@Alex M you are outdated by almost 8 years. The map is correct. And everybody remembers Ukraine stealing gas previously, it's the primary reason why Nord Stream 2 exists.
Germany is closing down their last nuclear power plants this year so they're utterly dependent on gas to keep homes warmed in the winter and the grid powered. Solar and wind just won't cover the entire energy need.
I watched this when it came out, and I came back to watch if after the Ukrainian situation. Turns out that this piece of reporting was quite prescient.
@@SergeiSugaroverdoseShuykov And now the EU will be buying liquified gas from the US. I guess that's one of the goals that Biden and his cronies were after for a long time. If the regular citizen has to struggle to pay more every month it's fine by them, the powers-that-be might come up with a way to blame it on Putin!
@@SergeiSugaroverdoseShuykov Victoria Nuland stated back in Jan 22 of this year that they intended to shut down Nord Stream 2 in order to sell Germany more LNG. The same Victoria Nuland who was caught in a phone call discussing who should be the next leader of Ukraine, 3 weeks before the US backed Euromaidan Coup. There's a lot of interesting history behind the Oil market here. Shame that EU citizens and Ukrainians are the ones to suffer. Especially with the looming food crisis over wheat/potash/sunflower oil markets too. The US adds fuel to the flames, blames Russia then places sanctions that hurt the European people more than they hurt Russia. Ridiculous Foreign Policy strategy to be employed by the So called leader of the free world, but anyone who knows history is not surprised.
The error was not the building of the pipeline, but the political decision of Germany to shut down their nuclear power plants instead of increasing nuclear power production. Geothermal energy could also provide heating of homes in parts of Germany on other European countries.
The other error was kowtowing to the morons who run the US (both Biden and Trump admins) who only oppose Nord Stream 2 so they can sell their overpriced gas to Europe.
@@samowen2286 With sufficient nuclear and geothermal energy for baseload and heating in combination with solar and wind, which are more unreliable, Germany and the rest of Europe could reduce natural gas consumption would not need to buy from Russia or the US.
You're absolutely right. But Germans remember Chernobyl just as well as I remember it... Far away and yet we got some fall-out. And then came Fukushima. That's when Germany decided to move away from nuclear energy. Now it seems a stupid decision. But if tomorrow some nuclear plant in France, Belgium or Holland suffers a serious accident (let's hope not of course) that stupid decision will seem very wise again.
@@estraume Exactly. This whole ordeal is unnecessary. Nuclear is efficient, clean and safe. This anti-nuclear propaganda is just a cover for the screwed up geo-politics that's really moving these decisions.
Why did you say that the US "threatened" sanctions? The US straight up sanctioned several German and Russian companies and ports. I also feel like the political coverage was a bit one-sided in general. For example, It probably would have been important to mention that gas production in the EU fell by 22.5 billion cubic metres during the first six months of 2021. Gas storage facilities were underfilled by 18.5 billion cubic metres. And then to top it off, American, along with Middle Eastern companies withdrew 9 billion cubic metres from the European market and redirected their sales to Latin America and Asia. Meanwhile, Russia, including Gazprom, have increased deliveries to the European market by 8.7 per cent compared to the previous year. In hard numbers, American and Middle Eastern companies undersupplied by 9 billion, while Gazprom increased its supplies by more than 11 billion. This is rather important context because despite all this talk about "threats" by the US and Ukraine, Russia has proven to be the only reliable partner here. They were the only one to fulfil their contracts.
An important question to ask is, Why are Europes gas reserves empty? It might have something to do with Germans shutting down their nuclear power plants. Latin American countries do not have the renewable energy infrastructure, nor the nuclear infrastructure that Europe does. Why are you blaming them for using gas to heat themselves during a cold winter? You are seriously arrogant.
@@yessir7147 Why don't you mention that a lot of european companies are reverse-selling the gas to Poland for higher profits instead of using it on the inner market?
