[HN Gopher] Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt...
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Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline to Germany halt, bids remain
Author : Ambolia
Score : 125 points
Date : 2022-03-03 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| ed_balls wrote:
| Without natural resources Russia GDP would be lower than Polish.
| I think the whole reason for this war is the green transformation
| of the world. Military dictatorship played the wrong game and
| didn't mange to reform the country (it seems to be a case for all
| countries run by military).
|
| This is Proxy war with US/Nato to get a trade deal in exchange
| for balancing China with military power (last card they've got).
| France and Germany were OK with this - cheap resources, you can
| move pouting factories to Siberia, production would be more
| competitive than Chinese.
|
| US and rest were not happy about this.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| North stream 2 was in reach. If this is what they wanted why
| start this proxy war?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Furthermore, gas is considered "Green" by EU and would have
| provided a steady source of income to Russia [1-2].
|
| [1] https://www.dw.com/en/european-commission-declares-
| nuclear-a...
|
| [2] https://time.com/6139049/europe-natural-gas-green-energy
| ed_balls wrote:
| North stream 2 has very little to do with this whole
| conflict. Because mining is quite expensive in Siberia,
| Russian gas may not be price competitive as soon as 2030.
| Renewable energy is getting cheaper. At some point, natural
| gas turbines will use hydrogen produced with nuclear and
| renewables to balance the peaks.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| Russia's GDP (per capital) is about 30 % below Poland's
| parineum wrote:
| > I think the whole reason for this war is the green
| transformation of the world.
|
| I think you're on the right track but slightly off.
|
| NG is "green" by EU standards and Russia does make it's money
| from NG sales to the EU. I think the piece you're missing is
| that Ukraine's current government is more friendly to the EU
| and Ukraine has massive, untapped NG reserves[1]. I have to
| think that the EU is eyeing Ukrainian NG in order to cut Russia
| out of it's economy.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine
| jopsen wrote:
| > I have to think that the EU is eyeing Ukrainian NG in order
| to cut Russia out of it's economy.
|
| That sounds like something that would take decades..
|
| And a few decades from now the EU plans to be carbon neutral.
| eljlk34yl34 wrote:
| jotm wrote:
| I am quite afraid of Russia shutting off the gas and oil supply.
| I hope Europe doesn't give up on sanctions then, at least not
| right away.
|
| Betting on Russia needing the income more than we need the
| resources.
|
| Power will go out completely around here and partially in many
| other regions, but we can live through that.
|
| Having solar (plus wind and batteries) is a major boon, and this
| would undoubtedly drive demand through the roof once people have
| no choice. Sadly, there isn't enough supply for everyone,
| especially power hungry industrial sites, and trucks/cars still
| run on fuel.
|
| Solar concentrators would be easy to start producing locally, but
| they don't run well in cold temperatures and cloudy weather, plus
| they still need batteries of some sort.
| x11vnc wrote:
| sharken wrote:
| A benefit is that we can seize the opportunity to get away from
| relying too much on oil and gas.
|
| Time to get started.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I suspect that oil will be brought in from other sources; and
| gas turbines will be retrofitted to run on oil.
|
| I live near a turbine that runs on gas in the summer, and oil
| in the winter when demand for gas is high.
|
| I also suspect that prices will rise, encouraging people to
| turn their thermostats down and limit travel.
| neilwilson wrote:
| Russia has no need of the income because it is in a
| denomination they can't now spend.
|
| Countries only need to export to the extent that they can get
| imports. Anything beyond that is a waste - and clearly so now
| that foreign reserves are being frozen and defaulted on.
|
| Russia is keeping the gas on to keep the EU out of the war.
| yeellow wrote:
| They keep nukes to keep EU (well, NATO) out of the war. The
| gas is flowing because it's their last card, if they stop the
| gas they will lose it and EU will be forced to look for
| alternatives asap and won't come back. Selling more to China
| is not a good short option because as I understand there is
| no infrastructure, most pipes go to the west. Russia needs
| this money to trade with China, they won't accept Rubble.
| exabrial wrote:
| I am certainly empathetic to having power and lights go out...
| In the midwestern USA, we survived last year with rotating
| blackouts during an unexpected winter storm that reached deep
| into Texas to parts that haven't seen snow in 50 years, and
| some parts ever receiving snow on recorded record.
|
| That being said, people are dying because of cheap power and
| gas. I know it's easy for me to say halfway across the world
| from behind a keyboard, but I really hope you guys elect to
| have your power shut off (If that's what it takes) to help the
| people of the Ukraine. Russia knows Europe is energy dependent
| on it, and it's the one area we haven't totally cut them off
| on. It's a small sacrifice that would save a hundred thousand
| lives.
|
| In the midwest, the grid operators had a plan to divert
| available power to critical places first like hospitals,
| traffic lights, etc. It was freezing hold and I had power for
| 45m every 2 hours for a few days. I survived, there were places
| I could go, life went on.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| While what happened in Texas is good for empathy, it's not
| exactly the same. The power outages there were due to a
| poorly regulated electrical market where the power stations
| froze in predictable ways.
|
| Notice that it was only Texas utilities that experienced the
| most major issues.
| evv555 wrote:
| >While what happened in Texas is good for empathy, it's not
| exactly the same. The power outages there were due to a
| poorly regulated electrical market where the power stations
| froze in predictable ways.
