deploy these attacks anyway.
The City of London/WallStreet has declared full scale war on all industrial economies, including Germany, Russia, because with $2 QUADRILLION debt they cannot tolerate an alternative, which is the BRI for massive development, major agro-industrial programs.
You guys crack me up. Between the misinformation, disinformation, distortions and outright lies you keep quoting fellow Bozos like Prince Charles. Bonnie Prince Charley is neither respected nor liked. He’s the punch line of a joke.
He is a joke yes, his ventriloquist not.
Amazing how you fall for Ye Olde circus trick.
Now Marc Carney, former BofE, Bank of Canada chief, was even more direct in a Nov. 13, 2021, Guardian op-ed :
“In April [2021], we launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which now covers the entire waterfront of finance: banks, insurers, pension funds, export credit agencies and asset managers. It comprises more than 450 leading financial institutions from 45 countries. Its members have committed to managing their assets, which total more than $130 trillion, in line with achieving 1.5° C…. New loans and investments from GFANZ members will not only fund green projects such as renewable power, but will also go where the emissions are—in sectors such as autos, steel, cement—and back those companies with plans to decarbonize, while withdrawing capital from those companies that aren’t moving fast enough.”
Now see what GFANZ means. BlackRock is fully on board. See Carney’s Bloomberg interview at COP26.
Ignore at your peril.
jeffery p,
A few yes / no questions for you:
1) Do you favor the that the US military activity against Russian forces in Ukraine?
2) Do you favor US policy to expand NATO up to the borders of Russia?
3) Do you favor the US government imposing restrictions on fossil fuel usage to address climate change?
Again, yes or no answers, and please, no ad hominem attacks. Thank you!
1) No. I do not favor direct American military intervention against the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
I don’t favor a Nato no-fly zone, either, as both could lead to a dangerous escalation of the conflict. I’m not even sure Nato could enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine if it wanted.
Direct military action by the US and Nato are as yet unwarranted, but that may change if the Russian military continues its atrocities against civilians.
China is our most dangerous geopolitical foe and a direct military engagement in Ukraine would also leave us vulnerable to Chinese military aggression elsewhere.
The US should send arms, food, fuel, training, etc., to the Ukrainian military and Ukrainian resistance. There is a role for our special forces and US-supported paramilitaries in this conflict. More should have been done before the shooting started.
2) Yes, I do now. Nato is a defensive alliance, not offensive. It was never a danger to Russia, only a means to thwart Russian imperialism. After this illegal war of aggression by Russia, I absolutely favor the expansion of Nato. The US should reposition its bases forward from Germany into Poland and the Baltic states.
3) No. Assuming climate change is primarily man-made (an unproven thesis at best), there are other, better ways to address the problem. There is no reason to believe in an impending climate crisis, whatever the cause of climate change. There is no evidence of an existential threat from climate change. Period.
BTW — I’m not normally one for ad hominem attacks, either. I do make an exception for people who are only interested in passing on propaganda or disinformation and who only wish to hijack the conversation instead of advancing it.
Ukraine is not a shining beacon of liberty or democracy. It has serious corruption issues and other intrinsic internal problems. We should be honest about that, too.
Whatever we can say about Ukraine, Putin’s war is unjustified. Putin is a serial liar and has violated multiple international agreements.
NATOstan defended Libya, Belgrade, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria – that’s the daftest thing I ever heard. Exceptional delusion, I’ll say!
The capital of NATOstan is Londongrad, just in case D.C. has not realized it yet.
Thank you for the thoughtful responses.
On (1), I am mostly in agreement on all your points, except the last, since I believe our government’s intervention in Ukraine’s affairs provoked Russia to invade in the first place and, tragically, will result in more brutality as we continue to intervene.
On (2), I disagree. You and I might consider NATO to be defensive and well intentioned, but obviously Russia doesn’t, and historically it hasn’t always been. History is rife with conflicts where one of the opponents believed that one or more actions left them no choice but to commence hostilities.
