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I think we talked tough early on, but seemed to give plenty of time for people to move themselves and their assets out of the country before the sanctions actually kicked in. A bit like when we imposed new Covid restrictions on visitors, and gave sufficient notice to have people packing into the airports to beat the deadline.
"If soldiers surrender their last stronghold in Mariupol thier lives will be spared" - so says Putin. Given his track record of firing at promised escape routes for civilians, is there even one person anywhere who takes this latest promise seriously?
We all get that you hate Germany, but while it's arguably true that Germany put all its eggs in one basket, it just isn't practical to cut off a major source of fuel until you have an alternative. Yes, that means supporting Putin but I can't see an alternative. Hopefully as it gets warmer, the need for gas will fall considerably anyway.
Let's also consider that over the years, we've had many issues with Arab nations and we also run the risk of major problems if we suddenly fell out (or they sought to take advantage of a situation and push prices up).
Both Germany and us (and everyone) needs to be working towards being able to provide its own energy, and I am pretty sure we could have done this years ago. Likewise, Germany should have - but you can't keep attacking them when we haven't stopped importing either.
We all get that you hate Germany, but while it's arguably true that Germany put all its eggs in one basket, it just isn't practical to cut off a major source of fuel until you have an alternative. Yes, that means supporting Putin but I can't see an alternative. Hopefully as it gets warmer, the need for gas will fall considerably anyway.
Let's also consider that over the years, we've had many issues with Arab nations and we also run the risk of major problems if we suddenly fell out (or they sought to take advantage of a situation and push prices up).
Both Germany and us (and everyone) needs to be working towards being able to provide its own energy, and I am pretty sure we could have done this years ago. Likewise, Germany should have - but you can't keep attacking them when we haven't stopped importing either.
This is the unfortunate reality. The Germans can’t simply stop importing Russian gas, it just isn’t possible. It’s one thing to criticise them for becoming over-dependant in the first place (and I’ll happily state that I think their energy policy is deeply flawed), but in the here-and-now there’s no quick or easy solution. I do think they could be doing more to support Ukraine with military equipment however.
Not good, but thankfully arch-neoliberal Merkel is gone and the new Government are working as fast as possible to reduce reliance. As for France I'm not sure, but if Le Pen gets in then France's score would go down, as she has voiced opposition to oil and gas sanctions.
If the UK was further east I am sure it would be just as dependent on Russian gas as Germany.
People also forget that East Germany would have had all their supplies coming from the Soviet Union, I think people really do think it is easy just to completely rebuild the gas infrastructure network. Post communism Germany was concentrating on linking up the two halves of their country rather than worry when the gas was sourced at the time.
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Not good, but thankfully arch-neoliberal Merkel is gone and the new Government are working as fast as possible to reduce reliance. As for France I'm not sure, but if Le Pen gets in then France's score would go down, as she has voiced opposition to oil and gas sanctions.
The really unfortunate fact is that had European governments taken more notice and taken action on climate change, they would be less reliant on imported fossil fuels in the first place. Then there would be less need to import from Russia or elsewhere.
Even if governments started right now, as others have said, it’s impractical to just stop importing fossil fuels immediately.
What governments should be doing right now is looking at the whole situation. It should be fairly quick to introduce legislation where it does not exist to require buildings to be made more energy efficient and to have far better levels of insulation. And for funding to be made available to help those who can’t afford to pay for all the work themselves. If 10% of property was improved, this would make a substantial difference.
It seems to be the same way that people think it's some sort of trivial thing to suddenly individually identify, track down, and freeze all the assets of hundreds of Russian citizens in the UK, and if the British Government isn't able to do it on a whim in 5 seconds flat, that somehow proves the Government must be in league with Putin's cronies and are in thrall to lots of corrupt political donations.
So hands up everyone who has seen what effect a power cut has when it lasts for more than a couple of hours.
We are now so reliant on mains gas and mains electricity. Loss of either causes big problems. You can argue that loss of electricity is worse. But if gas runs low, large industrial plants have to shut down and so will gas powered electricity generators.
This is the unfortunate reality. The Germans can’t simply stop importing Russian gas, it just isn’t possible. It’s one thing to criticise them for becoming over-dependant in the first place (and I’ll happily state that I think their energy policy is deeply flawed), but in the here-and-now there’s no quick or easy solution. I do think they could be doing more to support Ukraine with military equipment however.
We all get that you hate Germany, but while it's arguably true that Germany put all its eggs in one basket, it just isn't practical to cut off a major source of fuel until you have an alternative. Yes, that means supporting Putin but I can't see an alternative. Hopefully as it gets warmer, the need for gas will fall considerably anyway.
Let's also consider that over the years, we've had many issues with Arab nations and we also run the risk of major problems if we suddenly fell out (or they sought to take advantage of a situation and push prices up).
Both Germany and us (and everyone) needs to be working towards being able to provide its own energy, and I am pretty sure we could have done this years ago. Likewise, Germany should have - but you can't keep attacking them when we haven't stopped importing either.
Where did you get I hate Germany. You cannot put words that i haven't said.
All I asked where would you rate France and Germany in the ratings in a previous thread. If the UK can be rated so can other countries or is being fair one sided.
