US President Trump opens NATO Summit breakfast with a frontal attack on Angela Merkel and German economic ties to Russia. US foreign policy is all about self-interest and fossil fuel: Middle East allies Israel and GCC states, Iraq War, Libya oil contracts and Syrian corridor for Qatar gas. Ukraine in 2014 ... undercutting Russia supplying gas to Europe, offering shale gas contracts. A long term "vision", worth going to war for? At least NATO gets emboldened with an aggressive stance from New Europe towards old Cold War foe, the Russian Federation. Just keep voicing fake news and misinformation ... the Americans living the new virtual reality of the digital age.

Donald Trump says Germany 'captive' of Russia | DW |

'Germany is totally controlled by Russia.' - President Trump has launched a scathing tirade ahead of the NATO summit. pic.twitter.com/jr6emAzRrm

— CNBC International (@CNBCi) July 11, 2018

German Chancellor Angela Merkel dismissed US President Donald Trump's claim that Germany was a Russian "captive" over a controversial gas pipeline deal, as NATO countries met for one of the alliance's most challenging summits in years.

"Germany is captive of Russia because it is getting so much of its energy from Russia," Trump said, referring to Berlin's Nord Stream 2 deal with Moscow. "They pay billions of dollars to Russia and we have to defend them against Russia."

Berlin hopes the 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) Baltic Sea pipeline will provide direct delivery of more than 55 billion cubic meters (2 trillion cubic feet) of Russian natural gas starting in late 2019.

 

Berlin eyes options as US gas export drive takes on Russia's Gazprom | DW |

With its last nuclear plant shutting down in 2023, coal in seemingly terminal decline and the phasing out of Dutch gas, Germany faces a medium-term challenge of how to secure stable energy sources and manage the fickle nature of solar and wind plants.

One of the options has been an extension to the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia, so-called Nord Stream II. Germany is the biggest client of Russian state-run export monopoly Gazprom and the pipeline would double Russian gas exports. But the project faces opposition from the US, Poland and Lithuania and some in Germany.

The simultaneous boom in US, mainly shale, gas has also created a new source of cheap global supply that is changing energy consumption habits -- and geopolitics -- globally.

Germany hedges its bets

It is in this context that Germany announced plans to build a $500-million (€420-million) liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal on the Elbe river in the north of the country. Brunsbüttel would be Germany's first such plant and if all goes to plan would be open by the end of 2022.

Gasunie LNG Holding, Oiltanking GmbH and Vopak LNG Holding established a joint venture, German LNG Terminal, to build, own and operate the terminal and were granted European Commission approval last July to move ahead.

LNG World

○ Paavo Lipponen consulting contract environmentalimpact Nord Stream - Aug. 2008 by Sven Triloqvist on Oct 21st, 2009
○ Nord Steam 2 - Facts and Figures: Environmental Impact Assessment in Russia - 2017
○ Ukraine-Russia Proxy War and the U.S. Election
○ Poroshenko's Losing Bet on a Clinton Win

'Sapere aude'