On (3), I agree completely, and would go on to say that the government’s interventions in this area originate from some nexus of bureaucratic incompetence, economic rent seeking and the general tendency of progressive government to expand its powers over time.
I do understand Russia views things differently. Russia guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty in the Budapest Memorandum and Putin chose to violate the agreement instead.
Tell me, when did Nato expansion into Ukraine become an issue – before Putin’s dictatorship or after he came to power? Didn’t Putin provoke Nato expansion?
I’m not familiar with the Memorandum, but having briefly looked at a couple of articles, I get the sense that there was always some ambiguity around the meaning of ‘guarantee’ or ‘assurance’ and whether these applied to sovereignty or neutrality. Having said that, it looks like everything was copacetic from the US’ standpoint until 2014, when Russia took Crimea, thereby violating Ukraine’s sovereignty. Conversely, from Russia’s standpoint, they could argue that everything was fine until 2014, when the US orchestrated the Maidan coup, thereby violating Ukraine’s neutrality.
Jeffery p – agree wholeheartedly. Although I do feel that the ‘dangerous escalation of the conflict’ may already have been made by Putin – he won’t back down or compromise; this looks like an ‘all or nothing’ bid for power now and we should do everything we can to ensure he gets nothing.
A question for you:
Do you support the murder of innocent women and children and a war against a non-NATO country to protest the possible expansion of NATO?
No. Do you support expanding a military alliance that is perceived to be a threat to a nuclear power that 30 years ago voluntarily dissolved a similar military alliance that you once perceived to be a threat?
And what Warsaw pack countries did NATO invade because of that “threat”? How many innocent civilians did NATO kill in response to that “threat”? Stop trolling with your false equivalencies in order to justify what Putin is doing. It’s not working.
Get into Bitcoin….
Lookout!
At that 2019 FED Jackson Hole Regime Change confab, digital currencies were announced to replace the Dollar. FaceBooks’ Libra, now Diem were the cat’s paw.
So the central banksters fully intend to take these over.
And once CASH, and also barter, or no longer allowed, they will have us all right where they want us. THEY=The Left
See Trudope as an example of THEM.
Better get your PIN codes in order. Green PIN’s on the way!
If only I had taken that advice a decade ago…
/sigh
I wonder if Angela Merkel was a sleeper agent, and even more was she being run by Putin. Both were in Dresden in the late eighties and Putin would certainly have been charged with acquiring a network of traitors.
Merkel’s energy policies have beeen disastrous and could well have been dictated by the Kremlin. She single handed and overnight pulled the plug on nuclear energy and as a quantum chemist surely she was ideally situated to know the relative safety of German nuclear power stations
I may be paranoiac but am I paranoiac enough? After all KGB penetration of the UK Labour Party and Trade Unions was quite comprehensive. as it is with Greenpeace the anti fracckng movement,XR and maybe even some in the Conservative party
Sleepy people do not notice what is going on the world outside bed.
Both the German economy and the Russian economy are being gutted. Next for sure is China and India.
The US economy is in dire straights. The UK economy is in tatters.
It is not rocket science to see the industrial economies are being targeted, rather like Germany at WWI. Any so-called developing country with industrial aspirations is savagely destroyed, take Libya just as an example.
Snap out of the daydream.
PS : Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin announced today. “In this situation, we can no longer provide the U.S. with the best rocket engines in the world,” Rogozin said. “Let them fly on something else—their brooms.”
He got that right!
“PS : Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin announced today. “In this situation, we can no longer provide the U.S. with the best rocket engines in the world,” Rogozin said. “Let them fly on something else—their brooms.””
Yes, that’s the problem when you make yourself dependent on bad actors like Putin.
The U.S. doesn’t need Roscosmos. It’s about time the U.S. started building its own rocket engines instead of buying them from Russia.
And we finally got out from under having to be launched to the space station by Russian Soyuz rockets. Now, American companies are doing that job.
Artemis delayed yet again. ISS with no support will de-orbit. Broom-stick just will not cut it!