It was a knee-jerk reaction to the Fukushima accident. The German populace's attitude towards nuclear power has always been ambivalent at best, so it's easy to understand why they made the choice that they did.
Politically, the Green Party was anti-nuclear and they've received a sizable proportion of the vote from 2010 onwards.
Edit: Just watched an interview with a "talking head" who estimated that Russia has lost around 30% of the invasion force that they started off with, and especially will be feeling the loss of eight generals. The fact that they are going to have to call up reservists and have a less-capable leadership running things makes the overall situation on the ground more unstable and increases the likelihood of ill-considered/inadvertent escalation on the Russian side.
I notice on the BBC feed the Russian foreign ministry has accused London of "Isolating Russia internationally, creating conditions for containing our country and strangling the domestic economy".
Fair play to them, they're spot on the money. Good to know we're getting it right.
It was a knee-jerk reaction to the Fukushima accident. The German populace's attitude towards nuclear power has always been ambivalent at best, so it's easy to understand why they made the choice that they did.
Politically, the Green Party was anti-nuclear and they've received a sizable proportion of the vote from 2010 onwards.
Edit: Just watched an interview with a "talking head" who estimated that Russia has lost around 30% of the invasion force that they started off with, and especially will be feeling the loss of eight generals. The fact that they are going to have to call up reservists and have a less-capable leadership running things makes the overall situation on the ground more unstable and increases the likelihood of ill-considered/inadvertent escalation on the Russian side.
Let's hope that it also increases the likelihood of someone in the Russian administration deciding it is time for Putin to, erm, have an unfortunate accident.
The Austrian chancellor has just returned from a visit to Putin reassured gas supplies (80%) will still flow and he can pay in euros. Austrian trains are still running into Russia and beyond rerouted via Belarus instead of Ukraine; threw that in as this is a train forum.
They don't because they would fall between the tracks of the Russian broad gauge.
Besides, Austria doesn't share a border with Belarus or Russia so it would be Poland that still interchanges freight with Belarus.
Given that Russia largely can't spend Euros at the moment that's not as big a win for Putin as it initially appears. Their demand that countries pay in Roubles was specifically to prop up the currency.
They don't because they would fall between the tracks of the Russian broad gauge.
Besides, Austria doesn't share a border with Belarus or Russia so it would be Poland that still interchanges freight with Belarus.
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I wonder how serious Boris is about investing in nuclear and other green energy solutions so we don't become solely dependent on oil from Arab states - thus giving them the power to blackmail us in the future, or turn blind eyes to incidents?
Today it's Russia and we can sit smug knowing that we don't get much from them, but tomorrow?
We need to become energy independent. All countries do, and with solar, wind, nuclear and hydro then surely we can begin investing now? As we move to EVs, we will be a lot less dependent on oil too.
This is the unfortunate reality. The Germans can’t simply stop importing Russian gas, it just isn’t possible. It’s one thing to criticise them for becoming over-dependant in the first place (and I’ll happily state that I think their energy policy is deeply flawed), but in the here-and-now there’s no quick or easy solution.
Thing is, it is the kind of thing that even if preparations are being made, not much will be evident for quite some time. LNG import terminals will take quite some time to construct - at least one major terminal (Wilhelmshaven) has received significant additional investment to try and bring it into service in 2025 rather than 2027 as originally planned. There's another terminal on the Baltic that will (hopefully) be ready by 2026.
Then there's the fact that Nord Stream-2 has been declared effectively dead, where switch-on had been expected later this year. That represents tens of billions of Euros of lost investment.
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They've done their credibility no good by saying (page 6):
With prices soaring on world markets - largely due to Russia’s own actions - the daily value of those imports has jumped, meaning ironically that Europe now sends even more cash to Putin to fund his war effort as a result of Russia’s aggression.
There is zero chance that European companies are paying the spot price for these gas imports. They will have set a contract price for at least three to six months out into the future.
Looking at the details of the plan:
LNG diversification and pipeline switching: 30 bcm.9
EU-wide energy saving; roughly 10 bcm per 1C reduction in buildings heat. With thermostats at 18C (reduced from 22C): total 40 bcm
Fast-track deployment of additional solar PV and wind: 6 bcm.
Stop nuclear phase-out and restart recently closed reactors in Germany, Sweden and Belgium: 14 bcm.
Emergency effort to better utilise French reactor fleet: 26 bcm.
Heat pumps to reduce gas demand in heating, and emergency energy efficiency measures in buildings: 4 bcm.
Gas to oil in power stations: 6 bcm.
Gas to coal in power stations: 22 bcm.
Curtailment to industry: 7 bcm.
Target total: 155 bcm to entirely replace Russian gas - Year 1. 1.
1. As I noted above, Europe doesn't have the terminals needed to import the amount of LNG that's needed, it's going to take time to build them.
2. This one has some legs, though there's a huge assumption about current thermostat settings and the energy efficiency of buildings.
3 - 5: Mostly common-sense
6: This isn't going to be possible in five months. There aren't enough installers, and there's not enough people with the money to make the switch. It's not just as simple as replacing the boiler, in most cases the whole heating system needs upgrading.
7 & 8: Depending on the plant design this could be anywhere between difficult to impossible. And again, it's not something that can be done quickly, to scale.
9: Common sense, though there's always the risk that the damage to industry means that there aren't the tax revenues to pay for everything else
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