|
| Situation in West Europe is also based in energy politics,
| a lack of energy security planning, and no impact studies
| from shutting down nuclear power plants.
|
| There are parallels in my mind in that both are a product
| of short sighted ideological thinking.
| exabrial wrote:
| Neither statement is true but is oft repeated. I can bring
| some clarity:
|
| A poorly regulated electrical market doesn't make a poor
| user experience. In fact, it was government meddling that
| created the crisis: Forced closure of coal plants before
| suitable replacements that could withstand 100 weather year
| events were available. The free market in Texas has and was
| leaps and bounds ahead of other markets in green energy
| production. Texas has also wanted to build countless
| nuclear projects that are stonewalled by the NRC and other
| green energy projects that die due to EPA or other local
| agencies. Believe it or not, green energy companies play
| dirty too and leverage government bureaucracy to stifle
| competition and expansion of green energy.
|
| Secondly, it was not Only Texas. I live in Kansas and
| travel to Missouri weekly and we certainly had outages. The
| reason is all of these areas are covered by the "Southwest
| Power Pool" which is a generation pool which agree to sell
| energy to each other and help out during extreme events (an
| oversipmlication, but good enough for a HN comment). Texas
| operators trade energy in multiple markets so nearby
| locations were affected. My home state, produces nearly 2/3
| of its energy from green sources: wind and nuclear and the
| excess is sold to the SPP and can be consumed in Texas.
|
| Texas is in fact the _ideal_ energy market, as new ideas
| can compete immediately and directly and operate on small
| scales. We'd be doing ourselves a huge favor to operate
| more grids like this as it lower the entry bar for clean
| energy startups.
| mschaef wrote:
| > Secondly, it was not Only Texas. I live in Kansas and
| travel to Missouri weekly and we certainly had outages.
|
| ERCOT was down easily 30-35GW (40-50%) of generation and
| cut power for days across large swaths of the state. SPP
| had outages, but not nearly as extensive in terms of MW
| shortfall, number of customers impacted, or duration of
| the impact.
|
| > My home state, produces nearly 2/3 of its energy from
| green sources: wind and nuclear and the excess is sold to
| the SPP and can be consumed in Texas.
|
| The only part of Texas it can really be consumed in are
| the parts of Texas served by SPP in the extreme NOrth
| (that are interconnected with the rest of the Eastern
| Interconnection). There are a couple small (<1GW) DC tie
| lines into ERCOT, but not nearly enough to do the sort of
| bulk power transport that would've been helpful during
| last February.)
|
| > The reason is all of these areas are covered by the
| "Southwest Power Pool" which is a generation pool which
| agree to sell energy to each other and help out during
| extreme events (an oversipmlication, but good enough for
| a HN comment). Texas operators trade energy in multiple
| markets so nearby locations were affected.
|
| SPP and ERCOT both have 'generation pools' and markets
| that enable them to serve load across their service
| areas. What SPP has that ERCOT does not are extensive
| connections to neighboring pools (MISO, PJM, etc.) and
| more adequately winterized generation and fuel supply
| infrastructure. The CEO of SPP gave an interview on an
| energy podcast last spring where she directly credits the
| ability bring in power from PJM and MISO as helping SPP
| serve its load. That sort of option wasn't even available
| to ERCOT.
|
| Notably, the other option unavailable to ERCOT is
| exporting/selling wind power to neighboring ISO's.... The
| Texas focus on avoiding federal energy regulation is
| costing them the ability to sell one of their strong
| suits into a broader market.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| I use the article from the Atlantic. And I did not say
| other areas didn't have problems, only that it was Texas
| that suffered most: https://www.theatlantic.com/technolog
| y/archive/2021/02/what-...
| mschaef wrote:
| > The power outages there were due to a poorly regulated
| electrical market where the power stations froze in
| predictable ways.
|
| There were plenty of issues with the electrical system, but
| the Texas Nat Gas infrastructure was also culpable. They
| had wells that froze up. Wells also often produce water
| that can freeze in cold conditions and block a well. There
| are mitigations for this that were often not in place in
| TX.
|
| They had also failed to submit paperwork indicating their
| electrically pumping stations were critical infrastructure
| and should not be shut off as many of them were.
| berto4 wrote:
| can solar run 24/7 factories?? it's not that simple guys
| jotm wrote:
| As I said, batteries of any kind... Nuclear would be better,
| but that takes time to build.
| exabrial wrote:
| 10000% Nuclear. France just announced a massive Nuclear
| project, meanwhile in the USA, the NRC bankrupts every
| project with non-stop delays instead of timely constructive
| work with designers, builders, and investors.
| [deleted]
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The nuclear announcement makes nice headlines for
| nationalistic dreams. What they actually do tells the
| real story.
|
| > France will also increase its solar power capacity
| tenfold by 2050 to more than 100 gigawatts (GW) and
| target building 50 offshore wind farms with a combined
| capacity of at least 40 GW.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/macron-bets-
| nuclear-...
|
| So they are adding ~10 GW nuclear (6 * 1.6 GW) and at
| least 140 GW of renewables. Use any capacity factor you
| want but the numbers speak for themselves.
|
| The real reason for this is likely continue have an
| industrial base for their naval submarine reactors by
| subsidizing a complementary civilian industry.
| exabrial wrote:
| > The real reason for this is likely continue have an
| industrial base for their naval submarine reactors by
| subsidizing a complementary civilian industry.
