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Mapping Europe's Last Best Hope Against Russia's Gas Stranglehold
While the US media is still hung up on the idea of exporting its apparently abundaent gas to Europe to rescue them from Russia's iron-grip, the reality, as Cheniere Energy's CEO exclaimed "it's so much nonsense, I can't believe anyone believes it," and so it is that the Europeans, who have their own gas deposits may be left to solve their dependence issues alone. As Stratfor notes though, even with new supplies coming online, Russia's market share will not be threatened, though Moscow's ability to use natural gas prices and supplies as a political tool will diminish over time, particularly in countries outside its immediate borders.
Via Stratfor,
Analysis
On May 23, Italian energy company Eni signed a deal with Gazprom in which, for the first time, Gazprom allowed the price to be determined by the spot market for natural gas instead of being linked to oil prices. Russia has long fought to keep the price formulation linked to oil prices, as that arrangement is more lucrative. While Italy is the first country for which Moscow had to give up this pricing mechanism, it certainly will not be the last.
Unlike oil markets, natural gas markets have long been regionalized. Transporting natural gas over long distances requires either that the gas be liquefied, an expensive process, or a long pipeline be built, which does not have the flexibility of liquefied natural gas since the buyers or sellers are always those parties on either end of the pipeline. Historically natural gas was effectively a byproduct of oil production, and most gas was burned off at the source instead of sold to the market. When it was sold, it was unclear how to price it because of the lack of competition. As a result, in many contracts natural gas was indexed to the price of oil based on its energy content, roughly a fifth of crude oil's. This system has lasted more than 50 years in Russia and many other natural gas markets, including Asia. As more pipelines were built in North America, and to a lesser extent Western Europe, companies began to compete, and the competitive price of natural gas was not always the same as oil.
Natural gas supplies have boomed over the past decade and likely will continue to grow. Oil production, however, has stagnated, and as the two markets have moved away from one another so has the disparity between gas-on-gas and gas-on-oil pricing mechanisms. Traditional natural gas exporting countries like Russia and Qatar will continue to hold out as long as possible, but will have to give in eventually to the more market-oriented price formulation. But even with new supplies coming online, Russia's market share will not be threatened, though Moscow's ability to use natural gas prices and supplies as a political tool will diminish over time, particularly in countries outside its immediate borders.
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O will find a way to screw it up. Just give it a little time. EU will shiver.
Common guys, it's time to invest in green technologies and end our dependence on foreign fossil fuels once and forall!
The problem with your comment is that it was time 40 years ago -- and it happened 40 years ago -- and every year since. It failed.
You can invest all you want. You can't change physics.
There is no oil replacement. Period. And most will die because of it.
Thus spake the conductor of the ZH glee club.
Just look at that map for the geography. Notice anything interesing re: Hungary, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, the Steppe just goes on and on (to the East, that is) for thousands of miles.
That was horse country. Switzerland, Germany, Northern Italy, not so much.
And hence why those lands were historically 'strongly influenced' by Russia, the land of horses.
Scythians
And that's why our hatred of Russia is stronger than anyone elses.
Herd: Steppe in Poland? WTF? Are you feeling OK today?
There are oil replacements. But they are either incredibly dangerous to store and transport (too volatile), or they require massive resource investment and energy input to create.
Oil replacement do NOT currently exist. The present alternative energy schemes do not work as a viable replacement. Nothing more than greenie shams. Someday an alternative for oil will come on line. We are no where near that point though.
Our forefathers sailed from Manila to Mexico City using the wind. Its a viable source of energy (on some level).
I'm looking forward to seeing sail powered trucks bringing food to Walmart shelves.
I'm also looking forward to seeing them get that mast through tunnels, and maintain wind propulsion in them.
Those trucks will use sail powered refrigeration.
Go back to sailing then. I would enjoy me diesel powered Carnival cruise.
Natural gas can be converted to oil. The basic technology to do so is not new. If our capital formation and deployment process wasn't so badly fucked up we would have done this already. Kind of a no brainer.
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2012/01/23/natura...
GTL, gas to liquids, been around for decades.
Not used for decades for good reason. It doesn't work. The energy in exceeds the energy in the oil out. The water requirement for the process can't be met at any significant scale.
