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Comment by Gwypaas | Hacker News Reader

The renewable build out is what I would imagine is one of the causes of this, besides the geopolitical and keys to dictatorship angle.

Within 5 years, 10 years at most, Europe will have transitioned far enough to renewables that energy is a lost cause as geopolitical tool. Then Russia truly is screwed.

Some of the former countries in the Soviet bloc which more readily faced this issue of Russia trying to extend it's sphere of influence to them they already solved it through more costly means.

Lithuania and Poland did not build LNG terminals because they provide cheap gas, they built them as a costly hedge against Russian use of gas supplies for political purpose like seen with Ukraine in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Which people seem to have forgotten.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005%E2%80%932006_Russia%E2%80...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_ga...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...

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You keep saying "political tool", "geopolitical tool", but the articles you link to don't really support your own point:

> Naftogaz admitted it used some gas intended for other European countries for domestic needs

Translation: Ukraine was stealing gas that was transported to Europe, and they admitted it. Is that "political"? or just plain theft maybe?

Second article: > There is no consensus amongst analysts on who bore the most responsibility for the crisis

On top of that, the gas pipeline worked without fail for all this time, even through the peak of the conflict in 2014-2015. Why hasn't been this powerful geopolitical weapon invoked then?

Read the epilogue. During the Crimean annexation there was a lot of issues. [1]

Leading to the ultimate cutoff from Russian gas in November 2015. Ukraine now buys all gas as reverse flow from European Union states, while still of course having Russia pay transit fees for gas destined to Europe going through the country. [2]

Therefore everyone except Russia is happy, they lost the political tool of the gas supply in Ukraine. That is why Kyiv is not shut off today.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...

> Ukraine now buys all <Russian> gas as reverse flow from European Union states

Ok let me get this straight. Russia has been supplying up to 39% of all of Europe's natgas nonstop since 1973, throughout the Cold War, collapse of the USSR, 2014, and including the current everyday Ukrainian gas, which is also being supplied by Russia without fail (then reversed from Europe, to avoid outright theft), but somehow it's a very dangerous weapon. Ok.

Russia needs that European money too. It's 35% of their GDP and selling to Europe is more lucrative than selling to allies.

They currently have record gas prices, so it doesn't look like they mind selling gas. They sell gas to theirb close allies at ( almost) cost to reduce unrest.

Peak of the conflict was obviously not in 2015...

There are multiple reasons why he didn't do it sooner.

Here's one: https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/foreign-exchange-reserve....

Oh, but they do! The gas reserves have never been lower on the European side of the pipelines. That makes no financial sense at this time of high prices.

Yes. It’s a deterrent and a financial tool. “I supply you now, but what if I cut it off?” Also, gas means legitimate money moving in Europe to buy people with, look at the history of French or German politicians working for Russian gas interests. “Don’t do anything stupid and there’s a cozy consultancy position open for you at Gazprom”.

That argument applies to almost all trade in the world. China exports $452B worth of goods into the US, we should eliminate all this trade since it's a deterrent, otherwise we live every day under the threat of them cutting off the (clearly non-trivial and essential) exports at the most inopportune moment.

Oh but there were and are talks about exactly this Chinese point (also remember this guy Trump?). So we can keep our Russian worries as well.

Not to mention chip factories.

> Then Russia truly is screwed.

Too early to say that so definitively. Russia is banking on a close relationship with China in that time frame. Looking into the future from here in 2022, that doesn't seem like such a bad bet.

Definitely, the problem is: What does Russia provide for China?

For energy, China is also all in on renewables. See this chart for what they are committed to building.

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annua...

What is the status of Russian exports outside of energy?

China is all in on renewables but they are still building new coal plants today. They need all the energy they can get to power their economy. Russia can build energy pipelines to China at will, and there is plenty of time over the next 10 years to wean themselves off Germany and Europe's dependence and ramp up China exports.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/12/china-co...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_Siberia

Timely joint announcement: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-russia-...

From your timely joint announcement: "...to settle in euros."

Uh Oh!

Imagine China having an army / contractors which can actually perform operations and isn't scared of losses.

China is expanding in every type of energy they can get, including renewables. However, tanks and jets run on naphtha.

> Within 5 years, 10 years at most, Europe will have transitioned far enough to renewables that energy is a lost cause as geopolitical tool. Then Russia truly is screwed.

Genuine question, how can Europe transition to renewables until we solve storage at city scale? Because to me until future tech the trajectory looks more like gas will be the ~50% baseline for decades to come (or nuclear).

It's not about transitioning to 100% renewable in this context, but about having a good enough supply of renewable energy to be more independent.

Are you talking about any specific part of Europe? In Sweden I think natural gas is supposedly something like 3% of totalt energy expenditure, although it is important for heating in some areas and dearth would affect that a lot i assume.

With current tech you can get fairly easily (not necessarily cheap) to 80% renewables penetration in Europe. The rest of the 20% could then be covered by coal, gas, biomass and nuclear.

Mind you if the goal is to get Russia out of the European gas market, by greatly increasing the amount of renewables we use the rest could be supplied by LNG + Norwegian/Dutch/English fields.

Or they replace enough coal and nuclear plants with wind and solar they are completely reliant on Russian nat gas and peaker plants to make sure they don't have intermittent power outages.

5 to 10 years? I doubt it.

I think Putin knows that he has them and can cause them a lot of pain. France has been wise enough to stick with nuclear which gives them an edge over other Euro countries.

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