Russia withholds natural gas from Europe and others

Or in California. Nearly 40% of their energy needs are met by natural gas, 84% of which comes from out of state.

My wife is from Bulgaria, one of the countries hardest hit by this. People are turning to space heaters and other electric sources to such an extent that the electric grid also is in danger of being shut down with rolling blackouts. Luckily, they should be getting new gas supplies about now. And this is a fairly southern county, with winter temperatures generally in the 30's and 40's (F).

You make some good points, but a couple I don't agree with. First, Putin is not coming out of retirement. His puppet took his job and he changed job titles, but he was never in retirement, we're just hearing his name a little more often perhaps.

Second, the EU is not friendlier with Russia than the Ukraine. They realize more than ever that they need to get off this dangerous alliance, but it will not be easy. There's some pacification going on because, as you say, Russia is a dangerous bear that you don't want to anger unnecessarily. But the EU would be very strongly against Russia taking control of Ukraine. They basically don't want Russia taking over anybody.

Bush might have forced some of this by putting in a missile defense system on Russia's borders (supposedly for missiles from Iran/Pakistan area, but everybody knows that's a pile of B.S.). Russia can't get back at us directly right now, but they can get back at our friends.

There is no doubt Russia would like to control natural gas prices (starting their own cartel with Iran and others). Low prices do affect what they can do (maybe not what they can say).

I think Obama will do as well as any other recent president. He's got experienced people around him, and he's not going to do something rash.

 

1. You violate the first rule of order in any match - you underestimate putin. he is anything but predictable. he ultimate goals are,,, the methods he employs to obtain them will not be.

2. you are too funny,,, making fossil fuels cheap forever by destroying demand.... i cant stop laughing. tell me bro,,, when this recession lifts and it will in 7-10 years,,, how do you destroy demand created by countries like china and india and other developing countries as they modernize? renewable energy sources,,,, if i was not already on the ground laughing my butt off i would be now,,,, even in this great country,,, when do you think renewable sources of energy will cover even 25% of our ever growing need - 2050? while i agree with your noble thoughts,,, i think it pie in the sky unless of course you want to build 100 nuclear power plants here in the US.

let me give you my concept of better controlling oil and gas prices,,,,, use the simple supply and demand curve in a real life manner,,,,, catch this,,,, increase our ability to produce oil and gas (and canada's).... drill baby drill,,,, if we bring forth millions of barrels of oil production every day and hold that in our "pocket" WE CAN INFLUENCE REAL TIME AND REAL WORLD OIL PRICES IN THE SAME WAY OPEC TRIES TOO .... BUT TO OUR ADVANTAGE.

I hope obama is taking putin more seriously than this... if not,,, we all have a real problem.

 

what did the EU do when putin invaded georgia,,, and now that putin has played the energy card,,, i think the eu will be worthless --- as they usually are. they in fact have NO CAPACITY to either project power or defend their self interests. ZERO... they are paper tigers,,, and putin knows that. what could the EU do to putin if he moves on the ukraine - hold their breath until he leaves :cheer2:

you are correct with putin,, was working behind the scenes,,, the fact he is becoming more front and center should worry people....

i am betting putin will be doing things to test obama,,, like krushcev tested kennedy -- which lead to the placement of US missile in turkey and then the cuban missile crisis.....

 

it has always been tough to read china,,, my guess is that they are ok with anything except a russia growing in strength and capacities... russia wants NOTHING to do with china in any event... they are an immovable object.

i will say this,,, putin is worried about china more than china worries about russia.... china is in an excellent position to expand its geopolitical power ,, and is doing so as we speak,,, for the first time probably ever,,, they will present themselves as a credible threat to russia geopolitically over the next decade +. this in fact places more pressure on putin to act,,, he will take this opportunity to act,,, the opportunity that represents itself in obama. i figure at least one good test this year,,,

 

Have to agree with your analogy of Putin and Europe,They (Europe/all bark no bite)have ridden on our back since WWI. They got pretty heavy after WWII until present.

