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Comment by The_Colonel | Hacker News Reader

1) in the short term Europe is not cutting gas from Russia, it's the other way round

2) in the long term, Europe is trying to get independent from Russian gas so that 1) will not happen again

Europe is trying to get away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.

That being said, I hope we plan on no longer depending on Qatar either, because their stability doesn't seem a given either.

Dependence only starts at 10%+ of import shares... Europe is now dependent on Russia and Norway, and slightly dependent on Algeria. Any single other source be it Azerbaijan or LNG from US/Qatar/wherever is too small to cause the price jumps we've seen (and therefore not big enough to matter politically)...

Yes. The idea behind scaling up LNG is that it decouples Europe from any one supplier.

That would be the smart move. To greatly increase conservation (heat pumps, better insulation, etc. are low hanging fruits that will more than pay for themselves in a few years), reduce car driving in favor of cheaper and better public transport and/or bikes/ebikes, and to increase wind and solar power, both of which are as cheap if not cheaper than most sources of fossil fuels and can be brought online within months.

If Europe does not do this, then they will absolutely deserve the impact of the future geopolitical shocks that will inevitably increase as climate change causes migrations, inflation, increasing natural disasters, and ensuing political instability in fossil fuel providing nations, which are not coincidentally among the most ripe for political revolt.

How will reducing car driving save gas?

Once you're relying on LNG terminals rather than fixed pipes, you have a lot of source flexibility.

And really higher prices that will destroy German industrial competitiveness

>Europe is trying to get away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.

I think the truth of this statement increases with a slight modification.

The US is trying to get Europe away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.

Western European countries, and Germany especially have had to be pushed into supporting Ukraine.

> Western European countries, and Germany especially have had to be pushed into supporting Ukraine.

Absolutely untrue of "western countries", only of Germany.

The american "push" was welcome as a sign of confidence that we could support Ukraine not merely on our own, but with the backing of the United States. But this is our continent that is under attack. The US wouldn't otherwise care, but taking down Russia is a huge get for them so they care.

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