October 31, 2021 08:13 GMT – By RFE/RL
U.S. President Joe Biden has stressed the importance of implementing a U.S.-German agreement on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to ensure that Russia “cannot manipulate natural gas flows for harmful political purposes,” the White House said in a statement.
Biden “underscored the importance of continued work to implement the U.S.-Germany Joint Statement on Support for Ukraine and European Energy Security” after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her likely successor, Olaf Scholz, on October 30 in Rome on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20).
The agreement between the U.S. and Germany, announced in July, provides for sanctions to be imposed on Russia if the pipeline is used as a geopolitical “weapon.”
The controversial natural gas pipeline runs under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Russia has said it is ready to begin shipping gas through the pipeline, which was completed last month, but German and European regulators must first complete a lengthy approval process.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said early this month that clearing the pipeline could help ease a supply crunch in Europe. The comments sparked concerns that Russia had failed to boost its production of gas to pressure Europe into granting quick approval for Nord Stream 2.
The United States has warned Europe against bowing to Russian pressure on the approval process. A State Department official said last week that, if Russia has more gas to ship to Europe to ease the shortfalls and high prices, it should do so through existing export pipeline infrastructure, including the ones that transit Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is not present at the G20 summit, last week told state-controlled energy giant Gazprom to start pumping natural gas into European gas storage facilities once Russia finishes filling its own stocks, which could happen by November 8.
Washington has long opposed the Nord Stream 2 project, calling it a threat to European energy security because it increases the continent’s reliance on Russian gas and allows Moscow to exert political pressure on its neighbors.
But the Biden administration in May jettisoned the idea of further sanctions, saying Russia would complete it regardless of the economic penalties imposed.
Scholz, a Social Democrat, is currently in negotiations with the Greens and the pro-business FDP to form a coalition government in Berlin. The parties have differing views on the pipeline, with the Greens against it, while the FDP is skeptical.
Nobody really knows what Bidenov will do, his agenda sways with the wind and whether or not he has ice cream in front of him. Add to that formula, Merkel, and it is easy to doubt anything will happen to Vladolf for using gas as a weapon. That’s probably what the KGB zit is thinking too since he’s not just using this weapon on Ukraine but Moldova and greater Europe.
EU Polish Agony …Low Ruble exchange (thanks to sanctions) = Transit payed by Gasprom in Rubles to Gasprom into the entry point at Germany!!
Polish Agony …Poland 33(66%) cities among the 50 most-polluted (CO2) cities in Eu in 2017, 1GW require 1blm3 gas/a versus NS2
North Stream 2 Phobia and NATO’s Mercenaries as Danish Anders Fogh Rasmussen (paid in hryvnias. Several extra 100’s km?? transit: €4/MWh (94.79m3) gas via Ukraine versus €2/MWh via NS 1; Arctic north with reserves for many decades and as main source of production! The avoidance of land and thereby transit fees in bl’s$ to Ukr, Sk, Cz or Blr, Pol; and Transit payed by Gasprom in Rubles to Gasprom into the entry point at Germany!! Only 1 compressor 220bar instead 10? of 100bar every 120km (extra equipment, maintenance, personal)??
Offshore pipeline 200bar REQUIRE 70% LESS MW POWER/VOLUME/1200km (reff to Yamal)!! This savings of distance, expenses, CO2 environment are paying for NS2 and checking gas prices (LNG?) for Eu consumers. Gasprom’s annual 1-2 bl$ ?? saving!!
Europe’s Coal power output 5,289TWh in 1990 down 42% to 3,057TWh in 2015!!! Gas CCGT’s with efficiency 63% are complementary to Solar and Wind power and to replace coal burning plants (2015) in Ger (42%, 48GW), Pol (80%, 29GW), Cz(52%),
(1GW require 1blm3/a gas) …to environmental requirements for renewable energy!! …and heating element (industrial, residential) of these gas power plants, not only electric!!! …to be GREEN as of 2017 it would require extra additional gas to replace COAL:
Ger 242TWh = 32 blm3/a, Pol 131TWh = 17.3 blm3/a, Cz 45TWh = 5.7 blm3/a, … ??!! + nuclear Ger 76TWh = 10 blm3/a …total extra gas German requirement 42 blm3/a, Poland 17.3 blm3, Cz 5.7 blm3, … !!!