The U.S. had a perfectly good heavy-lift launch vehicle in the Space Shuttle Launch System.
NASA didn’t need a new heavy-lift launch vehicle or Russian engines, but that didn’t stop idiots at NASA from spending that money.
Musk ought to offer to buy the space station for one dollar.
Obama killed Constellation. With a smile of course.
Will the Dem’s kill Artemis, with more smiles?
Yes, SpaceX doesn’t use Russian rocket engines.
Were my thoughts to since some years about IM Erika
Looks like the CDU sleep-walked into this mess, plan-less.
After all in 1989 Chancellor Kohl, CDU, said they had no plan whatsoever for the fall of the Wall.
And along came the Freie Wähler who explicitly say no program nor plan!
A Plan or Program, after all would be ‘authoritarian’ – so we get to Hannah Arendt’s Authoritarian Personality charge. There is the problem.
Wasn’t the fall of the wall where Bush told the Russians NATO wasn’t going to expand?
Not only Bush, see the recently disclosed UK Archive memo :
https://twitter.com/shifrinson/status/1160540400760832000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1160540400760832000%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.transcend.org%2Ftms%2F2022%2F02%2Fus-uk-france-promised-ussr-not-to-expand-nato-east-of-germany-newly-discovered-document-proves%2F
Yet there was no written agreement on Nato expansion. Any such verbal promises were no longer valid after Putin’s gangster regime came to power.
There is a written agreement, the Budapest Memorandum which came later and Russia signed and Putin repeatedly violated.
See the retrieved document from Shifrinson above.
The document was never agreed to and, above all, never signed or ratified. It was a failed proposal that is an historical curiosity but of no importance.
Jeffrey it wouldn’t matter the west will keep pushing. It’s part of the globalist agenda. The globalist also want high fossil fuel prices. Money to be made.
As far as I can tell, all these German policy changes are merely “under discussion”.
What they need to do immediately is cancel the scheduled 2022 shutdown of their three remaining nuclear reactors and get to work restarting the three they shut down last December. All of these entered service in the mid to late 1980s and have 20 or more years of useful technical life remaining.
The US also needs to assure France we will provide any requested support or assistance to complete their “Grand Carénage” program to refurbish and relicense their older reactors to extend operation beyond the current 50 year limit.
Then we can talk to Belgium about cancelling the scheduled 2022-2025 shutdown of their seven nuclear reactors, or at least the five largest and newest ones all operating less than 40 years (5,061 MW combined).
Between the German reactors shut down last year and the German and Belgian reactors scheduled to shut down this year, that’s 9,113 MW of generation capacity that can’t be replaced by new capacity of any type in the same period. Add another 1,008 MW Belgian reactor scheduled to shut down in 2023 to get a net 10,121 MW capacity loss.
Hmmm… there are lots of problems with those French reactors… cost of that has basically bankrupted EDF…
Thaks.as always, for the reference you provided to your no doubt unassailable source of information.
Flat busted broke
Which is why they are going to build a pile more, because they don’t work.
No, wait, that’s renewables
Germany’s rearming. Yippee!!
Germany invaded Russia last time, didn’t they?
First Napoleon, than as Hitler clearly said he was his follower. Now NATO. President Putin clearly said Stalin made a mistake, 28 million Russians died and he has no right to make such a mistake. No nukes in Ukraine.
The financial economic total war on Russia is Operation Barbarossa II.
Has NATO occupied part of Russia?
Barbarossa II was stopped in it’s tracks. This time around Russia brought the battle to them. That is in fact stated policy.
Yes, but there’s evidence Stalin had plans in place to invade Germany in order to settle the issue of which totalitarian system represented true socialism.
Plans, in other words scenarios. Yes, but, did not work at Nuremberg.
Yep. Hitler and Stalin shocked the world and signed a non-aggression pact in 1939. Hitler took western Poland and Stalin took everything east of the Bug River (https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nazis-and-communists-divvy-up-poland).