There's a lot going on behind the scenes that people are unaware of.
Published: January 20, 2009
U.S. secures new supply routes to Afghanistan



ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Faced with the risk that Taliban attacks could imperil the main resupply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan, the United States military has obtained permission to transport war materials through Russia and Central Asia, the top American commander in the Middle East said on Tuesday.U.S. secures new supply routes to Afghanistan - International Herald Tribune

I have a feeling there is more at play here than what people are being lead to believe. This article is some what dated, but if you notice were our troop build up will be going, I think you will get the idea.

The Oil Connection: Afghanistan and Caspian Sea oil pipeline routes

In January 1998, the Taliban signed an agreement that would allow a proposed 890-mile, $2-billion, 1.9-billion-cubic-feet-per-day natural gas pipeline project led by Unocal to proceed. The proposed pipeline would have transported natural gas from Turkmenistan's 45-Tcf Dauletabad natural gas field to Pakistan, and most likely would have run from Dauletabad south to the Afghan border and through Herat and Qandahar in Afghanistan, to Quetta, Pakistan. The line would then have linked with Pakistan's natural gas grid at Sui. Natural gas shipments had been projected to start at 700 Mmcf/d in 1999 and to rise to 1.4 Bcf/d or higher by 2002. In March 1998, however, Unocal announced a delay in finalizing project details due to Afghanistan's continuing civil war. In June 1998, Gazprom announced that it was relinquishing its 10% stake in the gas pipeline project consortium (known as the Central Asian Gas Pipeline Ltd., or Centgas), which was formed in August 1996. As of June 1998, Unocal and Saudi Arabia's Delta Oil held a combined 85% stake in Centgas, while Turkmenrusgas owned 5%. Other participants in the proposed project besides Delta Oil include the Crescent Group of Pakistan, Gazprom of Russia, Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company of South Korea.http://www.newhumanist.com/oil.html


Do you notice a reoccurring theme here.


We will be doing the heavy lifting for our friends the Saudi's and China, in this latest round of militancy. And The American people are being lead to believe it's about US Empire. Look again.

 

Don't over estimate him either as it will cloud your judgement.

You destoy the demand by replacing the commodity via technology or by dimishing demand with improved efficiency... or, preferably, both. It doesn't take a massive drop in demand to have a huge impact on price. Look at the current situation. Demand has fallen, yes, but it's not like it's fallen by 50%. What you fail to understand is that business as usual is going to drive prices up to an insane level and all the drilling in the world isn't going to do a damn thing. By 2030, China and India might poisslbly have created 4 new Americas (in terms of resouces consumption). There's no way in hell that's even remotely sustainable. Whether you like it or not, fossil fuels will give way. There simply isn't going to be nearly enough supply. Furthermore, do you really thing that India and China want to be beholden to the Russians and Arabs? I think not. Neither do we. It's a massive national security for all of us. The only way out of it is to massively improve efficiency (which has an immediate impact on demand) and development renewables. It's funny, listening to you rant, you sound like you want to fail. I think you actually like the idea of having to fellate petro-dictators.

Berman, simply drilling holes in the ground does not produce natural gas or oil. You ACTUALLY HAVE TO HAVE THE RESOURCES. That's the key part. You seem to be under the impression that we have 50% of the worlds oil and gas reserves. We don't have anything close to that. Furthermore, it's not like turning on a spigot. It will takes years to develope those resources and then they'll peak (because they're not very big to begin with). Second, the quantity of oil is important, but for price concerns rate of production is far more important. The production rates on the oil that we have left in this country are not high. It's time for you to shop for a new concept... one that's based in reality. But it was hilarious, I'll give you that.

I'm sure he will. If you listened to his inaugural speech he alluded to it. Changing our energy policy so as not to strengthen people like Putin is the correct approach. Not only are there National security benefits, but all sorts of societal, economic, and environmental benefits.

 

Interesting stuff. When it comes to oil and pipelines, the U.S. has its hand in a lot of places, including providing military presence if needed, but otherwise the world is largely on its own. The pipeline thru Afghanistan has been "delayed". There's an interesting blog on this whole thing at Seeking Alpha.