Poland 33(66%) cities among the 50 most-polluted (CO2) cities in Eu in 2017 …HEATING COAL(Russian? Donbas? 10mlt/a?), additional requirement for more blm3 of GAS.
GREEN Eu FUTURE …DECARBONISE ..(2017 Carbon mlt: Ger 762, Pol 315, Cz 103) dominating carbon capture & storage (CCS) process (versus electrolysis, H2 has 1/3 energy of CH4/volume) based on natural gas to play a significant role for several decades!!!
2017 Global Gas Production: 3,680.4blm3 …Traded 1,134.1blm3 !!!
via Pipeline 740.7blm3 …via LNG 393.4blm3 (302.6mlt)
LNG 302.6mlt = …4,000?? tanker loads (of 20 days journey?,300-400 tankers/a?)
Europe imported eight times more gas by pipeline than in the form of LNG in 2017.
LNG? …Arctic productions 10-15% more efficient; CO2 emissions 20-40% higher than piped gas delivery.
Low Ruble exchange (thanks to sanctions) = cheeper labor costs in gas extraction, distribution for export, it is advantage to Russian exporters !!! Gazprom’s Siberian production costs are $0.90/MMBtu (28.3m3) and it has $1.20 transport tariff to the border of export.
1MWh = 94.79m3 NG = 3.41MMBtu; …1MMBtu = 28.3m3 NG = 0.341MWh Transportation 1.0€ = 1MWh/1000km = 94.79m3 NG/1,000km; Ukraine E/W 1,500km?? ~3.0bl$/a?? …1.5€ = 94.79m3/1,500km (2.0$x150blm3 NG??); 200blm3 NG = 150mlt LNG(~2000 cargos???) = 2,400TWh, Gasprom’s Export to Eu !!! …Naftogaz Ukr “plans B,…” Damocles Sword? of Russian gas as prolonged agony!
Yamal Poland: 33blm3/a, 84bar, 1.42m; 684km, 400MW (5 comp sta’s)
North Stream1: 55blm3/a, 220bar, 1.22m; 1,224km, 366MW (1 comp sta)
Fuel gas: NS1 ….5.5mlm3/10blm3/100km …100.0%
Yamal Poland ..17.7mlm3/10blm3/100km ….322.7% !!!
Poland 400MW ….fuel gas 2015: 378 mlm3 (2018: 400mlm3)/683km
”Continent has become paralyzed” by NATO’s converting EU into mercenaries for “Washington Colonial Mindset”! Afgans 150 000 death
Militaries of Denmark (Anders Fogh Rasmussen PM, later NATO Secretary), Poland (Aleksander Kwaśniewski), together with militaries of USA, GB and Australia “introduced democracy” into Iraqu?? …is this really acting as a community of NATO Alliance ?…. America/NATO both can and should spread democracy. It just needs to do so more effectively (Michael McFaul)…..as in Iraque, Libia, Yeman, Syria, ….with 100,000’s dead, millions in camps and running!!! Flooding Europe ….with populisms!!!??? EU’s transatlantic puppets and …Victoria Nuland’s “Fu.. EU”!!! State’s DNA culture.
Stoltenberg appointed Thomas de Maizière (Ger), A. Wess Mitchell (US) and …Greta Bossenmaier (Canada), Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen (Denmark), Hubert Védrine (France), Marta Dassù (Italy), Herna Verhagen (The Netherlands), Anna Fotyga (Poland), Tacan Ildem (Turkey), John Bew (United Kingdom) …to help ensure NATO isn’t brain dead !!!
Over five months, 2019 from May until the end of September, 93 separate military exercises were held, with forces operating continuously in, above and around 29 countries, no fewer than seven separate NATO war games were held: Arrow and Bold Quest in Finland, Spring Storm in Estonia, Formidable Shield off the coast of Scotland, Immediate Response in Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia; Stolen Cerberus VI in Greece, and Erciyes in Turkey. …. NATO’s modest $1.65 billion annual running costs
Atrophy democracy triumfalismus …..US/Western Elite’s “Propaganda Democracy, HR, Sanctions,…” as pretext of Colonial Mindset!!!
Our World: “Human Rights and Democracy Gunpowder Mill” through $ gun-barrel of arms sales 2017: US $226.6 billion + NATO Eu alliance: 80%+ = $320 billion+ of total global arms sales $398.2 billion. There are 42 US arms companies in Top 100, collective sales $226.6 billion. Lockheed Martin as world’s largest arms producer, $44.9 billion. Russian 10 companies at Top 100, $37.7 billion, China $54.1 billion …..Saga on holding to the Colonial Power as GB of 18-19th centuries?
