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Comment by dongobongo | Hacker News Reader

If the pipeline started operating, which it probably would in a few months with energy catastrophe in Europe - it would be total victory for Russia: natural gas revenues through the roof, end of war, etc etc. USA for some reason believes that Russian victory is against its interests.

See Biden recently: https://twitter.com/ah114088/status/1574435558675316737

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On the other hand, this now means freezing europe and a lot of money for USA, against european peoples interests... especially for people who don't really care about ukraine, as they didn't care about afghanistan, syria, libya etc., and just want a nice life for themselves (so, most people).

No this does not mean Europe will freeze, and honestly this was never going to happen. Worst case is lots of companies will fail. See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...

Yeah sure... they're saying we have enough reserves, then in the same sentance, that we must limit the time we shower, that we must wear sweaters indoors, that we must not heat our houses above X degrees, and many of the companies are aalready shutting down due to gas prices.... and it's not even winter yet.

What do you expect the politicians to do? Say that we're fucked because they didn't want to negotiate? ...so we can protest and replace them before we're actually fucked? Or lie about being ready, until it's obvious we're not ready and we're fucked, and with a destroyed pipeline, we cannot even negotiate anymore.

We're talking about people who couldn't even get masks during covid.

That's not recently, that's 2022-02-07, nearly 8 months ago, and before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

> end of war

The vast majority of weapons and support to Ukraine is coming from the US, Britain and Eastern European countries, not Western ones. Even if Germany and France started taking in gas from Russia it would only marginally affect the amount of support coming in for Ukraine and certainly wouldn't come even close to ending the war. The energy catastrophe is unlikely to happen too beyond what is already happening (ie companies having to shutdown due to high energy prices). See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...

Europe already announced they weren't buying Russian oil, and Russia already announced they weren't going to sell it. The pipeline being functional, or no, seems inconsequential. The attack can serve propaganda purposes, however.

Europe had already figured out their energy supply for the winter. They weren't counting on Russia.

So what was the solution in the end? Cuz currently I only see everyone being afraid to even acknowledge that gas reserves are merely a buffer. I suspect this "figured out" might as well be yet another soothing post-truth.

Well for one they've filled storage reserves past the annual target: https://graphics.reuters.com/UKRAINE-CRISIS/EUROPE-GAS/zdvxo..., and will fill it up to the max. The reserve can be used for about 3 months. Anything else they need will be purchased expensively on demand. Demand will be cut where it can. Something like 10-15% less demand would make all the difference. Yes it'll be painful in the short term but they should have never hitched themselves to Russian energy in the first place. This is the cost they will pay.

Anyways, by next winter France's nukes should be back online and they'll have had 2 years to make structural changes to ween off Russian gas. Likely means more US LNG in the short term, and more green energy/tech in the long term. Only chance I see of them getting back to Russian energy is if Russia gets toppled by a democratic regime that wants to be westernized. I see this as very unlikely in the next 2 years.

oops thought it was July...

There's still time to edit an error.

That's not right, this is isn't even wrong.

German policy has always been that this pipeline is a stranded assert once russia shuts it down.

Keeping this as a lever and credible threat is vastly important for maintaining a somewhat secure supply of gasoline for east germany. When speaking about a energy catastrophe you really, really want this pipeline shut.

In fact germany has taken measures to make sure that the pipelines will not become operational again. Confiscating and removing compressors and reuse them for the planned LNG terminals.

If anybody profits from these explosions, it's germany.

And russian natural gas revenues hit ground and are now searching for oil themselfs, now.

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