There are a zillion ideas and techniques that work to make 1 barrel of oil.
There are none, and never will be one, that will do 90 million barrels per day.
You miss the point. OF COURSE the energy in exceeds the energy out. That's just basic thermodynamics. The point is, you are paying a little bit up front for a lot of savings on the back end:
1) oil is easier and more flexible to transport than NG.
2) There is a gigantic infrastructure in place for refining oil and distributing its end products. NG-- not so much.
3) the political problems associated with NG pipelines go away.
You just reinforced what I said below in spades....
Did you actually understand and think through anything that you claim?
Sure, you can build GTL plants at enormous cost, but you are far better off simply using the NG as direct replacement....
There is a very good reason why it is only done on small scales...
"you are far better off simply using the NG as direct replacement...."
Wrong. Have you considered the costs of converting everything that uses oil, gasoline, and related products to use NG?
Have you considered the fact that the existing NG distribution network would have to be massively upgraded to the tune of trillions of dollars?
Why would you have to convert everything?
NG displaced oil-fired generators in '70s and '80's and now it replacing diesel on select long-haul truck routes...
Even then NG is not a viable long-term substitute for oil, it is only a bridge to whatever lies beyond...
BTW, Shell just deep sixed a proposed GTL plant for Louisiana...
http://www.shell.com/global/aboutshell/media/news-and-media-releases/201...
Indeed it is all bullshit for now at least.
viable replacement at what level of energy consumption? today's level? exponential forever growth? subsistence level? pre-industrial level?
One big problem is that everything is mispriced, so it is hard to make real comparisons, and easy to purchase net-negative technology.
I suspect wood is probably the best renewable energy source, and sugar cane / energy beets making a close second, with wind and solar somewhere behind that.
A major obstacle is near universal acceptance of reality, which stands in the way of making neccessary changes. There are still Homeowner's Associations and municipalities and government agencies obstructing people's ability to produce their own food, for example.
There is so much fucking coal though, hundreds of years worth. That is going up the stack if we don't embrace nuclear and, I don't know maybe orbital solar collectors.
Forty years that stuff has been considered.
It doesn't work. Nothing has oil's qualities.
That's because for 40 years people have been looking to continue sustaining infinite exponential growth. Alternatives can work after a 90% reduction in consumption and then a relatively steady state (although I suspect it would be more sine-wave like) economy.
Maybe if we used the resources we have more efficiently?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEed43yimmM
Or
http://rexresearch.com/ogle/1ogle.htm
There is a lot of evidence out there that we have just been doing it wrong. Now I know this doesn't get us off of oil but it sure could buy us some time. I won't go into all the other altrernative energy research out there that the pentagon just shelves due to national security interests.
Let me guess, you also shill for E-CAT?
e-cat? What are you going on about? I was just making a point that we don't use our resources very efficiently. I guess that makes me a shill for e-cat. whatever...
Linking sites for 100 mpg carburetors is usually a tell....
Actually that site is about removing the carburetor. Using the gas fumes into the air intake because it is those fumes that are combustible. The liquid gas not so much.
You mean like an ERG that recycles emissions to be recombusted? Japanese cars have been doing that for at least 30 years.
But dood, don't you see that getting efficient is not some new revelation? Forty Years. Since the 1970s there has been a desperate search ongoing for efficiency, for alternatives, for . . . outright change of behavior.
It hasn't happened for the very worst reason of all.
It can't happen. Present processes are close to optimal.
Death comes. Soon.
Are you blind? There has been no increase in energy efficiency for 45 years? You are incorrect.
There appears to be many people who have applied for patents and found ways to increase efficiency. I agree it isn't a new revelation. We should always be working towards greater efficiency. What would happen if all cars got 100 MPG? What would that do to the cost of oil and the economy?
"It can't happen. Present processes are close to optimal."
Yep. People driving 4000 pound vehicles at 65 miles per hour 2 hours per day to commute to a job manufacturing things designed to break after 3 years is pretty damn close to optimal.
Cruise ships? Practically over-unity right there!
Houses plastered with massive double-pane windows with single doors using heat pumps year-round to make things comfortable? Practically perfection incarnate!
