by Oui
Tue Aug 16th, 2022 at 01:53:02 PM EST
Pure capitalism ... destroy a competitor ... UK's exit from the EU made it so much easier. UK's pain will be short term, for the economic relapse of the EU-27 it will be long term, most likely a fatal blow. The global powers in 2040 will be so much different, Europe as a client state of the US. Militarily through NATO and on foreign policy via the White House. Great move #macron France, #scholz Germany and #draghi Italy. The Brussels Triad of Michel, Borrell and VDL was worthless.
A group of global climate leaders are issued a Joint Communiqué on Earth Day, calling for urgent action in the areas of climate, peace and security, climate-smart finance and climate-smart cities.
Leaders at a Nobel Peace Prize Forum high-level climate congress said that political will, driven by radical integrity, creative, inclusive collaboration and no excuses, is urgently required to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
'Massive' Methane Leaks Found Coming From Oil and Gas Sites in Europe
Fossil Fuel Fervor in Texas and Surroundings
Texas LNG Looking for Export to NATO Sucker Europe
Just watched an interesting documentary on the building of Nord Stream 2 and the role of Poland, Baltic States and Ukraine to undercut the investment for Western Europe.
How to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy | The Hill - July 2019 |
By William F. Shughart II
It's time for our political leaders to stop showboating in their efforts to thwart Russia's threat to Europe's energy security. Even if well-intentioned, a Senate bill to impose sanctions on foreign energy companies helping to construct a Russia-to-Europe natural-gas pipeline is half-baked and simply won't work.
The pipeline, called Nord Stream 2, is now 60 percent complete. It is a joint venture of Gazprom, Russia's state-owned oil company, with half of the funding provided by "Germany's Uniper and BASF's Wintershall unit, Anglo-Dutch Shell, and Austria's and France's Engie," according to Reuters. If and when it's completed, the new pipeline will allow Russia to make good on its plan to end gas transit through Ukraine, depriving it of $2 billion to $3 billion a year in transit revenue -- and cutting a vital link between that country and the West.
U.S sanctions are unlikely to stop the pipeline's expansion before it's finished. Not only would sanctions have negligible effects on Russia, but they would harm America's banks and other companies doing business abroad. Under the bill, sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the targeted foreign companies would be unable to secure credit from American financial institutions and be denied access to their U.S. properties.
President Trump has said he is considering imposing sanctions himself to "protect Germany from Russia." But sanctions are protectionist, no matter what justification is advanced.
Ironically, sanctions against Nord Stream 2's builders are on the table at the same time U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry is in Europe to promote exports of America's liquified natural gas (LNG). Customers there, like Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG), already are signing or negotiating long-term contracts to purchase large volumes of gas from the United States.
That good news means that the United States has a more effective strategy for counteracting Russia. Rather than imposing sanctions, we could expand production of our huge domestic natural-gas deposits and dispatch fleets of tankers carrying LNG across the Atlantic. Such action would loosen Russia's economic grip on western European consumers. In fact, that's already happening. Last winter, U.S. companies shipped 48 LNG tanker cargoes to Europe. But we could export much more.
The lessons of the periodic oil price shocks America learned so painfully from decades of dependence on OPEC's oil reserves easily can be applied to Russia's threats to Europe's energy security. If someone had suggested 30 years ago that the United States could disrupt Europe's growing dependence on Russian natural gas by encouraging exports of American LNG, the idea would have been dismissed as pure fantasy: in the 1980s we were importing natural gas.
More from author William Shughart ...
Thank the Shale Revolution for Revitalizing U.S. Manufacturing | 2015 | SCOTUS Properly Reined In the EPA: Will the IRS and SEC Be Next? The Texas LNG Scam for Europe is closely related to climate change denialism ... how well California and Western Europe were investing in energy transition to Green energy ... halted once again by major global fossil fuel lobby. To protect Germany from Russia my a$$ ... pure destruction of the German peaceful industry, an economic miracle post WW2 where Japan failed, Germany as economic engine of the EU succeeded.