|
| Interesting, I've never read about that angle. Nuclear is
| a great complement to Wind/Solar as it provides a steady
| base load.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The thing is, they don't complement each other at all.
| They both compete for the same share of the market: the
| cheapest most inflexible power generation. Renewables win
| there and force nuclear plants to be more flexible.
|
| Due to the extremely high fixed costs and lower marginal
| costs of nuclear plants they then have to make the money
| back in fewer hours, driving cost even higher.
|
| The other issue is the costly steam turbine side. The
| reason gas won over coal is the efficiency and tiny
| footprint of gas turbines. Tack on a tiny steam side for
| the last percent of efficiency and you have a CCGT plant.
| Coal and nuclear share the same steam side, both have
| been dead ends since the 80s.
| exabrial wrote:
| That is not true. They do not compete for the some market
| segment.
|
| The problem is most renewables fall off before peak load
| subsides. That's why cheap energy storage would be a huge
| boon for transient renewables as they could keep
| providing energy after the sun is down and the wind has
| subsided.
|
| Take a look here: https://nuclear-power.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2017/08/Base-Lo...
| Gwypaas wrote:
| They do. This graph shows the nuclear "baseload" being
| crowded out of the market by cheaper renewables. (Or in
| this case mostly coal, but they are about equal on the
| electricity market in terms in inflexibility and cost
| structure.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load#/media/File:Renew
| abl...
|
| So, this means that nuclear is crowded out of the market
| during the sun hours, and later all windy hours. Take a
| low-ball nuclear cost of ~$130 per MWh. [1] Say that wind
| + solar can fulfill 12 hours per day, this is a low
| estimation. Current estimates is that ~80% is easily
| feasible without storage.
|
| That means the nuclear plant has to make do with the 12
| hours left. The nuclear plant has now, based on napkin
| math, entered a LCOE of $260 per MWh. It was already
| hilariously uncompetitive at $130 per MWh, now try $260.
| Now you can do power 2 gas and then burn it or any other
| extremely inefficient energy storage and still come out
| ahead.
|
| > While historically large power grids used unvarying
| power plants to meet the base load, there is no specific
| technical requirement for this to be so. The base load
| can equally well be met by the appropriate quantity of
| intermittent power sources and dispatchable generation.
|
| > Grid operators solicit bids to find the cheapest
| sources of electricity over short and long term buying
| periods.
|
| > Nuclear and coal plants have very high fixed costs,
| high plant load factor but very low marginal costs,
| though not as low as solar, wind, and hydroelectric. On
| the other hand, peak load generators, such as natural
| gas, have low fixed costs, low plant load factor and high
| marginal costs.
|
| > According to National Grid plc chief executive officer
| Steve Holliday and others, baseload is "outdated".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load
|
| [1]: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-
| of-energy-...
| adrianN wrote:
| When did France announce a massive nuclear project? The
| last news I heard was that they plan to build a couple of
| new nuclear power plants, but far from the numbers they'd
| need to maintain the current capacity as ageing plants go
| offline in the coming years.
| Retric wrote:
| While France is aiming to significantly reduce the number
| of nuclear power plants they operate, building any
| nuclear power plants is seen as a good sign by the
| industry.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/france-
| macro...
|
| Is this not a major project? The article is very lacking
| in details, so it is hard to tell what it amounts to in
| terms of impact.
| criddell wrote:
| They understand that.
| contingencies wrote:
| Depends on the factory. Most production processes are multi-
| stage. Most multi-stage processes have differing energy needs
| across individual unit operations. You could easily schedule
| low energy, slow processes (testing, drying, settling,
| cooling, etc.) to evenings to better match power
| availability. This has the secondary benefit that people
| prefer to sleep at night. Normally you'd have to redesign the
| whole factory to facilitate such a process change, however.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| If you put solar panels on top of your nuclear power plant
| then yes it works 24/7.
| adrianN wrote:
| With the help of electrolysis and a gas turbine, it can. The
| problem is that we don't have enough solar panels and not
| enough electrolyzers.
| HPsquared wrote:
| What's the round-trip efficiency of such a system? There
| are multiple lossy conversions, you'd be doing well to hit
| 50% if the gas is simply burned to spin a turbine.
| Joeri wrote:
| Solar and wind are already far cheaper than gas or
| nuclear plants, and they're still getting cheaper while
| gas and nuclear are getting more expensive (although to
| be fair, gas has only recently gotten more expensive). In
| so far that the economics in favor of renewables+storage
| don't work out yet factoring in conversion losses, it is
| all but inevitable that they will.
|
| See the LCOE graphs in this article for the trends:
| https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth
| The_rationalist wrote:
| Nuclear is a lot cheaper than solar, it simply depends on
| the nuclear plant model. Russians are the world leaders
| regarding nuclear plants time to market and costs (4
| years).
| Joeri wrote:
| Which would be great if we could invite russia to build
| nuclear plants in the U.S. and EU. Right now that might
| not be the best plan.
|
| We need a model that is cheap and safe everywhere, in
| every country, not just in china and russia.
|
| Also, I wouldn't put too much faith into Russian numbers
| for their nuclear projects. They've pretty much got the
| patent on propaganda.
| The_rationalist wrote:
| > Also, I wouldn't put too much faith into Russian
| numbers for their nuclear projects. It's not propaganda
| because we are talking about a free market here.