Growing food 5000 miles away and flying it in on jet planes? There is no possible way you can get more efficient than that!
Growing food in the desert and trucking it into town instead of having gardens? "it can't happen. We're all gonna die!!!!!"
That is pretty well said.
Another tiny thing as a kid, I remember that my family and I used to store glass bottles and bring them back to the store and exchange them when buying new ones. Now... we are lazy and pay (through taxes) so glass is collected.
I think I saw that still in place in Germany. It is a tiny thing but it shows how "green parties" are often out of touch with simple realities and are promoting future tech for the sake of letting the industrial world go its nefarious but profitable ways unaltered.
In Belize they still use and reuse glass bottles, pop in glass is something like $0.50 cheaper than in plastic. Pop-tops, with the bottle-opener by the till on the way out. It helps if your drinks are bottled closer to where they will be consumed, rather than hundreds of miles away, where the weight difference of plastic over glass provides an advantage.
Well you should be more wary. There are big reserved supposedly, and supposedly we could exploit them.
Look at the shale gaz forecast from 2 years ago and the correction, down by 96% (or 94%?) now that people tried for themselves.
Coal can be used as electricity, bio diezel, etc. but I can't see it a substitute for oil.
Sooner or later we will have to do with a less energy.
"Look at the shale gaz forecast from 2 years ago and the correction, down by 96% (or 94%?) now that people tried for themselves."
No. the original estimates are the total amount that can technically be recovered. The 96% reduction is based on the amount of natural gas that can be produced at today's prices.
If you have not been paying attention, natural gas prices in America are barely above cost of production. The rest of the world pays up to quadruple the price for natural gas. Once the price of natural gas normalized +100% to +300% from today's prices, far more will be viable.
"Coal can be used as electricity, bio diezel, etc. but I can't see it a substitute for oil."
Fischer-Tropsch process if you NEED diesel. Or GTL from natural gas. Algae-based alternatives for plastics, medical use, etc.
"Sooner or later we will have to do with a less energy."
Yes. less energy, less plastic wrappers. Less disposible crap designed to fail within a short timeframe. I don't believe it needs to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland scenario.
Of course, climate change / cycles, changes in rainfall patterns (don't care if it is AGW or natural solar cycles: why is irrelevant all that matters is what changes), those are the big things. That, and the ticking time bombs of spent fuel ponds.
I watched an interesting presentation on the matter a while ago and it seems that you are right.
The guy doing the presentation had nice credential and according to him without a massive breakthrough once gaz and oil are gone we would have to do with around a quarter of the energy we use.
I can believe how full of shit are some things are read of late, like those highway made out of solar panel.
People have to think, the longevity of solar cells is not great, neither the efficiency. Now add all the crap would cover the highway and I would better that efficiency will be dreadful. Then you have to move the electricity...
To the point imigine the RIE, you have have to do a lot of maintenance. Anytime there is a bump on the road, may be cleaning. You have maintenance on I don't know how many miles of highway and so on.
It is exactely like those dreaming of gigantic solar farms where it appreas to make sense, mostly the same issue: you lose a lot of power along the electric wires and maintenane will further kill RIE.
It would kill it now done with oil and gas for which RIE is still pretty good, down the line...
It is the same bio diezel, it works with extremely intensive form of agriculture, agriculture nowadays is nothing else than the fine art to transform oil into food... or oil though I fail to see how that can be efficient outside of government subventions, etc. /bs
You mean like nuclear, dams, stuff like that?
Set the example for us MDB! Setup a huge windmill in your front yard to run a dynamo
My thoughts exactly intric8
We will find a way, we are merkins.
The answer to all of this has already been decided by the gang that put up the Georgia guide stones. Americanus Doofosaurus is to be reduced by 90%. Amazingly they will buy it. I see cut rate vaccine signs outside the Winn Dixie store all of the time. 400 pounders walk outside carrying cases of aspartame coke. There is nothing you can do for them. Any effort to explain it would only result in a blank look.
There are 400 nuke plants in the world. The one in Fukushima has enough plutonium itself to kill all of us. The earth's axis is now shifting at a geometrically increasing rate and earth change is in full force. Volcanic activity is at an all time high since record keeping began. There are over 20 plants on the New Madrid fault. You remember when that one went off in 1817? Pictures rattled on the wall in New York, the Mississippi ran backwards for awhile and changed course. The last flooding saw water come up around the plant in Nebraska. They put rubber innertubes around it as a safety measure and some water actually entered the building.