Deutschland wirtschaftswunder nach dem zweiten weltkrieg
U.S. "disappointed" by Dutch role in Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline | Gas Pricessing & LNG - June 5, 2019 |
Washington is disappointed the Netherlands allowed Dutch companies to participate in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, which Washington deems a threat to European security, U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said.
Several Dutch multinationals, including Gasunie, are participating in the 11 billion euro ($12.4 billion) project to build a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
The pipeline is opposed by Washington and several eastern European and Nordic countries, which fear it will undermine Ukraine's gas transit revenues and increase the EU's reliance on Russian gas.
Gasunie holds a 9% stake in Nord Stream AG, the consortium for construction and operation of the pipeline between Vyborg in Russia and Greifswald in Germany.
"We are diasppointed ... We have identified Nord Stream 2 as a threat to European security," Hoekstra said in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in The Hague.
"We would have hoped that the Dutch government, with those companies themselves, would have decided that they would not participate in the construction of Nord Stream 2."
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in Kiev that a sanctions bill putting onerous restrictions on companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 project would come in the not too distant future.
Merkel, Medvedev Launch Nord Stream Pipeline Beneath Baltic Sea | RFERL - Nov. 8, 2011 |
Nord Stream 2 'stunning blow to Europe's energy security,' says US Energy Secretary Rick Perry in Vilnius, Lithuania | Oct. 7, 2019 |
Nord Stream and TurkStream, the gas pipelines set to connect Russia with Germany and Turkey, "would enable Moscow to end gas transit through Ukraine by the close of the decade".
"Nord Stream 2 would deliver a stunning blow to Europe's energy diversity and security," Perry said.
The construction of the almost complete Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is led by Russian gas giant Gazprom. The project is financed by German, Dutch, Austrian and French companies.
...
The pipeline's supporters say it will bring gas prices down, but Perry says the pipeline will "exploit dependent nations, bending them to Moscow's will".
He also underlined that American LNG could bolster Europe's energy security. The US energy secretary also said in Vilnius that his country would seek to strengthen energy ties with Central and Eastern European.
He also announced plans to set up four working groups for energy efficiency and renewable resources, nuclear energy, supply security and the protection of critical infrastructure. The latter group will be led by Lithuania.
Transatlantic energy cooperation gains momentum at the second P-TEC ministerial | Atlantic Council |
The Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation (P-TEC) advanced from framework to call to action at the second ministerial, in Vilnius, Lithuania, on October 6-7. US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry rolled out P-TEC in 2018 at the Three Seas Initiative Forum and Business Summit in Romania, and hosted the inaugural P-TEC Ministerial on the sidelines of CERAWeek in March 2019 in Houston. P-TEC and the Atlantic Council have a shared objective to enhance secure and resilient energy systems across Europe, and the Atlantic Council has been engaged in the initiative from the very beginning.
The US-UK imperialists already have the Visegrad group V-4, Bucharest Nine, and Three Seas Initiative.
Under the radar | Sept. 2018 | [h/t Cat]
Three Seas, Two Leaders
The EU didn't fly the flag at the first two gatherings. But today, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is personally going to the Romanian capital, in what can be seen as an attempt to put the pro-American initiative into an EU framework.
Trump's Energy choice promises Perry Christmas for fossil fuel lobby | EuroNews - Dec. 14, 2016 |
The White House rolled out the new branding this week to coincide with what the administration has dubbed "Energy Week," casting "energy dominance" as a break with the Obama era. In a speech this week, Trump touted a "golden era" of U.S. energy that would be asserted via the country's booming natural gas, coal and petroleum exports.
In what he called a policy of "energy dominance," Trump re-branded efforts to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to markets in Eastern Europe and Asia that had been set in motion during the previous presidential administration.
Here's how Energy Secretary Rick Perry explained energy dominance to the White House press corps.