Absolutely, and its all about the US wanting to scupper Nord Stream 2 -its easy for governments to lie the media will run with it. The US wants to supply gas to EU via their investment in the TAPI gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, running through Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea-Turkey, and through to the EU [Chevron].
What seems to be forgotten is that this pipeline was started at the behest of the German government, which needed the gas after shutting down their nuclear plants. The Russains had to be persuaded after the debacle that was the southern pipeline project which got cancelled by the EU at a great cost to them.
“EU countries are making commitments to going green, which will reduce the dependence on Russian [natural gas].” Did you mean to release this a week after the EU redefined natural gas as green? Cuz that now means that these natgas pipelines are officially green projects.
B1M, throughout the past two years your TH-cam channel kept me excited even through a very rough time! I just want to thank you for continuing to make content!
A few years ago I had a conversation with the then chief engineer of Nordstream 2. When I suggested there might be geopolitical concerns he became aggressive and ended the conversation abruptly. I read this as indicating that the potential for problems was understood from the beginning.
I mean that is correct. However NS2 is cheaper than getting gas from the US and right now it sadly wont work without gas. Sure, without gas the transition might go much quicker, but it might also cause civil unrest resulting in an slowdown in energy transition. Being a new pipeline, it also has much lower leakage which is the primary form of emissions with gas. While it was just stupid to turn of nuclear before coal and completely nonsensical to label gas as green, not turning on NS2 is just another stupid decision in our bodged energy transition.
@@_aullik You are clearly right on all counts. Friends of the Earth in the UK abandoned their anti-nuclear stance about 20 years ago, realising that nuclear has its uses.
@@_aullik there are alternative routes to transport russian gas to Europe - via existing pipelines through Ukraine, Poland, Belarus. NS2 is a purely geopolitical project meant to split Europe and make central European nations vulnerable to russian agression
@@milesdunstan-daams9162 russia can send more gas through existing pipelines as it did all these time before. The choice not to do so is a purely political decision to blackmail European governments to force NS2 acceptance
I liked the explanation in this video, geopolitically it was kind of one sided though. America didn't only 'threaten' sanctions, they actively imposed sanctions on collaborating enterprises, forcing a halt until the deal with Germany came about. And not to mention the US has its own interest in reducing direct gas flow from Russia to Europe, being potentially able to sell more of their less attractive (more expensive and less environmentally friendly) fracking gas. I'm by no means in favor of Russia's practices as well, but portraying the US as selfless and solely 'concerned about Europe's dependence' is naive.
What people seems to miss is that: (1) Russia's NS2 investments has already been refunded during 2021 gas price rise, so whatever happens with the pipe is irrelevant for Gazprom. (2) European NS2 partners can quite easily sue German government for their losses. (3) If the pipe won't start operating, Russia is just going to inrease LNG export to Europe. (4) Pipes were produced in Russia, so the investments have already partially returned to the russian economy via steel production sector. (5) SS2 pipe to China project has just started, which mean that European and Asian markets are finally becoming united not just via LNG, but with pipes too, and Russia will have the opportunity to sell gas to where the price is higher, which mean that usual low prices in Europe will skyrocket to compete with the high prices in Asia. (6) As EU demands, Poland can now only buy gas with the short contracts. Which is why Gazprom has just now cut the supply to Poland through Belarus, and supplies her through Germany via NS1. Because Gazprom now has no contracts with Poland and no obligation to supply NG to her, there's no punishment to just not appear at the mounthly auctions. (7) Oil and coal prices skyrocketed in the EU and Asia, and Russia can gain more profits thanks to the coal prices going up than any losses she experiences with the overall NG export shortage. (8) Long-term contracts are also depend on the NG market price, not oil market price thanks to Poland. Long-term contract prices are already as high as $600. So the war of EU with Gazprom resulted in (1) Russia won already, (2) Prices shall stay as high, as they are in Asia, (3) Russia can cut the supply any time without any cosequences, (4) This is entirely according to the rules that EU forced on the Gazprom. In the long run Russia are going to sell more NG to Asia than the EU, NG prices in Europe are going to be highly volatile, russophobic countries like GB, Poland, Baltics and Ukraine will have the highest NG prices. All of that could've been easily avoided if (1) Russia was allowed to build NS2 in time, (2) Long-term NG contracts were allowed in the EU, (3) Long-term gas prices were dependant on the oil prices as they used to be, (4) renewable energy sources were implemented with care, (5) US haven't organised the revolution in the Ukraine in 2014 and allowed it to be a pro-EU and pro-Russian state as it used to be back in 2013. Now EU govmnt had shot all the feet of the household owners, industry, farmers and elecric generation companies, without causing any harm to Russia, but rather forcing her to finally build the united NG pipeline network that connects east and west parts of Russia, finally allowing many cities and villages in the central and eastern parts of Russia that used to run on coal to have the access to the NG.