There is another Yellowstone warning, Old faithful has developed a crack and earthquakes are approaching 4.0. Helium 4 is now being emitted where it never appeared before. Scientists say it is from deep below the surface indicating something is going on. If it goes for the first time in 640,000 years, everything within 500 miles will be dead, ash will cover the entire United States, it will be 1000 times worse than Mount Saint Helens, which itself is a midget compared to Rainier. In fact that indians say when little sister calls, big brother soon answers, big brother being Rainier. Helium 4 appears right before major eruptions as it did at El Hierro in the Canary Islands. Incidentally the Canary Islands contain a volcano called Cumbre Viejo with a granite cliff weighing thounsands of tons. If it falls into the water the tidal wave from Canada to the Carribbean could be in the area of 3 to 400 feet. Lots of plants on the coast.
Germany has wised up a bit and are trying to dissasemble it's plants and go to coal. No word on what France will do with their 50. Germany wants to go to coal, good luck. The coal by the way is in .................. get ready for it ....................... Donbass.
My advice is just take it easy and enjoy the show while it lasts, you know living on the edge. It is always this way at the end of the Kali Yuga. Gold is great as long as there is something to buy.
I should have added, I am investing in consciousness. That is all that will be leaving when exit this world. When one door closes, another one opens. You can discuss what happened to us with old friends on the other side.
Just as an FYI, pretty much no one reads past 3 or 4 short paras in a comment.
STFU troll
Hey, ding a ling, you should heed his advice...
This "other side" argument drives me crazy. It's useless. There is a REASON all living organisms resist death. Life is a structure. When it collapses it must be fully digested (by other life) back to a chemical state before plants can use it. I agree with the effort to raise consciousness, but it certainly is not an "investmemt" where profit is sought.
Ummm. energy is neither created nor destroyed....it just moves from one form to another.
Same with life energy. Many people like me call that the soul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlTA3rnpgzU
this one is to invest
must watch
Oh yes! This is my favorite project spamming the interwebs right now trying to gather enough capital to Solyndranize every rodaway in America. Brought to you by a guy who managed to wire a piece of crystalline silicon, an Atmega328 chip and a bunch of LED's together. Oh and it's honeycomb shaped! I hear that lucky form factor attracts investors like flies to sh... I mean, bees to honey!
And get this - these will be encased in shatter-proof glass! It has economic viability written all over! How did anyone not think of taking expensive photovoltaic cells out of their boring rectangual aluminum frames, adding microchips, lights, glass, mounting holes, electrodes and poof! Making them affordable for everyone!
No need to reverse mortgage your house to pay for a carpet-sized, violet-colored roof decal / inverter / storage bank combo that costs $10k to maintain every 8 years, excluding bi-monthly cleaning costs. Now the sophistimacated dowhacky can be thrown right on the ground and made dirt cheap! Dirt cheap! Yeah, that was a pun!
I have huge doubts that these can withstand the load of tractor-trailers going over them. Also, they seem to require perfectly flat ground.
They don't need a 1:1 EROEI to breakeven: they can actually use 1 - cost of snow plowing, road lighting, etc. I suspect putting panels over the roads and just putting wires in the cement to melt snow would be a better choice.
As for LED lighting, they tried it in the UK but at highway speeds it triggers epilepsy, so if this rolls out, epileptics will no longer be able to drive; a small trade off for the greater good.
The concept of economic viability makes it a dead end project long before you start considering logistics.
Embedding wires to melt snow? That works fine for a rear windshield in a car, provided you have a petroleum powered generator under the hood and a multi-amp rapid discharge battery. The panels in this demo have no embedded storage. They are also positioned on the ground, which means little or now thermal insulation. I'd love to see a tech demo where they compare the melting rate of snow deposited onto an energy obsorbing dark surface like, say, I don't know... asphalt!!! to a piece of transparent glass with a solar panel beneath it. Did anyone run thermal capacity, heat transfer calculations?