| Countries around the world buy nuclear reactors from
| Russia. They are by far the biggest exporter.
|
| Russia is not needed though, China is very cost effective
| and their popular model is in fact American based. Their
| other popular model is a french derivative. Their secret
| sauce is to build refined second generation models with
| added safety instead of building 4th generation economic
| ineptia because of absurdly high safety bloat. The answer
| to how to make nuclear reactors costs effective is
| simple: 1) Do not fire all competent and trained nuclear
| engineers 2) Make nuclear reactors maximally secure, not
| absurdly secure.
| adrianN wrote:
| It's of course not particularly great. You can make
| hydrogen at like 80% efficiency and use it at like 60%
| efficiency in a combined cycle plant. So 50% is probably
| in the right ballpark. Batteries are much more efficient,
| but efficiency is only weakly correlated with cost. I
| don't know the actual numbers, but from what I've heard
| hydrogen (or even methane) are the most economically
| promising storage options when you need weeks or months
| worth of backup.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| yes, batteries, power to gas, ...
|
| There are many possiblities.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage
|
| Then there is wind power and other sources such as geothermal
| energy and Bio-gas Plants, which is are independant of day
| time. And let's not forget the lower energy demand at night,
| the possibilities for supply based energy consumption,
| (green) gas imports from somewhere else.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| I don't believe factories here in Germany run 24/7, to be
| honest. But anyway: wind energy is quite cheap at night.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| What are the real plans available to get abundant and cheap
| energy for the world, and why aren't startups working on this?
| KarlKemp wrote:
| Solar + wind & thousands of startups are working on it.
| baybal2 wrote:
| GOOD RIDDANCE! Finally, Russia did what full force of 90% vote of
| German parliament cannot do: defeat the Russian gas/oil lobby in
| Germany.
|
| Germany is the country with most expensive electricity in Europe,
| and gas deals from this mafia is a near instant cash.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I'm not sure about this...with Russian gas gone wouldn't
| Germany pay a lot more for energy? I think the best solution is
| to build nuclear power plants but that is more about long term.
| eleitl wrote:
| It's not Russia, so far. However, if Russia stops all fossil
| flow it would implement the Morgenthau plan. Not just for
| Germany.
|
| It is good news for USD vs EUR.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| I don't understand this comment. A quick look up of the
| `Morgenthau plan` seems to indicate it was focussed on
| removing Germany's military power by crushing their
| industrial output and various other economic restrictions.
|
| Russia cutting off oil doesn't seem to be synonymous with the
| intent of Morgenthau, it may have a similar side-effect but
| it's not the same as far as I can see.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I agree it is a good thing - but it happened too early to be
| painless to Europeans. Or, to put it in other words, we should
| have been prepared for it a long time ago.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It does not have to be painless. That's fine, it's a minimal
| price compared to what's happening to Ukrainians.
| causi wrote:
| That's been my argument to friends and family this week. If
| an extra dollar per gallon is what it takes for fewer
| Ukrainian children to die then that's what it takes.
| filomeno wrote:
| That's good, but also:
|
| * We should put extra dollars not to buy goods from
| Israel, so fewer Palestinian children die
|
| * We should put extra dollars not to buy goods from the
| US, so fewer Syrian children die
|
| * We should put extra dollars not to buy goods from the
| UAE, so fewer Yemeni children die
|
| * ...
|
| I'm afraid I don't have so much money.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| We all had the extra dollars and did spend them in places
| where these abuses were not happening when we had a
| robust economy that was not just centered on knowlage and
| service work.
|
| When you can get cheap goods from somewhere, then you can
| buy more. We outsourced and promoted cheap products for
| the benifit of Wallstreet and busniess at the expense of
| our future wages and global human rights.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| I don't mean just the cost of energy but also potential
| blackouts. But as you say, it's a price worth paying.
| chess_buster wrote:
| There will be no blackout due to gas issues. Power
| generation from gas is not a problem. Heat generation
| from gas could become one though. Luckily Germany will
| likely mandate a switch to electricity driven heatpumps
| for all buildings soon.
| Scarblac wrote:
| That's nice, but it takes many years to install them in
| all homes, and can the power grid handle so much extra
| demand?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Direct electricity radiators in the short term will be
| used instead of gas to heat, so ye, there might be
| blackouts.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Not even that. I am a German myself, and I can tell our
| heating habbits are on a _luxurious_ level. It is very
| common in Germany to heat the full house /appartment 24/7
| to a comfy level just so you can walk around in
| light/comfy closes. It is common to _not_ wear thick
| closes at home and especially not in bed etc. Gas is also
| used for the water boiler, and it is considered
| "standard" to shower every day.
|
| Now, if I go back to the generation of my grandparents
| and to some extend even my parents when they were in
| their childhood, that was unheard of. You would only heat
| the main living room during cold winters, and the family
| would gather. For sleeping you wore pyjamas plus socks
| etc, and you took a tin with hot potatoes to bed.
| Showering was not a thing, you would wash daily and maybe
| bathing on Sundays.
|
| Now that annoys me a little about the whole "Germany
| needs gas from Russia urgently!" narrative. If you cut
| out gas for heating/boiling (not electricity), not a
| single german will die this winter, or next winter. We
| will lose a lot of comfort, and might have to change our
| habbits, but we do not have siberian grade winters where
| having no heating means having to freeze to death.