Morale of the situation - USA don't care about European problems, they only care about their political conflict with Russia, and will run over whoever they can to do it. Europe should stop acting as the traintrack of the US and rather work together with their neighbors, not listen to a country from halfway across the world to create unnecessary tensions.
In the Netherlands, many people are insulating their homes better to lower gas costs. Others step away from using gas by getting a heatpump. In some way, these high gas prices accelerate the transition to a fossil-free future :)
same in Italy. Heatpumps are really booming. There are also energy incentives to renovate the houses for a better efficiency. The houses in italy are for the vast majority from before 1930s, so they are like E, F or G on the european energy scale, and this will impact the costs for heat, particularly in the north. Europe needs to be as energy independent as possible, not depending on Russia for gas, that can use it as a weapon, changing prices as they want.
@@shugthehornyhaggis I didn't say that Russia has changed the prices, but I said that they can change them whenever they want, or completely shut down heat in the case of future disagreement. Of course it is better that the USA, I would rather take the gas from russia, but Europe needs to expand its renewable infrastructure in order to limit the dependency on foreign countries. Limiting oil and gas exposure by adopting efficient housing solutions and renovations, increasing the renewable share in the energy mix is the way to go. Gas is of course vital for Europe, and nord stream is an interesting energy project, but geopolitical situations need to be taken into account. The USA will let us in Europe to connect to Russia in such a way, or are they going to block the project? No idea
@brotinger_1 The best for any country is to side with their powerful neighbours. Look at Canada. Even better, look at the relationship between France and Germany despite their shared, very long and complicated history.
Shouldn’t they focus on stopping coal use before moving away from natural gas ? Renewable heating will likely be electrical which would require switching equipment to replace furnaces, boilers and stoves/ovens
How does a pipeline conceived, designed and built by Europeans to meet the energy needs of Europe become "a threat to European energy security" over night. I completely fail to understand the logic. Somebody plz educate me.
@@bobbobson7107 Yup. Putin wants Ukraine because of it's rich resources and to expand territory wise to put nuclear missiles on aimed to the US and allies
Seems kinda hypocritical for other countries to fear German dependency on Russia regarding natural gas while the majority of the planet is dependent on oil from middle eastern countries, which get their problems and business practices swept under the rug because we need their resources.
Middle Eastern countries aren't disrupting foreign elections and sowing chaos online. And yeah, America's far from perfect but we're sure as shit better for the world than Russia.