The video is nothing but feel good nonsense, relying heavily on the use of computer graphics, exaggerating effectiveness of the product.
Think not a single person thought of using solar panels that way? Think they go on rooftops, because roads are just too iconvenient?
Think nobody tried embedding heating elements in landing strips, instead of de-icing with chemicals, because the engineers were too busy or stupid to realize the benefits?
No. This solar roadway technology presents absolutely nothing that hasn't been tried before. The only reason these don't already cover every roadway is because they do not work. Do not work economically. Do not work physically. It makes a nice expensive, needlessly compex outdoor disco court. It does not work.
The engineering couple who "invented" the device got a grant from the highway administration for the prototupe. Now they want to scam even more people through crowd-funding, and why not! I'm all for other people giving them their money. It's a small tuition to pay for a real lesson in economics.
P.S. This is coming from a real electrical engineer.
"Think nobody tried embedding heating elements in landing strips, instead of de-icing with chemicals, because the engineers were too busy or stupid to realize the benefits?"
I don't know. embedding wires into cement and asphalt driveways, particularly steep ones, and using electric current to melt off the ice and snow is getting fairly popular in newer upper-end suburbs around where I am.
Enviromental bans on dumping loads of salts and chemicals all over the place are likely a contributing factor. If you are not liable for pollution, I suppose it is easier and cheaper just to spray toxic goo everywhere.
Defrosting a driveway is not comparable to warming up a landing strip or a highway. I bet none of the high-end neighborhoods you mention use solar panels for the job. Else they'd be accumulating days worth of energy for a single snowfall.
With the hex panels in question - what happens if it snows overnight or during an overcast day? What if there's enough energy stored in the banks to melt the snow temporarily only to have it re-freeze. Glass has poor traction compared to asphalt. Add water or ice and it becomes a death trap.
Again, back to the original point - the panels would have to be economically viable first before the magniture of the logistics problems is even considered. At the crowd-sourcing site the group offers to send top investors pledging $10k a commemorative honeycomb glass panel (just the glass without any of the wafers). I joke that it is how much the glass actually costs.
It is an investment scam. Nothing more, nothing less. Why? Because Obama!
Got to ride the green wave while the sentiment is there.
Hydroelectric, tidal electric, and Fossil fuels have no rival. Why?
- nuclear costs more energy than it creates, and it has the potential to terminate all human life.
- Windmills kill birds and bats by the millions.
- solar fields fry birds by the millions.
- ethanol uses 1.3 times it's energy to produce 1 unit.
There is enough Anthracite coal just in northeast PA to meet America's energy needs for more than 100 years. There is enough natural gas to meet the world's needs for at least that long. There is more than enough petroleum to do likewise. Then there is frozen, crystallized methane to exploit.
"Green" energy is a failure and a scam.
Complete and utter horse shit. There is NOT enough CHEAP energy to supply the growth rate of the Global Utopia that the Elites desire to build.
Yes...there is PLENTY of energy in the ground, the air and the sky (sun). Just not cheaply enough acquired at scale to feed the global beast.
As you've already illustrated countless times, reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, Jumby.
There is enough Anthracite coal just in northeast PA to meet America's energy needs for more than 100 years. There is enough natural gas to meet the world's needs for at least that long. There is more than enough petroleum to do likewise. Then there is frozen, crystallized methane to exploit.
H O R S E S H I T !!!!!!!!!!!!!
You so fucking stupid as to be beyond hope.
Had to do a double take...
Thought he said Crystal Meth for a sec...
"- Windmills kill birds and bats by the millions."
- Citation needed. Pretty sure those problems have been solved decades ago.
" solar fields fry birds by the millions."
Citation needed. Semiconductor based solar panels are not so great, probably negative EROEI on a residential level, and only 2.45:1 after 25 years assuming no failures or destruction in Spain. Boiling water Tower solar power is likely to be much better.
"- ethanol uses 1.3 times it's energy to produce 1 unit."
Current corn ethanol to be specific. Genetically modified trees have been used to show the cellulistic material can be made to seperate easier, so the stalks of corn may be more efficient in the near future. Sugar Cane and Energy Beets are already closer to 7:1 EROEI. Poplar Trees can be about 10:1 EROEI if dried and directly burned to make electricity.