| bob66 wrote:
| pftburger wrote:
| Looking at the data, I am wondering why the invasion is triggered
| now, as reserves are about to start being refilled, instead of
| earlier. From the graph (https://agsi.gie.eu/#/graphs/DE) it
| seems like the storage starts being refilled as the weather warms
| near the end of march. IE Putin looses some bargaining power.
| What am I missing?
| greendesk wrote:
| Putin's and his inner circle's plan was that it will take 1-4
| days to take Kiev and two weeks to take most of Ukraine.
| Minimal resistance was expected. The window of opportunity with
| this expectation is from mid-December until end of February.
| They picked a date with this plan.
| hcks wrote:
| > Putin's and his inner circle's plan was that it will take
| 1-4 days to take Kiev and two weeks to take most of Ukraine.
|
| This is being said a lot these days, but I haven't seen any
| proof of it. I'm not saying that proofs don't exist nor that
| it's wrong, just that I've been reading it everywhere, and
| haven't seen evidence. So I'd be happy if someone reading
| this could point out to some clues
| zatertip wrote:
| It's been leaked from UK intelligence and yesterday Russian
| war plans were captured that said essentially the same
| thing:
|
| https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/03/2/7327539/
| whatshisface wrote:
| Should I be worried that this publication is named,
| "pravda?"
| selectodude wrote:
| No, I think it was kind of a joke to call it Pravda. The
| guy who started it ended up being decapitated and buried,
| likely by the government, for uncovering corruption.
| [deleted]
| greendesk wrote:
| To give an example where the expectations come from, note
| that when Russia annexed Crimea, they could retain some but
| not all, of the officers. Now when the Russian forces march
| in, they have common relatives that live in Ukraine, and
| some defect. The expectation of a 'common big brother' from
| Russia coming in and taking over government has been
| consistently shared by Russian officials. It is through the
| resistance of the invasion that desire for independence is
| shown.
| greendesk wrote:
| Copied from another post: The view explicitly expressed by
| Russian planners in multiple sources signified that this is
| their expectation. Public announcements that Kiev will be
| taken in two weeks by Putin is the best source. Claims for
| the commonality of the three nations (Belorussian,
| Ukrainian and Russian) is what would cause this
| expectation. I am not saying it is rational to expect Kiev
| ti fall to several days. But I have to admit, Following the
| situation myself, I have had expected myself Ukraine to
| fold. I follow Easter European news closely, and I express
| personal analysis too.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| It's his turn for "They will greet us as liberators."
| raducu wrote:
| Plus China said no war during the Olympics. Plus COVID for 2
| years..... Plus the russian asset known as the Orange Moneky
| lost the ellections in the US.
| greendesk wrote:
| The view explicitly expressed by Russian planners in
| multiple sources signified that this is their expectation.
| Public announcements that Kiev will be taken in two weeks
| by Putin is the best source. Claims for the commonality of
| the three nations (Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian) is
| what would cause this expectation. I am not saying it is
| rational to expect Kiev ti fall to several days. But I have
| to admit, Following the situation myself, I have had
| expected myself Ukraine to fold. I follow Easter European
| news closely.
| genousti wrote:
| They dont want kiev. That is too big and too hard to defend.
| They want the east and that is what they will ask during
| negotiations. Only in netflix war lasts four days. America
| needed 18 days to do some stuff in iraq
| hkpack wrote:
| This is a popular misconception. They want all of Ukraine.
|
| The east was just a part they could get control over in
| 2014. But their goal was always the whole country.
| pydry wrote:
| Says who?
|
| By all conventional measures it's impossible for them to
| hold it. Why would we assume thats what theyre trying to
| do? It makes no sense.
| throwthere wrote:
| For reference, Yamal was only re-opened a week or two ago. I
| don't think you can read too much into it closing again (yet).
| Yamal can give 33 billion cubic meters a year and Nord Stream 1
| can give 55 billion.
|
| As far as "bids" remaining, it could be something as benign as
| not having any demand at the price, or currency/volatility
| issues.
| stefan_ wrote:
| There were already all kinds of "supply interruptions" in 2021
| and escalating prices. The fossil fuel people digging their own
| graves.
| haughty wrote:
| What i didn't realize until very recently was that natural gas
| can be liquefied and sold on an open market like a barrel of oil.
| With that in mind, these pipelines are not as critical.
| Additionally, pipelines operate by contracts which offer very
| generous discounts years in advance; Liquefied gas, on the other
| hand, is a commodity and is sold at market prices. Seems logical
| to assume that Russian gas will still be sold, and that there
| will be buyers. Russia will be offering substantial discounts on
| it as well.
| jcranmer wrote:
| While natural gas _can_ be liquefied, the infrastructure for
| LNG is much less mature than for gas pipelines. You still need
| to have the LNG terminals to be able to import the gas (and
| also at the export terminals as well).
|
| Historically, LNG import terminals are concentrated in East
| Asia, which is generally too far away from major gas producers
| for a pipeline to be worthwhile to build but the energy
| consumption was high enough to warrant investing in such
| infrastructure. The US also built several LNG import terminals,
| but then the fracking boom caused so much natural gas to be
| produced that several of these were converted into LNG export
| terminals instead.
|
| One of the side effects of the costs of building LNG
| infrastructure is that natural gas prices are very heavily
| regionalized: natural gas is far cheaper in the US (where it's
| pipeline delivery) than it is in Japan (with LNG imports).