Both dictators were known to have plans against the other. For Hitler, the agreement secured his eastern flank so he could safely invade France and other western European nations in 1940. For Stalin, it gave him a chance to safely build up the Red Army for his planned war against Hitler.
Hitler struck first and caught Stalin with his pants down. If Hitler had remained occupied with the war in the west by say, invading Great Britain, Stalin would have had his chance to start the war instead.
Russia lost 28 million pepole because of the failure to set up defense, as President Putin criticized Stalin.
That mistake will not happen again.
A defense from the pansy western Europeans? Why would Russia need a defense from a bunch of countries who spend almost nothing on their military and are more interested in keeping their political opponents under control?
Paranoid Much, the Russians? AND bonbon?
Only after the Molotov Ribbentrop pact was signed. Russia and Germany agreeing to carving up Poland for starters.
Birds ( Vultures) of a feather flock together.
Does this mean history has restarted?
Fukuyama wrote history ended after the Wall, and Neoliberalism won.
Bit shortsighted, what?
Haha, yeah that guy was suggesting just the other day that we should have put a military base in Crimea back when Putin was messing with Georgia. Like Russia would have stood by and let that happen (see that pesky history thing). Or maybe he’s forgotten that Russia actually has a modern military and nuclear weapons unlike Saddam…
Worse things happen when the people don’t get to pick their representatives. Being given the impression your vote counts by close counts is not the same as your vote actually counting.
To paraphrase Stalin, he who votes doesn’t count. He who counts the vote counts.
Like this
Bolton braying for boots on the ground. Lindsey Graham calling for Putins assassination after responding to a hysterical half truth report of a nuclear power plant on fire. State department threatens Xi this morning with extreme repercussion if they help Russia evade the sanctions of the wwest. This comment on zerohedge sums things up nicely. “We are like pre-revolutionary France. Our aristocracy is not formally hereditary , but it is a pretty much closed stratum . It is composed of families , banks ,( Blackrock and Vanguard very visible players) , select industries .
Serving it are a loose collection of family criminal syndicates that govern our country. Families like the Kennedys,Bush, Clintons and lesser members are familiar names here.
This social organization grew immensely wealthy and powerful fighting the Cold War. Russophobia paid very well .
This stratum also exported the American industrial base to China for a little arbitrage profit.Our country is now hollowed out.
This American aristocratic stratum wants, acts, needs to continue the Russophobic strategy, it has no creativity, can imagine no new peaceful situation, so it demands , strategizes to continue its gravy train. Putin!!! All the owned media screams.
And now this stratum threatens China , the very Frankenstein it created .
We are agitating for wars we cannot fight , stupidly pushing adversaries into alliances that will, in the end ruin us. We have a retrograde, arrogant , myopic aristocracy leading our gutted country into war and ruin.
Biden , the senile ,arrogant, barking out of touch President is the perfect poetic representation of everything that is wrong with us.
Prepare for the worst.”
If there was thorough investigative journalism, reporters would be stunned to find how many politicians benefit financially from conflict and wars. There is an awful lot of bribery, only it has been legalized and is called by other names. A wise man wrote three thousand years ago that a bribe in secret perverts the ways of justice. Seldom do we find lobbying that is altruistic but a means to enrich and empower greedy people and exploit the weakest.
And to top the shame, that ‘establishment’ trots to Great Britain’s Prince Charles’ tune.
After all, they flocked in private jets to Davos, COP26, the Prince’s very own tea-houses.
See how the Americans trot along – chuckles in London Tea-Houses.
Washington said he got a republic – if you can keep it.
bonbon, thanks for getting American history wrong.
Again with Prince Charles! Who does that help your point? Can’t you find someone who isn’t a pompous buffoon to quote?
It is really pathetic to see the US do the Good Prince’s bidding.
I must say I find it quite amusing.
Although the chortle is of quite a different tone!
“After The Ukraine Invasion: Energy Realism Emerges In Germany While The US Doubles Down”
Not to be outdone, the UK hasn’t budged, either.