At current consumption, there is certainly a lot of coal remaining. Petroleum, not too sure about that. Natural gas, better hope so, without ammonium nitrate fertilizer food production will plummet. Clathrates, still no evidence of anywhere near 1:1 EROEI.
Doubting Matt:
A quick web search yields:
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/eek-squad/wind-turbines-kill-more-600...
http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/02/nevadas-massive-solar-plant-deat...
Da interwebs are yer friend and stuff.
And then there is this conclusion
http://www.iaia.org/conferences/iaia12/uploadpapers/Final%20papers%20rev...
Not to mention that most studies place birds losses in the noise as compiled here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power
If you want to save birds, shoot a cat or stop driving...
You first MD Douche
Any release from stranglehold is temporary and partial.
What's Plan-B?
Civilisational suicide seems to be the plan over there.
Just as well assisted suicide is mostly legal over there.
They'll "suicide" you, and call it "assistance"...
You kinda need a robust economy to build and maintain that kind of infrastructure which the E.U. does not have.
Oh...right...they have a Central Bank.....just print the money needed.
what nonsense. which kind of infrastructure are you missing, in Europe? the south stream pipeline? besides, what printing? compared to who?
just note one little factoid: Europe (Japan too) is using natgas. a former waste product. note how many LNG terminals there are in France and Britain alone
If they had enough cheap nat gas and sufficient domestic infrastructure to supply their own needs so they could give Russia the finger....they would have been doing it for decades. They don't.
Natgas has been used here in the US routinely for over a century. Most towns in my part of the US midwest have had gas pipelines feeding homes since gas was found here (again, more than a century). One simple, small example- pottery factories in east central ohio located where gas and clay are right there. These places have been there for 100+ years. Nice to see Europe wake up to the possibility of using "a former waste product". Now, if you really want to reduce dependence, start fracking and get what's under your feet.
If you have to frack....you are admitting that the cheap stuff is tapped out.
Tar sands....frack shale oil and gas......this is like scraping the sides of the toilet boil to get at the last reserves of shit when all the easy to get to shit has been flushed away.
Today is the day Ukraine's gas bill comes due, no?
They paid a few hundred million and bought another week. It's next week.
Only a a few hundred million ?
Didn't they receive the bamabillion yet.
Several. Paid out of it.
They got a lower price in November when they agreed to join the Russia economic zone. In February they reneged via coup. Russia then withdrew the lower price because they withdrew their choice to join the Russia economic zone.
So Russia has been billing at a higher price since late March. They paid Feb and March's bill at that lower price. That bought them a week. They object to the higher price.
I see a lot of points,hubs and exchanges but i see only one gaspool.
Convienently located in Germany.
"Gas comes in two grades just like oil." Since there is so much of it (price collapse of coal in the USA...good luck exporting that) the cost of energy has had a tremendous collapse inside the USA.
Natural gas exports won't begin for many more years in the USA so it's beyond ridiculous to think somehow US gas is even an option right now.
What is an option is "super cheap USA" for anything that requires energy to be made. Already China...of all places...is hitting the USA with anti dumping duties...so it's not the USA isn't cost competitive.
I still think the "killer app" are Teslas since that will crush demand for grid power. Maxwell Technologies is still an interesting play in the space as they make super capacitors that need no batteries and barely any engine...but the Government would have to build out any "powered highway" infrastructure in order to make that happen.
That would require hundreds of billions in debt.
They essentially don't work for 98% of US landmass.
If you're in San Fran, you don't need heat or air con, so you can squeeze out range. If you add a trailer hitch and try to pull a boat, you get no range. If you try to make a truck out of them to bring food to people, you get no range.
It's a monumental scam that will sell a few thousand to luxury buyers. It will affect society zero.
"I still think the "killer app" are Teslas since that will crush demand for grid power. "
I don't think the word "crush" means what you think it does ... if electric cars become a big thing, power grid demand will explode, balloon, erupt, supersize.
As for ultracapacitors, I guess time will tell.
Ok that does it, sanction Italy too, obozo!
Traditional natural gas exporting countries like Russia and Qatar will continue to hold out as long as possible, but will have to give in eventually to the more market-oriented price formulation. – Stratfor
We were wondering how long it would be before Stratfor would show up, now mixed up in Ukraine vs. Russia politics.