Germany heavily investing in renewable energy need a gas power plants to handle peak hours and bad weather (lack of wind or sun). Gas power plants are best for this as you can relatively easily increase power production (something you cannot do with nuclear or coal power plants). In a way pursuing green energy makes us depending on gas, because it is not always possible to store energy for later use (not all areas have feasible height differences for pump storage )
Correct, we will need gas power plants as backup as long as we can't store our energy. Some coal power plants can be switch on easily and used for this too, like the Eemshaven power plant in The Netherlands, but this newer one is one of the few.
as a European could somebody tell me why I should care that Russia is cutting out the middle man/men. Why should I care that they don't profit from somebody elses product. And why is Zelensky warning us that Russia could use this as a weapon. Thank you
You're smart, that's obviously only a problem for the "middle men". Having another pipeline that is very reliable is always a good thing for the energy safety (not the other way around like US claims). It has something to do with money and geopolitics. Obviously the US doesn't want Russia to be able to earn money by supplying gas and they would like to sell their own US gas to Europe. Also the Ucraine loses money when they are not transporting the gas. So they can't buy military machines (of course from the US) to fight against Russia.
Those topics have basically nothing to do with each other. Electricity by gas only makes up for 12% in Germany, the other 12% being nuclear. 47% renewable, rest basically coal. Gas is only considered to be needed in the future for the "Dunkelflaute" meaning no wind and no sun at the same time for "long" periods of time. Also we don't want to rely on Russian gas, we basically don't want to rely on anybody else for that matter. Thats why we push the "Energiewende" to be able to live on our own resources. Right now that unfortunately collides a little bit with the climate change issue, since we would like to use our own coal until we get to the goal of 100% renewable energy production around 2040. So we are basically being smart, shutting down the most expensive power supply and live of the cheap coal until we can also shut it down finally.
@@computercrack the gas is not meant for just germany. they said it several times in the video. Other countries will get gas through the pipeline that goes through germany. Your assumption that electricity by gas is not an issue is false.
Russian gas is largely used to directly heat homes, not to generate electricity that is used in electric heating. If you can heat your home with electricity, then you can heat your home with renewables.
@@davidanalyst671 I don't argue that. But the original post asked why we rather rely on Russian gas than nuclear and just said that has nothing to do with each other. Germany doesn't need gas power plants, we can do without (just use more coal). We use half of the gas for house heating.
@@guppy719 no it doesn't. Germany doesn't rely on gas for electrical power. We don't need NS2 for that. Germany doesn't even need NS2 on itself. There is enough capacity in NS1 and the Ukrainian pipelines for the German gas consumption. There is no increase in gas consumption because of the nuclear shutdown. That's one of the biggest arguments against the whole project. Why build if we don't need that much capacity? In the future Germany is going all electric (cars, heating) and the gas consumption is going to decrease over the coming years (almost 50% is used for heating homes). Gas will only be used for the short periods of time when there is no wind and no sun at the same time
@@guppy719 yea gas makes up for around 12% of the electricity production. So we don't rely on gas (much). Germany can shut down all gas power plants without an issue. About 47% is renewable electricity production and this share is rising every year. Gas usage is going to decrease over the next decade, cause heating of houses will go away from gas (almost 50% of gas in Germany is used for heating homes). NS 1+2 each have a capacity of 55bill cubic meter, Germany doesn't even use like 90bill or so and that's been pretty constant since 2008.
EU citizens are paying from x2 to x3 the prize for LNG from NA now. It's so over for EU it's not even funny, literally paying more because Washington said so. That's so pathetic
I think you are missing some points. First the US want to sell us their fracking gas which has a huge negative environmental impact. Second as a German I do not want to pay transfer fees to east european countries because our gas prices are already the highest in Europe.
Sadly our German politicians care more about geopolitical interests then the interest of the people. And that's fact for every party that ruled during this project
Germany is doing this to itself. As other countries are building more nuclear power stations to provide for energy stability in a clean energy future, Germany is clinging on to dirtier natural gas from Russia. If anything, German politicians consistently put economic growth above all else. Merkel saw a way to get cheaper natural gas and said to hell with the values of multilateralism Germany espouses to the rest of the world.