“Most of us swiftly condemned his [Putin’s] actions and pledged support for the Ukrainian people whose country, homes and lives are under attack.
But the fossil-fuel industry had a different take. They saw an opportunity – and a shameless one at that – to turn violence and bloodshed into an oil and gas propaganda-generating scheme. “
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/04/oil-gas-lobbyists-us-ukraine-drilling
Who wrote that garbage? The chair of the US House committee on natural resources; Raúl M Grijalva
Could it be the Grauniad is terrified the USA will buck ‘climate’ – after all, the RIIA and Economist both trembled then that Trump was in fact a broad-based US change.
Russia, China, India all bucked ‘climate’ – look what’s happening to them, look what they did to Trump.
bonbon, I had to up-vote that one based on your President Trump comment.
Not clear if Trump can manage that a second time….
The Brandon regime and the Democrat establishment needed to quickly blame someone else for rising gas prices. Who better to blame than greedy big business? While most people aren’t fooled, the base readily believes such nonsense simply because it fits their worldview.
UK Union Turkeys vote for Christmas..
I don’t get it, shouldn’t the leaders of the always Socialist unions be supporting Mr Putin..
While 12 days worth of LNG destined for the UK has to find a new home.
BBC Headline:”Ukraine sanctions: UK dockers refuse tanker of Russian gas
I am really wondering and really really looking for clues but I can see things getting A Whole Lot Worse.
From the farming/food perspective, the Russians make/made very considerable amounts of nitrate fertiliser, also Urea, directly from their gas and actually on the gas fields themselves.
(The solid product is much easier to store and transport than the raw gas)
I’m still seeing UK farmers and hearing words of others around the world that they are going to drastically cut back on nitrogen fertiliser use this year – UK farmers say 50% of normal.
They’re hoping for a ‘good summer’ to make up most of the shortfall in yields and production
But what if.
If = ‘not’ and once ‘we’ get beyond mid-summer, the effects of that are going to become apparent – 50% less food to first approximation.
What then?
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/russia-recommends-fertilizer-makers-halt-all-exports
Price of that LNG was £2.20/therm when it arrived, but today around midday was more than £5.00, but by the close it fell back to £4.86/therm.
Unions could have made fortune if they bought it on the spot and resold by the time offloading started. BTW was £0.25 exactly a year ago, that is nearly 20 times gain.
Famine, you know, hunger gnawing to the bone?
If Vlad is upset about the fall of the Soviet Union, then he is also upset about the unification of Germany.
President Quote – anyone that does not miss the Soviet has no heart. Anyone that wants it back has no brain.
Ukraine as much better off before 1991 – it is the only Comecon economy worse off now.
Bad policies over decades have cause the mess.
OK, I have been reading your stuff for the lase couple of days, but now I am calling you out.
Anyone who believes this from bonbon, just search Ukraine GDP, and see for yourself.
Best I can figure, since the world bank does not adjust for inflation, is that per capita GDP has tripled in US dollars (200% increase) from 1990 to 2020, even with the negative effects of the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 while the inflation for the US over that time was about 100%. So a guestimate of a 100% increase of per capita GDP.
So bonbon, tell me where I am wrong.
Europeans have an average of €15,055 at their disposal in 2021
https://www.gfk.com/press/Europeans-have-an-average-of-15055-euro-at-their-disposal-in-2021
Overall, 16 of the 42 countries surveyed are above the European average. This is in contrast to 26 countries whose per capita purchasing power is below average – including Spain, which at €14,709 per capita is slightly below the European average. Ukraine is at the tail end: In the country with the lowest purchasing power in the study, people have only €1,892 per capita and less than 13 percent of the European average at their disposal.
In 1991 Ukraine was number 8.
No wonder millions are emigrating.
So you are telling me that just after being freed from the Soviet Union, Ukraine was in the top 8 of 42 “European” counties. So let’s see, out of Germany, UK, Sweden, Denmark, France, Norway, The Netherlands and Switzerland, which one WASN’T in the top 8.
Take you time, Mr. BSer.
