So even if Russian gas COULD be replaced by LNG tomorrow, in terms of pure volume, it would still not possible to Germany to consume it.
Germany really screwed the pooch on their energy policy for the past 15 years...
> there is not nearly enough of that in Germany right now
To elaborate on that: Germany has no LNG terminals. Zero. They signed the first contracts to build one this year March [1]. If I were a German citizen I would feel very cross with my own government. It's a good idea to have such an infra just in case. Just to hedge the bets.
There is a very real reason why the Floating Storage Regasification Unit serving as the LNG import terminal for Latvia is called "FSRU Independence". [2] These facilities literally provide independence.
1: https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/germany-speeds-pl... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSRU_Independence
The matter of fact is that only very few countries in Europe can "afford" to get by without Russian gas or other resources. After all it is the home to the continents largest concentration of natural resources.
There is only so much global production capacity, so much bandwith in terms of logistics, that can compensate for that. It's not like we can suddenly tap a new continent full of resources to replace Russia, reality ain't working like that.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201743/russian-gas-depe...
FSRU Independence has sufficient capacity to deliver enough gas to serve 70~100% of the yearly needs of the three Baltic countries, depending on how you count. Of course it remains a question of who supplies the LNG, but it gives the countries a backup, an ability to pick the suppliers and an ability to make politically important decisions, even if it means paying a little more.
They are connected to German pipelines.
This map is excellent: https://www.gie.eu/publications/maps/gie-lng-map/
Spain is also a wind power giant.
As comparison, Germany is not a great location for either wind or solar power.
It isn't that spanish companies can get much help from the government's diplomacy (long topic), so someone else interested in that connection would have to partner with such companies, or a foreign diplomatic body go and do the legwork for the spanish companies, which wouldn't be the first time.
Thus Germany could be like we have it back home in the Iberian Penisula, but no, many people are keeping the courts busy instead.
It's a straightforward piece of technology that can be built quickly by any country, unlike, say, a liquefaction plant or a LNG tanker.
But building any kind of infrastructure takes time. There are some factors which make it more complicated engineering wise: cryogenic fluids, handling large quantities of flamable and explosive liquids and gasses, being built on the waterfront etc etc. None of these are insurmountable mind you! They just complicate it a bit.
One way we can look at is by comparing how long such plants took to get constructed elsewhere. I looked up a few European examples. From the first announcement to the first ship docking:
UK/South Hook ~6 years
UK/Dragon ~4 years
UK/Grain ~6.2 years
Belgium/Zeebrugge ~10 years
Netherlands/Gate ~4 years
Poland/Świnoujście ~9 years
Probably I made some mistakes in the above, and there are some inconsistencies (do we count until the first commercial ship, or the first ship trialing the facilities?) Also I assume that all of these things can be done a bit faster in case of a dire emergency. But it seems even in that best case it might take multiple winters until a regassification plant is up and running. Which is a bit cold and scary.
I’m not putting Poland as some kind of benchmark for speedy construction, but I think 1-2 years is a minimum even in a hurry.
I'm willing to believe that we can build an LNG terminal in a year or two, but replacing the heating systems of our buildings will take decades.
If they would have pushed "this overrides all public interests" clause last year, they could have triggered a huge backslash especially among the German climate change deniers and car fans. This in turn could have hindered them from introducing the clause today. So, maybe they did a great job on the energy policy. Who knows
Why? Russia, and the USSR through the entirity of the Cold War, delivered reliably all the gas ordered. If you have a stable relationship with suppliers stretching decades and through all kinds of conflicts you have zero incentive to change. The infrastructure is there. And being in business with your "enemy" keeps channels open and results in intet dependencies.
Putin, in a bout of insanity, through all that out of the window. Once it was clear that's gonna happen, and no that was NOT clear a year ago, it was too late to switch (infrastructure).
As I commented recently on another thread:
This was done on purpose. There was the hope, that strong economic ties would make war between Germany and Russia impossible. While it now looks really stupid, it worked really well between Germany and France after World War II (first with European Coal and Steel Community and then later with the European Union).
I could think of ways to further minimize gas but there's politics involved too.
It also is a big carrot for Putin (or somebody who takes his place) to rejoin the peaceful world.
Build a golden bridge for your enemies to retreat over -- Sun Tzu
Feels a bit like a chicken or egg question. I'm still undecided though, as Russia was funding the green anti nuclear movements in Germany way back when Fukushima happened.
Fwiw, I don't think that renewables plus batteries are a safe hedge anyways. We're simply offshoring the environmental externalities to places far away in terms of energy storage, and China holds all the cards in this instance.
That said, 8 years is a very short time to switch from existing gas pipelines to LNG terminals.
All that green agenda, Kyoto and Paris stuff, affects Russia very badly by basically cancelling its fossil fuel export earnings. Just look at those who lobby the green agenda in Russia like Chubais.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_war_crimes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
How exactly? You just explained it yourself very well; These trade relations even held trough the worst of the Cold War.
Just like Germany kept its trade relations with the US going while that invaded and bombed half the Middle East.
The only side that switched behavior here, throwing all established rules out of the window, is Germany and the US, by making Ukraine this "ultimate lynchpin" everybody shall pick a side over, and those who don't pick the "right" one shall be considered with the enemy.
These are very much 1:1 the same overtones the US bullied the international community with, thus tolerating American imperialist ambitions, on the other side of the planet, even those have resulted in some of the worst global damage since WWII.
> Once it was clear that's gonna happen, and no that was NOT clear a year ago,
It was clear. He threatened Europe with shutting down gas supplies in the past, more than once. He actually did it with Ukraine in 2014. In response Germany (& Europe) became more dependent on Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYaa5Zp7qBI This was 2018. Germany mocked him instead of listening.
Why? Given that Germany has unused North Stream 2 connection to Germany infra they should just build an LNG terminal right where NS2 beaches. An LNG receiving terminal is pretty easy and fast to build.
Germany could have diversified it's suppliers if the Iran deals weren't killed by Trump, but even then not a good solution.
It was not nearly as obvious 15 years ago, as it is today, but all the signs were there. We (I include myself here) were just not listening closely enough to the countries that knew Russia the best: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine.
The decision is also amplified by the meaningless end to the German nuclear program.
- Hungary: 110.4 percent
- Latvia: 100.1 percent
- Finland: 92.4 percent
- Estonia: 86.5 percent
- Czechia: 86.0 percent
- Slovenia: 81.0 percent
- Slovakia: 75.2 percent
- Bulgaria: 72.8 percent
- Germany: 58.9 percent
A big part of Germany's geopolitical strategy was (and partly still is) to act as a communication channel between West and East. Similarly to the EU which brought long-lasting peace in Europe through economical ties, the idea was to establish economical relationships with Russia to advance the relationship for a beneficial win-win situation both sides could live with. This, of course, was shortsighted in many ways.
https://www.zeit.de/1988/08/sieben-prinzipien-vernuenftiger-...
Contrary to this, Russian gas imports to Germany used to account for 40% of total consumption in 2012 vs 52% as of today.
After living in Western Europe for almost a decade it's still shocking to me how much people here do not understand Russia.
Similarly, opposing Chinese built telecom infrastructure is just seen as an attempt at American protectionism. Hopefully that continues to be a viable position, unlike depending on Russian gas.
How does diversifying away from one totalitarian government only to depend on another totalitarian government solve anything?
The amount of extra energy that needs, the extra emission it creates, its a complete enviornmental disaster.
One that's mostly ignored, as it gets into the way of certain foreign policy narratives, where neither "climate change" nor the "enviornment" are even recognized concepts of any kind of priority.