| haughty wrote:
| Thanks, this explains a lot; Do you think it's reasonable to
| assume that due to pipeline closures and Russian isolation,
| gas prices will keep rising? I'm reading up on this selfishly
| - as i purchased some natural gas stocks like $OVV and $AR as
| the conflict was unwinding. Is LNG route open for Russia?
| Seems like it's their only option at this point. And
| Pipelines are simply not safe as it should be easy to
| sabotage them for the enemy combatants. I also noticed that
| in EU there are rumblings about legislation that would force
| Gas companies to be taxed at a higher rate to continue to
| pave the way for green energy. Not sure what are the
| prospects of this in the US.
| jcranmer wrote:
| In the near term (days to weeks, maybe a few months), I
| would expect gas prices to be more likely to rise rather
| than fall. I can't speculate well about longer term because
| there are too many variables in play: while peak demand
| could be relatively well-forecasted based on climate change
| legislation, the supply side of the equation is difficult
| to forecast.
|
| > Is LNG route open for Russia?
|
| I am not an expert on these affairs, but I believe Russia
| doesn't have a lot of LNG export capability at the moment,
| and LNG export terminals are not something quickly built.
| It's more likely to me that Russia shifts its gas exports
| away from Europe and into China via existing pipelines,
| rather than investing in LNG export capabilities.
| fulafel wrote:
| Europe does have lots of LNG terminals, but no idea about
| Russia's export side. Here's a 2015 map of the European
| terminals: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Existing-and-
| planned-LNG...
|
| (Some regions are sparse because don't really use gas outside
| specialized industrial uses)
| Gwypaas wrote:
| It is more expensive. The reason why Lithuania and Poland built
| LNG terminals is not because it is economical or fun compared
| to pipelines. It is a pure sunk cost. The reason is to secure
| their supply incase Russia wants to exert influence through the
| gas supply like it did with Ukraine until 2015 when Ukraina
| started buying all gas from the EU instead.
|
| They therefore cap the price they pay to what is available on
| the open LNG market, if the regular supply does not come
| through.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...
| Traster wrote:
| This is like comparing buying bottled water instead of using
| the taps in your house. Yes, technically you can do this, but
| transporting that bottled water is painful, and at the scale of
| a whole country doing it, is a huge logistical challenge. You
| could eventually get to the point where LNG replaced the
| pipelines, but that's not going to happen overnight, and the
| European energy grids need to heat homes this winter.
| Majromax wrote:
| That's not quite it. The bottled water / tap water comparison
| is still transporting exactly the same commodity. Liquefied
| natural gas, however, is much denser than its non-liquefied
| equivalent.
|
| Per Wikipedia, Nordstream 1 can deliver 55 G(m^3)/yr of
| natural gas. Per a US government source
| (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50598), the
| United States has an LNG export capacity of about 12
| G(ft^3)/day, or about 120G(m^3)/yr.
|
| I imagine the operational costs of a direct pipeline are
| lower than the cost of liquefaction, transport, and re-
| gasification, but from the notice that LNG _exists_ this is
| probably has an O(1) effect on price, not O(10).
|
| Fortunately, Europe is also beginning to exit "this winter,"
| so the energy situation is less dire than if this invasion
| had occurred in December going into January.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| The conversion is wrong. 12 Gf*3 =~ 1.2 Gm*3
| finnh wrote:
| That would be f^2 => m^2, wouldn't it? You divide by ...
| 35 to go from cubic feet to cubic meters.
|
| GP did that while also going from day to year, and the
| math checks out
| Ambolia wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220303142751/https://www.reute...
| olliej wrote:
| I'm surprised any gas was still flowing from Russia to the EU -
| it would seem like that would be the first thing they would have
| stopped in response to sanctions.
| sschueller wrote:
| Most of it is still running because it's needed. Same goes for
| the exports to the US.
|
| In fact there is pressure in Switzerland to block the trading
| of gas since 80% is done here but it would hurt the EU so there
| is no way this will be done unless the EU decides that they
| also want to sanction this.
|
| The blocking of Swift also has an exclusion for trading of this
| gas.
| olliej wrote:
| Sorry, I may not have been clear: I don't know why Russia
| would not have halted the pipelines as retribution for the
| financial sanctions as it seems like one of the few resources
| they have that Europe needs. I'm sure there's an element of
| Russia needing those funds to fund its invasion, but it also
| seems like they could try to use oil supply restrictions to
| get the other sanctions lifted.
| RedShift1 wrote:
| It seems to me that is only a card you want to play at the
| very end. There's also the possibility that when the tap
| closes the EU will adapt and then you've lost billions of
| revenue forever.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| So what happens if Iran blockades Hormuz right as the world is
| pivoting away from Russian oil?
| bdz wrote:
| You can find the live European Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory
| info here https://agsi.gie.eu
| jahabrewer wrote:
| Tangential: is the unit kWh/h a standard in the industry? It hurt
| my brain until I canceled the hours and got kW.
|
| (Yes I know kWh is a widely used unit of energy)
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| Gas in European pipeline systems is measured in kWh (not in m3
| or kg), because it's the energy in the gas that we're after.
| Hence the funny unit.
| Nacraile wrote:
| Sure, but they why kWh/h instead of kW? If you're inclined to
| measure the quantity of gas in terms of its energy, why not
| measure its flow in terms of power? (of course kWh/h _is_
| power, but why denote it so strangely?)