You should know better then trying that on this site.
Ask the emmigrants turning up in 100,000 now in the EU.
Ukraine is in desperate economic straits, the EU cannot possibly fund a reconstruction with it’s problems.
Look again at the numbers at that link. Ukraine did have industry.
Extremists are not known for economic know-how.
So which of the 8 nations listed was NOT in the top 8 since you claim Ukraine WAS in the top 8?
.
Your failure to answer the simple question is all the answer I need, Mr. BSer
How difficult it must be to so mismanage a country so badly as to make people miss the Soviet Union! There should be an award for that.
Nostalgia- many were better off. Then came Jeffrey Sachs Shock Therapy under Yeltsin and totally destroyed the economy.
Looks like Ukraine got the same shock therapy.
Different economics now take the stage.
For example just look what neo-liberal shock therapy, known as globalization did to the US economy. The US as much better off in the 1970’s – today a wreck of it’s former self, desperately trying to regain industry.
See this from an American perspective :
https://michael-hudson.com/2022/02/america-defeats-germany-for-the-third-time-in-a-century/
The MIC, OGAM and FIRE Sectors Conquer NATO – a rent-seeking oligarchy.
The UK natural gas rally gained momentum and hit a fresh all-time high of 508 pence a therm before capping gains at 460 pence on Friday, as competition for LNG supplies with Asia increases amid growing fears over Russian supplies. As European utilities scrambled for LNG shipments to replace Russian supplies, traders in Asia were forced to ramp up prices to record highs this week, in order to attract more shipments. Other upside risks stemmed mainly from the possibility that Western nations would slap sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, which supplies roughly 4% of the UK’s natural gas. On the other hand, the supply cuts may come from Russia and Belarus in retaliation for the harsh economic sanctions in place. The contract surged more than 100% on the week.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas
Note that the Newcastle coal futures topped a new record high of $430 per tonne (up more than 12% on day) amid the conflict in Ukraine.
..If you elect a comedian as president – and your ‘best pal’s’ president send his fleet , nuclear armed fleet? , to brass band and farting, sorry fanfare, concert in Odessa – what happens next?
It’s time for us, the western public, to take a good look at our leaders – US as well as EU leaders – and ask ourselves – where did WE go wrong in this mess? And on what democratic mandate did we go down a path that ended in a war forced upon a clearly innocent Ukrainian people.
We were warned – so please facilitate realistic solutions.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d49544e30514464776c6d636a4e6e62684a4856/share_p.html
https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/who-moved-the-position-of-a-u-s-navy-ship-from-odessa-to-crimea
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2021-12-28/if-russian-invades-ukraine-a-land-grab-likely-would-be-part-of-putins-goal-experts-say-4107593.html
Zelensky got 80% of the vote – which NATOstan member ever got such a result?
Why? He campaigned on the Minsk Peace Accords. Since then derailed by the Kiev Junta.
The vast majority of Ukrainians want peace and economic development, and Russia is their very close relative.
NATOstan upstarts fooling around is causing major problems.
We don’t get a do-over but we can learn from our mistakes. Unfortunately, each generation seems to be doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again before learning. History shows us what happens when the free world disarms and accommodates dictators, bullies and thugs.
…maybe it’s not just a propaganda move targeted the russian audience when Putin calls this a special operation and not an invasion. Maybe he is crying his heart out – this can go away. And who is asking the ukrainans about a neutral state and giving up Crimea – what would they lose if they accepted? Not something they have today.
It might be a ‘peace in our time’ moment to give in on some of his demands – but at least we would know , if he didn’t redrew, that he was bluffing.
Right now no one really know his intentions. So call him.
My take on this (for what it’s worth after I thought Putin wouldn’t invade) is that the Ukraine invasion is to try to diminish NATO and American influence in the EU countries. Whatever the agreement or demands that Putin wants to withdraw from Ukraine, part of it will be a pushback against NATO and American influence in Europe. My view is that Putin would rather have a strong independent EU on Russia’s doorstep than one with strong ties to America.
