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Comment by BitwiseFool | Hacker News Reader

A country doesn't need to be liked or respected on the world stage to have power. Germany needing Russian natural gas is the perfect example of this.

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It was rather a project by then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to make sure he had a nice retirement fund and was indeed hired by Russian Gazprom right after he left office. Now the question is whether Germany honors these arrangements or not.

In case anyone is wondering about sources re. this, cf.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream#Nord_Stream_2

Vorsitzender des Verwaltungsrats der Projektgesellschaft ist Gerhard Schröder.[75] Wie auch schon bei der ersten Pipeline wirkte Schröder als Wirtschaftslobbyist und organisierte wiederholt Treffen zwischen dem Geschäftsleiter von Nord Stream Matthias Warnig und Schröders SPD-Kollegen und Außenminister Sigmar Gabriel sowie zwischen Gazprom-Chef Alexej Miller und Wirtschaftsministerin Brigitte Zypries (SPD).[76][77]

[75] http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/nord-stream-2-neuer-job-f... [76] https://www1.wdr.de/daserste/monitor/sendungen/nordstream-10... [77] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/themen/agenda/pipeline-nord-stre...

Können Sie bitte auf Englisch übersetzen?

I thought about adding a "y'all know how to use Google Translate" joke at the end of my post, and decided against it.

I guess you made the joke for me...

Sure: The chairman of the project company's board of directors is Gerhard Schröder.[75] As with the first pipeline, Schröder acted as a business lobbyist, repeatedly organizing meetings between Nord Stream's managing director Matthias Warnig and Schröder's SPD colleague and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, as well as between Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Economics Minister Brigitte Zypries (SPD).[76][77]

Thank you for adding substance to my post!

Schröder is an embarrassment. Usually high-level German politicians retire and stay out of things. I am very afraid that more will follow his example making tons of money with borderline corrupt activities.

> Usually high-level German politicians retire and stay out of things.

Not really, at least not in the last 15 or so years. It has become pretty common for senators to later end up in similar (through less powerful) positions then him.

Let's be honest Germans goverment is supper screwed over currently by laws which allow forms of lobism which should be treated as corruption and handled with multi year prison sentence.

There is a reason why Germany is on some corruption indices pretty high in the top (of most corrupt countries).

https://portaleco.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/bundesdruckerei-u...

“Not really, at least not in the last 15 or so years.l

I guess I have been out of the for longer than that :(.

Getting oil or gas is far from geo-politically ideal, let alone Schröder mixing up politics and business. On the other hand it's okay in comparison to what the US did to obtain and secure oil from the middle-east. That said, I don't think this has anything to do with being respected or liked. Having a good redundant energy supply is a core need, both governments and businesses before that failed to secure it by going for renewables earlier on. At the same time the US has always been respected in the past despite geo-polical acting that was more than questionable. If people have to freeze in the winter because of political fallout, this doesn't have to do much with being likeable.

One of author's big points was that they didn't believe that Germany actually needed the extra natural gas in the first place

It's long known that Europe can decouple itself from Russian gas - not only issues of climate, but also economy (long-term) and politics point there. It's the usual short-term business interest which is driving the project.

Then finish it and just keep it as a backup? Sure that will cost some more money but redundancy always costs money. Maybe especially if most of the money has already been spend - if you abandon it now, you get nothing for all the money, if you spent a bit more, you get some redundancy. And if more gas is not needed to begin with, then it should not really matter whether it gets finished or not. On the other hand I have no idea what value such redundancy would have, maybe it is not worth it. And that is probably all a bit naive, I did not follow this issue.

I doubt Germany is known for doing senseless things for no good reasons, so here I believe the author is missing some crucial piece of information:

- Germany is currently mainly depending on Russia, The Netherlands, and Norway for gas (https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/DEU).

- The Netherlands will phase out gas production (in decline since 2013: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sac...) and since an earth quake caused by gas production, faster than anticipated: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sac...

- the 20 billion cm^3 the Dutch export to Germany make up roughly 20% of German demand (~88b cm^3: https://www.statista.com/statistics/703657/natural-gas-consu...) so that's a demand that must be filled.

So, there is a 20% shortfall over the next 10y and till decarbonization reduces demand. Germany is getting gas from Azerbaijan via AP (https://www.oedigital.com/news/484249-azerbaijan-starts-gas-..., but TAP is only able to deliver 20b cm^3 (https://www.dw.com/en/southern-gas-corridor-project-about-to...), and not all of that goes to Europe. And Turkey has a choke hold on the gas transports, much like Ukraine has on the Yamal pipeline.

I am not an expert in natural gas markets, but it seems obvious that Germany needs to replace the Dutch shortfall either:

- From Russia

- From Norway, but they might want to get out of fossil fuels (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2196024-norway-is-start...) and their gas is also needed to replace coal consumption in Germany

- From the UK, but reserves are dwindling

- From the USA, but fracking gas is expensive, has a bad reputation in Germany and carrier transports might be less reliable than pipelines

- From Azerbaijan which is an autocratic country with a lot of potential for violence, which also just started a war.

=> None of the options are pretty.

- From SouthEast europe, but Germany is also in bed with Turkey so they don't want to touch that side of EU either.

It is painfully apparent how strategically inadequate Germany is in leading anything except its exports.

> extra natural gas

But who says it's about extra natural gas? It's actually more about more reliable, easier and cheaper natural gas supply. Germany has been depending on Russian gas since probably well before I was born...

The US should stop interfering in foreign countries sovereignty. Germany doesn't tell the US if they should build keystone 2 or not.

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