„German newspaper FAZ reports its investigation found strong indications that Germany traded its support for the #copyright deal for French concessions on Russian gas #northstream2„
This is the first example of French-German "leadership" about which Marcon and Merkel were talking in the end of 2018. EU just enter hegemony phase of these two countries and I believe nothing good will come out of it for European structures and the continent.
Because the EU policy on energy is to promote diversification and not allow Russia to use their status as an indispensable supplier to impose their geopolitical will and monopolistic pricing.
That was the rationale when the EU killed South Stream - a proposed pipeline from Russia through the Black Sea and south Europe. Some of the countries involved had already made large investments and had great hopes for the pipeline which would have generated transit fees.
Germany's push for Nord Stream 2 - a more or less direct pipeline from Russia - today feels self-serving and hypocritical. It looks like Germany is abandoning its obligations while smaller and less wealthy countries had paid the price.
Nord Stream 2 would make gas system in Ukraine vurnable and allows further military escalation from Russia side, as it would be possible to transport gas via Nord Stream 2. This would make peace in EU under question also since aggression won't be in Ukraine only in case it escalates.
Also Nord Stream 2 would make Germany more dependent on Russia gas.
At the same time US wants to have EU and Germany on their side in fight agains China + sell resources to EU. Germany on the other side does not like "being controlled" and has some attraction to Russia. There are thoughts that Germany may want to make an allience with Russia to weaken US influence on EU.
I belive it is just a surface of what is happenning. And it is all related to "peace/war" questions, who are allies to whom, global market shares, etc.
It is not just some "stupid decision", there are lots of issues hidden under the hood. And more such decisions to come in the nearest future I belive.
> Germany on the other side does not like "being controlled" and has some attraction to Russia.
Being German myself, I don't think it has so much to do with being controlled or not, but the difference between several powers having some degree of influence vs. one having it all. Russia and the USA are certainly two very big players in world politics, and Germany already seems to have plenty of co-dependence with the United States.
I don't mean to say Nord Stream 2 is necessarily a good thing, but I do believe that some of the powers involved don't seek this balance as much as just to isolate Russia.
Sure. I agree. I used "controlled" word as some kind of abstraction. It is more about influence.
From ukrainian point of view Germany seems to forget about risks of not isolating Russia after Russia annexed territories and invaded several countries. WW2 did begin some kind of similarly as I understand: countries were seeking for "balance" and didn not want to make any rough decisions which could influence their economics in a "bad" way. The result was not very good.
I understand that every country has interests. But in this very case we see that Germany is already buying russian gas through ukrainian gas system without any issues besides risks intriduced by Russia itself. So Nord Stream 2 is more about relationships and not the gas or economics alone.
At the moment we see Article 11 and 13 approved as a consequence. And it is just the beginning.
And in this case it means Russia gains much more influence over eastern Europe. As a Lithuanian, I'd rather isolate Russia much more and have more dependency on US.
Because one of the hidden games played in the EU is 'keep the Germans in check'. Some might even say this was one of the original intentions behind the foundation of the EU as a 'peace upholding structure' across Europe.
> why the hell France (or the rest of the EU) even cares about where Germany gets their gas from in the first place?
For the same reasons New York might care how Alaska gets its energy. Climate change concerns. Concerns that a fellow voting union member is building critical economic and energy ties with an authoritarian regime. (More selfishly, perhaps, because New York wants to sell them its own energy.)
For Germany, the alternative currently seems to be coal, which is one of the reasons I find this somewhat annoying. If it was a matter of "Nord Stream 2 or wind energy" I'd say "fuck that Russian gas, let's go green!"
But alas, that's not what this is about.
Even if there are people out there who deny climate change, geopolitics like this ought to convince everyone that distributed renewable energy is the way forward.
Climate change denial is large problem only in Anglosphere.
Germany did more than any other country to realize the modern renewable-energy industry and it's failed its climate goals. The lesson should be that you have to try every tool in the toolbox, including nuclear energy.
Fukushima accident revealed the irrationality of the public. Fukushima-scale accident every decade somewhere in the world would be low cost to pay for replacing coal. It's only the drama behind the accident that makes people to lose their minds.
Nuclear isn't built because it isn't financially viable. I'd love to see more nuclear, but it just isn't going to happen anytime soon. Maybe if we added a carbon tax that was reasonable considering the climate emergency it might be.
It depends on the cost, honestly. If the cost is too high, no utility will continue to run those plants. I agree with you, but the reality is that finance runs everything these days.
Main cost of nuclear power plant is the capital cost of building it. Operating nuclear plant is extremely cheap, even cheaper than maintaining solar or wind power plants.
Yea, and capex is the hardest nut to crack since it requires investors that want to make a profit sooner rather than later. I love nuclear, but it's not a realistic resource at this time. All the downvotes in the world won't make this untrue.
I would seriously like to hear from you folks why you disagree with my statement above, please comment. I have a feeling it's either rabid pro-nuke folks (I was a nuclear technician in the Navy, so I am also pro-nuke) or the pro-oil folks that disagreed with my carbon tax proposal. I have no idea right now why you think my position is wrong, so please enlighten me.
A carbon tax would be nice, but I rather see in EU a complete ban on burning coal, oil and gas for electricity. From there people can do what ever they want to solve the energy shortage during production lows, be that nuclear or other solutions.
I doubt we will see any reasonable economics for nuclear as long coal, oil and gas is allowed to be burned.
>I doubt we will see any reasonable economics for nuclear as long coal, oil and gas is allowed to be burned.
True, and that's why the carbon tax would have to be super-high as to make oil and gas financially un-viable. Banning burning fossil fuels is a better step, though, I agree.
I think that you underestimate how many people coal kills.
According to the world health organization, the number of premature deaths caused by coal and Particulate Matter is on the order of literally millions per year.
This means that if we switch to nuclear and this caused us to have a chernobyl scale disaster every single year, that it would still be massively safer than coal.
And even if we use your ridiculous example of a nuke going off in a city every year, guess what, that's still safer than coal. (This is, of course, not how nuclear works)
So yes. Give me the bomb going off in a city every single single year. It would still kill less people than coal, according to the World Health Organization.
https://edition.faz.net/faz-edition/wirtschaft/2019-03-26/f3...
Via
https://twitter.com/Senficon/status/1110278976654794753?s=20