| imwillofficial wrote:
| I read that as "Russian gas flows via YML pipeline" I was like
| How?!? Some crazy ansible run book dictating PLC config?!
|
| No, just need another cup of coffee.
| ellisv wrote:
| I read the exact same thing. Thought their pipeline was on
| Kubernetes.
| chatmasta wrote:
| Same. We must have some shared PTSD.
| ngc248 wrote:
| Dontcha know, with the new release of kubeflow, all this is
| possible :)
| skadamat wrote:
| I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy was
| to their military / political thinking.
|
| If others are interested, this video has a great overview:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE
| abledon wrote:
| if you need a crazy french canadian gaming warlord providing
| commentary, heres the xqc version
| (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1409387850?t=00h58m50s)
| qiskit wrote:
| > I never knew until recently how tied up Russia's oil strategy
| was to their military / political thinking.
|
| Oil strategy is tied to everyone's military/political thinking.
| Especially the top oil producers like Russia, US, etc. US was
| the top oil producer from 1850s to 1950s. It's one of the
| reasons we became a world power. We aren't maintaining military
| bases in saudi arabia because we are fans of islam. We didn't
| invade iraq because of freedom or democracy. We've been trying
| to topple venezuela for 2 decades because they have the largest
| oil reserves in the world. Some even think we are suddenly
| concerned about muslims in xinjiang because the chinese found
| oil there.
|
| Germany invaded the soviet to take the baku oil fields. Oil has
| been central to most major world invents the last 150 years.
| What do you think our issue with iran is? Their huge oil and
| gas fields. You could argue the ukraine war is about oil and
| gas too.
|
| If we ever got fusion energy or anything like that, one of the
| major sources of war would be gone.
| tartoran wrote:
| Gas and oil is all they have to trade and they have a lot of
| it.
| chinathrow wrote:
| They will have even more of it in the future as the world
| will stop buying.
| phkahler wrote:
| If only they used the profits to build a great economy with
| more to offer. They have no shortage capable and even
| brilliant people, but they've got a management problem at the
| national level.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The resource curse tends to be the rule, not the exception.
| MandieD wrote:
| Norway seems to have avoided it the past few decades by
| following the advice Tony Montana didn't: don't get high
| on your own supply. They dampen the effects of easy oil
| money by putting most of the profits into their sovereign
| wealth fund and, unlike just about every other oil
| producing country, taxing fossil fuels even harder than
| countries like Germany and Denmark (which tax them pretty
| hard).
| pydry wrote:
| Norway _is_ the exception.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| See also: Louisiana.
|
| It's understandable that there are a ton of chemical
| refineries near the mouth of the Mississippi because it
| allows for easier transport of refined goods to other
| countries. Less understandable when they're everywhere else
| in the state, except for the part where local governments
| give quarter-century and longer sweetheart tax break deals
| for these companies to come in, pollute the local
| environment, and pay no taxes on the real estate they're
| operating on. One of the main reasons that the education
| and social services systems in the state are so
| horrendously poor is because there's no tax revenue.
|
| And even by those standards, Russia is a kleptocrat's wet
| dream.
| FpUser wrote:
| Metals, wheat and some other stuff. All soon to be halted if
| not already.
| okl wrote:
| They also have significant market share exporting certain
| commodities like Nickel, Palladium &c. -- but not close to
| gas/oil, true.
|
| Since new investment into fossil fuel projects will go to
| nearly zero from here (and old equipment becomes defunct
| unless it is replaced), expect there gas/oil exports to
| decline significantly in the next years/decades. Putin didn't
| only mess up Ukraine now, he also wrecked his own country for
| at least a generation to come.
| tobi_spaceship wrote:
| Same could be said for Biden.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| what?
| MandieD wrote:
| He probably believes what most of my relatives (most of
| whom are Texans) do: this is all Biden's fault for not
| letting petroleum producers drill and frack wherever and
| however they want; Putin never would have tried this if
| he knew the US could just overwhelm the oil market.
|
| They can't bear to consider that this is something of a
| last hurrah as Europe tries to wean themselves from the
| petro drug. There's plenty of non-petroleum-related
| business going on in Texas, but the semi-rural power base
| relies on oil to stay rich.
| ben_w wrote:
| As a foreigner, I can say that whatever it is you're
| thinking of isn't even newsworthy on the international
| stage.
|
| What Putin has done to Russia is like if an American
| president had invaded a neighbour and the result was
| _simultaneously_ $4 trillion central bank assets held
| abroad getting frozen, most of the billionaires becoming
| personae non grata in half the planet, a lot of smart
| people leaving the country as quickly as possible, the
| stock markets crashing about as hard as the Great
| Depression, direct refusal by major shipping companies to
| deal with the nation, and the currency halving relative
| to everything else, while also finding the hard way that
| all the military hardware had been "maintained" with
| cheap lookalike products and the cost difference pocketed
| by corruption at an unknown part of the chain.
| treis wrote:
| Funny thing is that something like half of Russian gas goes
| through Ukraine and some more is just across the border in
| Belarus. AFAIK that hasn't stopped. Just goes to show you the
| complexity of international relations.
|
| Map:
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/europe-map/
|
| It's a bit misleading since it doesn't show Nordstream 1 which
| runs under the Baltic sea to Germany.