The negotiated deal with Putin in Ukraine must of course include a small item to help Uncle Joe save face. So, Putin will need to endorse BBB legislation in a joint meeting after the other main deal terms are agreed to. That’s how they think in the Party.
BBB – and your Bull, Bull, and more Bull.
Sorry Ukrainians, we are kaput over here……
Gore, Thunberg headline Kennedy Center five-week climate change program – Washington Times
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t going nearly as well as they thought it would when they first commenced their attack. Which is why they are apparently mobilizing reinforcements from other regions of the country to send into the conflict.
We also hear today that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, which supplies 20% of Ukraine’s electricity, was attacked by Russian forces yesterday and captured. A training building was damaged by Russian fire, but no increase in radiation levels from the plant have been reported.
The Institute for the Study of War has published its daily Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment. The report for March 3rd, 2022 starts out with:
“The Russian military has continued its unsuccessful attempts to encircle Kyiv and capture Kharkiv. The Russians continued to attack piecemeal, committing a few battalion tactical groups at a time rather than concentrating overwhelming force to achieve decisive effects. Russian commanders appear to prefer opening up new lines of advance for regiment-sized operations but have been unable to achieve meaningful synergies between efforts along different axes toward the same objectives. They have also continued conducting operations in southern Ukraine along three diverging axes rather than concentrating on one or attempting mutually supporting efforts. These failures of basic operational art — long a strong suit of the Soviet military and heavily studied at Russian military academies — remain inexplicable as does the Russian military’s failure to gain air superiority or at least to ground the Ukrainian Air Force. The Russian conventional military continues to underperform badly, although it may still wear down and defeat the conventional Ukrainian military by sheer force of numbers and brutality. Initial indications that Russia is mobilizing reinforcements from as far away as the Pacific Ocean are concerning in this respect. Those indications also suggest, however, that the Russian General Staff has concluded that the forces it initially concentrated for the invasion of Ukraine will be insufficient to achieve Moscow’s military objectives.”
Operations to envelop Kyiv remain Russia’s main effort. Russian troops are also continuing three supporting efforts, one to seize Kharkiv, one to take Mariupol and secure the “land bridge” connecting Rostov-on-Don to Crimea, and one to secure Kherson and set conditions for a drive west toward Mykolayiv and Odesa.
The Russian attack on Kyiv likely consists of a main effort aimed at enveloping and ultimately encircling the city from the west and a supporting effort along the axes from Chernihiv and Sumy to encircle it from the east.
Russian forces in the south resumed offensive operations toward Mykolayiv on March 3 after securing Kherson on March 2, but do not appear to pose an imminent danger to Odesa. Russian forces likely seek to force Mariupol to capitulate by destroying critical civilian infrastructure and killing civilians to create a humanitarian catastrophe — an approach Russian forces have repeatedly taken in Syria.”
————–
See the full ISW assessment report at: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 3
“The Russian military has continued its unsuccessful attempts to encircle Kyiv and capture Kharkiv. The Russians continued to attack piecemeal, committing a few battalion tactical groups at a time rather than concentrating overwhelming force to achieve decisive effects.”
That may be so – or just:
…Force-oriented reconnaissance focuses on the enemy forces (number, equipment, activities, disposition etc.) and may include target acquisition.
It might also be so that Putin is facing “the dictators dilemma” – let’s hope our leaders are not caught up in their own web of misinformation so they don’t get realistic battle field assessments as well.
Something has gone very very wrong here.
“We also hear today that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, which supplies 20% of Ukraine’s electricity, was attacked by Russian forces yesterday and captured. A training building was damaged by Russian fire, but no increase in radiation levels from the plant have been reported.”
I assume the Russians would like to take Ukraine’s grid down, but can’t do so until all the nuclear reactors are safely scrammed in order to prevent any core accidents arising in the event the back-up cooling don’t come up fast enough. Can any nuke experts confirm this?
Confirm your fevered imaginings?
Why should anyone?