Technology innovations have allowed U.S. drillers to profitably extract oil and gas from shale rock formations, leading to a boom in fossil fuel production and exports. It has also opened the door to liquefying U.S. natural gas and shipping it around the world.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline:
Economic, environmental and geopolitical issues | EP Strasbourg - July 2021 |
The EU's dependence on Russian gas imports shows no signs of lessening. Although the Green Deal envisages a carbon-neutral Europe by 2050, natural gas remains a key part of the energy mix as coal is phased out and renewable energy is not yet ready to fully take up the slack. EU domestic gas production is fast declining, and there is not enough gas at affordable prices from alternative suppliers to replace Russian production.
Launched in 2015, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline connects Russia and Germany directly via the Baltic Sea, following a similar route to Nord Stream 1 completed in 2011. Construction has taken several years, with delays due to protracted legal battles and, since 2019, US sanctions. Nevertheless, pipe- laying continues and is on track for completion in the next few months.
Few energy projects have ever been as hotly debated as Nord Stream 2. Pipeline owner Gazprom, a Russian state-controlled company, argues that it is needed to meet the EU's growing demand for gas imports. Germany's energy sector also sees the pipeline as a viable commercial project.
Some opponents point to the environmental impact of the pipeline's construction, as well as the contradiction between the EU's climate goals and long-term investments in fossil fuel import infrastructure. However, the pipeline's geopolitical implications are its most controversial aspect.
Critics, including several EU Member States, describe Nord Stream 2 as a Kremlin project to export malign Russian influence as well as gas to Europe. They note that, combined with the new TurkStream pipeline delivering Russian gas to south-eastern Europe, it will eventually enable Russia to starve Ukraine's ailing economy of much needed transit fee revenue. The pipeline looks set to perpetuate Russia's stranglehold on EU energy markets and compromise European strategic autonomy.
Russian gas supplies to EU drop via all routes, except TurkStream | EurActiv |
Further reading, the American blue print from none other than the RAND Corporation ...
Ukraine and the Caspian - An Opportunity for the United States | Rand Corp. - Year 2000 |
The United States has said that the Caspian region, and the development of its energy resources, is a key national security interest. It has also made clear its commitment to the independence of Ukraine.
The United States has said that the Caspian region, and the development of its energy resources, is a key national security interest. It has also made clear its commitment to the independence of Ukraine. But current options for Caspian oil transport are beset with political and logistical problems and, therefore, fall far short of guaranteeing the safe, secure export of Caspian oil in the short or long term.
At the same time, Russia's increasing stranglehold on Ukraine's energy imports does not bode well for the smaller country's ability to maintain its hard-won sovereignty, and it increases the risk that Ukraine will call on the United States and its NATO allies to stand behind it against Russia. The development of an export route for Caspian oil through Ukraine is a cheap and effective means of ameliorating both problems, and thus an approach that Washington should support.
The embarrassing loss of Afghanistan and retreat from Kabul, quite likely led to a very harsh policy and decision to force Russian forces out of the Donbas and Crimea. Stop the Minsk 2 agreement in Kyiv. No compromise, no negotiations, a power grab and political stranglehold on a reluctant Europe to go to war. The whole energy narrative took a turn towards confrontation and war from early Fall 2021 [read my timely and precise diaries during those months] as Europe faced more COVID-19 stress with the arrival of the Omicron variant. The upcoming election in France and the end of Chancellor Angela Merkel terms made this option for Joe Biden now or never. The Maidan revolt must be completed in total victory.
Who Pays the Most for Russian Gas in Europe and Why | August 2014 |
So mainland European economies are now fully dependent on shipments of LNG and high energy pricing due to turmoil in Ukraine. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was primarily build to offset the shutting down of Europe's biggest gas deposits in Slochteren, Groningen.
See also the excellent expert articles here @EuroTrib published by Jerome a Paris. Scathing rebuke of American foreign policy in the period of the illegal Iraq War, invasion, occupation and destruction.
Will U.S. be a clean energy or fossil fuel super power?
Either way paid for by their European allies.