|
| EDIT: Here's a better map. The above is outdated
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Major_ru...
| ls612 wrote:
| Makes you wonder if one side or the other will "accidentally"
| damage those pipelines. Like obviously they can't overtly do
| it but you know, stuff gets damaged every day in combat
| zones... it would certainly immensely hurt Russia's strategic
| position to have their gas exports cut off.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| Better yet, Ukraine should build some well fortified
| military bases on top of/next to the pipelines. It seems
| like Russia's only advantage in this war right now is
| artillery. But if an errant shell could shut down one of
| the last remaining sources of revenue, maybe the will think
| twice?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Better yet, Ukraine should build some well fortified
| military bases on top of/next to the pipelines. It seems
| like Russia's only advantage in this war right now is
| artillery. But if an errant shell could shut down one of
| the last remaining sources of revenue, maybe the will
| think twice?
|
| That would only hurt Ukraine's allies. Russia is probably
| going to end up pivoting to exporting energy to China,
| anyway.
|
| Russia's going to see this invasion through. It's clear
| that there's not some "one weird [economic] trick" that
| will get them to turn around and go home. The only way
| that's going to happen is if they're defeated militarily.
| ciphol wrote:
| IIRC there are no pipelines between Russia's main oil
| fields and China, all the pipelines go to Europe
| tablespoon wrote:
| > IIRC there are no pipelines between Russia's main oil
| fields and China, all the pipelines go to Europe
|
| That doesn't appear to be correct. It apparently has a
| pipeline, also ships LNG, and is building an even bigger
| pipeline to come online in a couple years:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-
| russia-...
|
| > Feb 4 (Reuters) - Russia has agreed a 30-year contract
| to supply gas to China via a new pipeline and will settle
| the new gas sales in euros, bolstering an energy alliance
| with Beijing amid Moscow's strained ties with the West
| over Ukraine and other issues.
|
| > Gazprom , which has a monopoly on Russian gas exports
| by pipeline, agreed to supply Chinese state energy major
| CNPC with 10 billion cubic metres of gas a year, the
| Russian firm and a Beijing-based industry official said.
|
| > First flows through the pipeline, which will connect
| Russia's Far East region with northeast China, were due
| to start in two to three years, the source said in
| comments that were later followed by an announcement of
| the deal by Gazprom.
|
| > Russia already sends gas to China via its Power of
| Siberia pipeline, which began pumping supplies in 2019,
| and by shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG). It exported
| 16.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to China in 2021.
| csee wrote:
| Why would Russia damage it? They can just shut it off
| voluntarily on their side and use that for leverage.
| ls612 wrote:
| My implication was that Ukraine would damage it (but not
| officially to avoid pissing people off).
| caeril wrote:
| > They can just shut it off voluntarily on their side and
| use that for leverage.
|
| The sanctions have conveniently carved out exceptions for
| settling energy, wheat, barley, and other commodity
| contracts, and it's these contract settlements that have
| prevented the Ruble's 50% collapse from becoming a 90%
| collapse.
|
| Starving the West of energy and food would definitely be
| a fun bargaining chip and/or tit-for-tat escalation play,
| but I don't think the Russian economy has the stomach for
| it.
| Ralfp wrote:
| If Polish-Russian gas trade is anything to go by, they
| won't. They will just one day cut off deliveries and
| communicate that there is unknown technical difficulty and
| they are working on resolving it.
| gpm wrote:
| > it would certainly immensely hurt Russia's strategic
| position to have their gas exports cut off.
|
| Would it?
|
| Surely a few days of gas exports aren't that important to
| their economy, just because they can average the losses
| over many many more days of gas exports.
|
| Now europe has a reason to let russia win, and repair the
| pipeline. A few days without heating would damage europe
| (though I'm unsure how many days worth of gas europe has
| stored).
|
| I guess I could see it hurting Russia, because they lose a
| valuable resource and the threat to cut it off, but I could
| also see it helping them.
| mderazon wrote:
| More convinced that the only thing stopping wars will be energy
| abundance not reliant on fossil fuels. Countries will still
| fight over natural resources, but probably less
| InitialLastName wrote:
| There's an argument here that this war is a step in the
| transition from wars over "oil" (read: energy supply) to wars
| over water. There's a little bit of both here, and it's made
| the war difficult for outsiders to read.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| Not sure if it's a water war the way I would consider it
| but you may be right.
|
| Freshwater is typically the object of hypothetical water
| wars, and in this case Russia wants warm (salt) water for
| naval power projection.
|
| This is probably more of a coastline/harbour war.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| As I understand it, there has also been some conflict
| over the water supply to Crimea, which comes in by
| aqueduct over the isthmus towards Ukraine in the north
| (hence Russia's focus on conquering the area inland from
| that border).
| mderazon wrote:
| With enough energy and access to sea water you can
| desalinate I guess
| RealityVoid wrote:
| You need it for agriculture, probably much more water
| than it's feasible to desalinate.
| The_rationalist wrote:
| dekhn wrote:
| There's a couple great books, The Prize and The Quest, by
| Daniel Yergin, who is an energy expert. It greatly clarifies
| the current situation.
|
| Update: I just saw he's published a newer book as well,
| https://www.amazon.com/New-Map-Energy-Climate-Nations/dp/159...
| "The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations" which
| I haven't read, but probably just updates the story as it
| evolved over the past 10 years.
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