“Defence” spending 2018: US $649 billion, China 250, SA 67.6, Ind 66.5, Fr 63.8, Ru 61.4, GB 50, Ger 49.5, Jap 46.6, S Kor 43.1, …
United States still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad-from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. Britain, France and Russia, by contrast, have about 30 foreign bases combined.
Despite initial expectations, globalization has not replaced the world of nation-states, but rather introduced new conditions under which national identities, values and institutions express themselves by reviving old ideas and practices!!! …populisms???
NS2 highly controversial?? and clear message of U.S. policy to US NATO’s “Subservient Protectorate of EU”!!! Maybe Mr Richard Grenell would like to include in his demand change of the “Traditional Family Values Law” in Russia?
Western “Intellectual Freedom Right” denied to Americans by American Academia!
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn *Dec 11,1918 …100YEARS.
American Academia CryptoBolshevism and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ban! Bolshevik’s ban of Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn at 1970’s ….versus ADL, AJC, AIPAC, ICJP, Kennan, NED, CSIS, Cato’s “Delenda est Carthago”, ….American academia’s ban?
Democracy and intellectual freedom preachers and propaganda reality contradiction. People who deny access to intellectual freedom act are overstepping their moral obligation to Americans and getting us into Orwellian world of arrogance and hypocrisy. Russian speaking Chabad-Lubavitch in USA have choice to read or not to read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s books “Two Hundred Years Together” as offered on Amazon, but to the “rest” of Americans this is absolutely denied! Who is writing reviews actually for these Solzhenitsyn’s books? …not the “rest”!!!
American Library Association: “Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction.”
Away from commissars in the candle’s light we read samizdats pages of this Great Humanist writer with hope to get into hands few more typewritten following pages (in 1960’s) and now…….few decades later, several time zones west we are back to candle’s light with Solzhenitsyn’s work, “Two hundred years together” still not published in English (lingua franca) after more then 10 years, which should be part of educational curriculum pointing to man who stand-up to the evils of totalitarian oppression,…..and opening window to those events. Commissars of Thought Police in the forefather’s footsteps as in early years of 20th century Great Russia regions are mostly giving literary reviews to the contemporary goyims, as the historians, professors in higher learning. Behind accusation of “anti semitism” they are imposing their supreme judge Newspeak Correctness. Solzhenitsyn wrote not because of Nobel Price, but as human being who stand-up to the evils of totalitarian oppression with their Gulags and Thought Police. Western commissars at the time of Cold War priced his bravery, admired underground samizdats of forbidden literature & smuggling Bibles into USSR. But now, zealous “New Speakers” gained English publishing rights for the purpose to actually completely block globally printing of Solzhenitsyn’s books. Maybe, we should ask Mr Putin to samizdat Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “200 years together” in English and underground smuggling into “free press” our world. This is “free press” witch is lecturing others all over the world, or are we really free from this New Correctness, or in Dark Age under totalitarian Thought Police?
Taboo discourse addressed by Solzhenitsyn’s books was well documented in the writings of 1920’s, 30’s,….(as Winston Churchill)..but it was pronounced as anti-semite, lunatic and sealed in “Taboo box” by these historians, professors of higher learning commissars, it did not fit in theirs interpretation of “Official History”. Now, we entered with English non publication of Solzhenitsyn’s books into another stage of “Pandora Taboo Box” to be kept closed by American academia’s ban!!!
Karel Vesely, 79 Shadberry Dr. Toronto M2H-3C9
I red 50-70% of this book in Czech PDF, but I would like have English edition. Czech books are not available and reediting got into International Tribe of Thought Police death hole. What coincidence? ….German and French editions have been published,….as “Intellectual freedom right” applied !!
I suggest you go see your doctor again. The anxiety medication he gave you the last time is worthless.
The only “Thought Police” is your tiny fascist boss in the Kremlin.
PC’s should not be allowed on the psych ward.
“U.S. President sleepy Joe Bidenov has stressed the importance of implementing a U.S.-German agreement on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to ensure that Russia “cannot manipulate natural gas flows for harmful political purposes,”’
The dumbass hasn’t seen mafia land already using gas as a weapon? Does he really think that any agreements will stop this? This article underlines the fact that we have an utter fool in the Oval Office.