Instead look what happened at the largest Nuclear Plant in Europe – the nationalists were routed, staged a fire in the training area, expecting incoming fire, were thwarted.
So terrorists are capable of starting a major disaster, and Russia saw all this in Syria.
Russia is dealing with an exact ISIS M.O. And Chechnya sent troops to help Russia – they know exactly what they are dealing with.
Putin: Crazy Like a Fox
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/02/putin-crazy-like-a-fox/
Scott Ritter, US weapons inspector has actually been there, done that.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
Putin’s motivations have several facets. It isn’t one possible motivation versus some other possible motivation, as Scott Ritter and others frame the argument.
It isn’t just reestablishing a buffer zone between Russia and NATO versus reestablishing the Russian Empire of the Czars.
A goal of reestablishing a buffer zone between Russia and NATO is completely consistent with a second and equally important goal of reestablishing the Russian Empire as a profitable economic and geopolitical construct on the Eurasian continent.
Bull.
You simply have no idea.
The assessments of Putin over the last two decades which cite multiple motivations for his actions form a long-held body of opinion among strategic analysts who take a balanced look at why Putin does the things that he does.
Sorry bonbon, but your passions about the current nasty situation, however sincere, don’t counter those assessments one little bit.
As Scott Ritter shows these so called ‘experts’ got everything wrong. That is the reason this disaster is around.
He has actually been trained, been there done that, not some desk jockey.
One takeaway is while Putin’s war machine is powerful, it’s still second-rate. Before anybody gets too much comfort from that you should know the same applies to most of western Europe’s armed forces as well.
The American military, meanwhile, is no longer focused on deterrence and warfighting but is obsessed with equity, trans-rights and critical race theory. It simply isn’t what it used to be just 2 years ago. Freedom-loving American patriots are no longer welcome.
Given the problems the Russians have had in managing their invasion, and given the strength of will Ukraine has shown so far in fighting the invaders, what is likely to happen next is that in order to prevail, the Russians will use mass formations combined with sheer firepower brutality as a substitute for tactical sophistication and firepower restraint.
I don’t think they’re having as much of a problem managing their invasion as they’re up against a population that has been led to believe that NATO is going to intervene on their behalf. Not difficult to understand, since NATO did intervene against Serbia, a Russian ally, in the ’90’s. Neither that intervention nor NATO’s eastward march has been lost on the Russians, which brings us to the present. Unfortunately, the increased resistance means the Russians will have to go full-Stalin to achieve their objectives.
This is real–but late.
Which countries are sending military aid to Ukraine? | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera
Funny thing is I never read Al Jazeera until this Ukraine war heated up, yes heated up, it has been going on since 2014.
It is the only place I seem to get reporting covering more aspects of the war.
Searches often lead there.
And as a patriotic citizen of the United States, it is incredibly sad to me that all US media is worse in reporting on this war, including Fox.
It’s been that way forever. From ‘Remember the Maine’, to the ‘Huns’ bayoneting babies in Belgium, to the Iraqis pulling babies out of incubators, etc. With a couple of exceptions, it’s all Jingoism, all the time.
I see a couple of countries are seeing this as a way to dispose of older munitions. M72’s?
I read the link to the siting issues that plague renewables. Don’t worry, they have a plan for that.
The Build Back Better bill gives the president explicit emergency executive powers to over-ride all local and state opposition to siting of renewable energy projects. In other words, the BBB bill would give the president dictatorial powers and render all private property rights meaningless.
Of course this is all completely unconstitutional. That doesn’t bother them in the slightest.
I await Duane to respond that the POTUS can not have and never has had such powers.
I do not understand how the president of the USA has the power to say “yea” or “nay” to pipelines in Europe.
CM,
Join the club. I would only suggest that these ‘powers’ have something to do with the reality that north of 80% (90%?) of what the Federal government currently does is unconstitutional. Sad, then, that a lot of folks here somehow believe that this same Federal government is both competent and motivated only to act in the their best interests when it comes to foreign policy.
Yeah, no kidding.