George Friedman’s connections to the financial sector, i.e., Goldman Sachs, and to the U.S./Israeli military/industrial complex, hardly render his viewpoints neutral or unbiased, especially in light of past pro-war propaganda that he has disseminated particularly in support of the Iraq War and a U.S.-led war against Iran – always from the Israeli point view.
It was Stratfor that suggested a good re-election strategy for Obama would be to take the initiative and bomb Iran.
frack the frack outta europe, sells NATO some new war toys, and hate the russians.
it's a win-win-win.
capitalist running-dogs to the rescue!
Suppose fracking doesn't produce anything. Suppose there's nothing there. Suppose it was already burned.
Our 800 billion stimulus could have built possibly 100 new design (safer) nuclear reactors and shut down many potential Fukishima's.
Nuclear energy - the ultimate green energy.
And people accuse me of making pro-statist comments here...
Agreed on this point, but the greenies dont like nuclear because its nuclear, and they dont like hydroelectric because it makes the salmon sad. They only embrace the non-baseline sources, like wind and solar, that dont scale well (and kill the birdies and cause moar global warming!) and are too dependant on local source conditions that have minute my minute variability.
Nobody said it was easy...
And in case you have not noticed, it is pretty clear that we have no long term plan for nukes. Hell, the gubbmint has to massively subsidize them and effectively socialize the risk while privitizing the profits...
Someone disagrees that nuclear power, full life cycle from design to disposal, requires government subsidies just to exist?
Or maybe they disagree with the fact the current long-term plan is to just use the spent fuel ponds for the next couple hundred years and hope a new solution comes along, with waste that is dangerous for 10,000+ years?
Dependency is just bondage in slo-motion.
That's what my Johnson says when I pull up my Depends underwear.
The US should be more concerned increasing domestic natural gas consumption. All that extra oil we're scrambling to drill and frack should be stockpiled, instead of used domestically or sold abroad. It's going to be very, very valuable in the future and worth far more when the world starts running dry.
The world and the U.S. is broke now. How do you pay for the technology, the infrastructure and the distribution needed to stockpile the quantities needed for such a scenario? And then....knowing it will run out eventually...do you spend the money needed for a 6 month supply...1 year...5 years....20 years?
That is one hilarious comment. Pump it out and then stockpile it? Really, funny. Oops, maybe you didn't get it. Leaving it in the ground is stockpiling. The Strategic Reserve stockpile is there for "emergencies" like getting re-elected.
Can anyone here do anything close to meaningful analysis on this subject?
Russia is a net importer of European Goods.
Russian capital markets need European Capital.
Russia cannot be seen as going cap in hand to the Chinese.
Can anyone connect the dots?
You haven't seen the news stories of Russia's energy deals with the Chinese. And naturally to follow the military deals as well? Russia plays chess...the West plays checkers on a board that is dry rotting.
http://news.kievukraine.info/2014/06/more-may-have-been-behind-donetsk.html
fiction....try Kyiv Post next time...they are better at lies...
You are clearly one of those internet trolls on Putin's payroll that we have been hearing about....
and you work for the Tides Foundation or is it the Suzuki Foundation
Funny how the person in question showed up just when things starting getting interesting in Russia...
BTW, neither of those orgs. could afford me assuming I was even for sale...
so you're high maintainance Eh'
Volkodav, tell us the truth. Make it simple so anyone can understand.
Well Norway is always an option for the EU, force them into submission bc its only Norway right... The North Pole has some oil there as well
Expectations too high...
A nice map of the major gas fields and pipelines in Europe :
http://s2.lemde.fr/image/2014/06/02/1000x0/4430311_5_ac7d_les-principaux...
STRATFOR is linked to system media. and so is their analysis.
Waltzman (Porosenko's birth name) is a dual passport citizen. Therefor on the same sides with SRATFOR.
They pronounce a dream they would like to be a reality.
Didn't the Netherlands Shell plant blow up yesterday? Wipe that blob off the map!
Q: What about the O-Point Energy platform, or the O'No platform, or the Dot Naught platform, or the Unobtainium platform? Won't they help?
A: Naught exactly.