Dbermanmd, Tripp is right about "drill, baby, drill". The U.S. government (EIA) has commissioned studies on both OCS (off-continental shelf) and Alaskan expansion. The result is both would take about 8 years before a drop of oil would reach consumers, and at their peak would contribute maybe 3% to our nations oil needs. Okay, that's 3% we don't need to buy from Iran or Venezuela or Nigeria, but it' will never let us control the markets. (Unless we're doing that 20-40 years from now, when OPEC has dried up).

Some people talk about our oil shale in the west (Utah and such) as if they were proven reserves, but they aren't. The term "reserves" means oil that is commercially viable at today's prices and technology. We have tons of oil there, but they are not even close to economic break-even, and may never have an EROEI above one (produce more energy than it used to create it). Now if we have an over-abundance of electric energy (lots of geothermal out there) and we need transportation fuel, it might still be done, but don't count on anything from oil shale before 2020.

But I think Tripp is a tad optimistic on demand destruction. This is temporary, and people have already shown with the drop in hybrid demand just how short of memories they have. Obama and team might help with R&D on alternatives, but until prices start going back up again, alternatives won't really take off in the marketplace. But we need to get our edge back. Already, we are behind in advanced battery production (possibly partly because of Chevron's position in Cobasys?).

 

The EROI on oil shales is 1.2 - 1.6 and it consumes a MASSIVE amount of water. Even without the water issues, we have to consume a staggering amount of energy to produce the oil shales. It's unknown if the processes can be scaled. There are a lot of unknowns and it won't ever be cheap.

As far as reducing demand... look what the current situation has done to the price of fossil fuels. You don't have to completely replace fossil fuels to knock the price way down. Efficiency improvements would do a lot to keep demand down. There are MANY reasons to do that.

When you consider the vast numbers of people entering the middle class across the globe, fossil fuel comsumption will price it out of reach quite quickly without efforts to reduce consumption. However, as that happens the petro states (I'm including the "gas giants" here) will rake in scads of cash. That's a bad thing. When these countries have to rely on the assets of their people and not on drilling more holes in the ground, their values will shift in our direction. It's in our best interest to develop technologies that promote cheap/irrelevant fossil fuels. Berman's plan does nothing to solve any of our problems because it's not based in reality. Yes, I'm optimistic about the role that renewables can and will play, but lets not forget that we are also wasting a tremendous amount of energy right now (we meaning the world, not just the US) and simple being more efficient with off the shelf technology would put a massive dent in demand, particularly for NG.

 

I am all for renewables, efficiency, etc.

I am also for using this "down time" in terms of demand to put into place mechanisms WE control were we could increase the supply of oil and NG. Its there,,, we should start working on it NOW... including a massive program of building nuclear power plants which would have a dramatic effect on demand and supply curves.

I remain very respectful of mr putin and his abilities ,,, there is little doubt he is more capable and cunning than obama,,, and will be looking for an opening over the next few months. I will agree with Biden,,,, obama will be messing up,,, its just a matter of how bad and how many times....

 

That's nice in theory, but when the prices of commodities are really low, it doesn't make sense to develop the resources you're talking about. It would cost us billions in subsidies and wouldn't advance our mid/long terms goals one inch. Nuclear will almost certainly play a role, but the lead-in times are massive and it's not cheap. Furthermore, long term fuel considerations have to be taken into account... both procurement and disposal. In the west there are also water issues, ie nuclear power tends to consume a lot if you can have to use evaporative cooling.

And you're basing this on what available data?

When did Biden say that? He said that Obama would be tested and those who tested him would regret it.

The key to long term success is to reduce the value of oil and gas. The way forward is to develop technologies that either displace those commodities or drastically reduce the amount of them needed. Most countries around the world would be quite interested in using such products. The country that takes the lead in developing and deploying them stands to gain a lot. Simply drilling more holes in the ground will not do that. While I'm not necessarily opposed to drilling, it's a waste of time in terms to fixing this countries economic and national security problems... not to mention global economic/security/biodiversity/climate issues.