Great and summary of a complex issue. I’ve also been watching the back-catalogue and I can see the improvement of the (already high) quality of this channel over the years, keep it up :)
Happy New Year Folks in B1M. Currently, I live in the states. However, I have lived in England before and I must say I really appreciate how you talk about this divisive mega-project within different lenses. I appreciate that you don't say whether this is a good idea or not rather you say this is what could happen and these are the valid opposing viewpoints and so on and so on and I really appreciate the neutral and objective lens. I will always come back. Don't you worry. You have a true fan in me! ;)
Only partially correct. One important factor is far more boring and simple. A miscalculation (aka under-projection) of projected demand .. you order gas several months advance of delivery. The economy recovered faster than projected. This mixed with a very cold autumn in most of Europe. And then of course: Russia using its leverage of the central corridor (which currently only operates at half capacity) to push for a fast approval of nordstream2.
Big oil and gas is the ultimate social economic hard drug. Once you get easy money from your take of the action you become hooked and a diced to it. When the oil and gas boom happens the entire society gets high so to speak. When the bust comes, the withdrawal symptoms are hurendous. Most hooked oil and gas economies become one trick ponies where 80 % of jobs are directly or indirectly affected by big oil. It becomes more and more difficult and expensive to break the addiction cycles.
Ukraine is not an issue here. Russia has enough transportation capacity to supply gas right now, but they simply dont. That what caused the 2000 EUR prices for gas. They already using the pipe as a weapon against the regular people of Europe. Wait few more years and russian troops will show up near your house as did near my.
@@tankt3489 It is the opposite: Russia is not an issue. It wants to supply as much gas as possible. But Ukraine has started to blackmail Russia since the 2000s about the prices by not paying and stealing the gas from the pipe. This is the reason why Germany has wanted to build Nord Stream 1 and now Nord Stream 2. The gas supply can be uninterrupted this way. It is also funny how the Ukrainian regime is fearmongering about Russia and telling how bad NS2 is all while they want to keep the gas from the "aggressor" and the profits from transiting it to itself.
In my opinion it can't fail like that, It will work but not right now, Once the show ends, Agreements will be done and they will act like brothers in blood, It's about common interests and business, None of these countries actually CARE for the people in Ukraine as they say, they are just hypocrites, If they did, they would care for Palestinians, Ughyrs, Kashmirs, Yemen and the list goes on.
The B1M always provide informative and entertaining videos about large construction projects and this video is no exception. Keep up the excellent work!
Renewables will sometime decrease the amount of gas needed very very significantly, almost 100%. Gas power plants will only be needed to provide energy when there is no wind and sun at the same time
@@sutenjarl1162 completley wrong. 100% renewable energy production is possible for Germany, no need for nuclear or gas (gas only for maybe 5% when there is no wind or sun)
Lol I thought you are from US but I was surprised to acknowledge that you are from Europe just like me. Gr8 content my friend! Please upload more videos about EU countries : )
If Russia is only supplying 40% of the EU's gas via Nord Stream, who's supplying the other 60% as Russia is being accused of being the threat to the EU's gas? If that's true then why would Russia even make such an investment with the EU/NATO countries when Russia could've invested in its gas pipeline running to China and other countries thereabout unless Russia was assured that NATO/EU wouldn't create a security issue from the Russian's perspective? You see, the allegation that Russia's 40% supply to the EU is less than the 60% supply coming from elsewhere unnamed and free of threat allegations? In short, it makes people think when things like this makes no sense other than taint and justification to execute some hidden but obvious plan, it appears?
Well I assume that they have some domestic production, and I they get some % from Spain. All in all it's different because 60% is certainly not coming from one source, therefore no fuss is created about it.
Actually, 85% of Europe's gas is Russian, just 45% of it is rebranded and marked up. Europe lives off of Russian gas, so Europe very much wants Nord Steam 2.
Yes, it's as dumb as it seems, since it really was a win/win for all - except for other countries selling natural gas/LNG. Bad business to try to weaken the competition -rather than improve your own product/service.
Let me correct and elaborate on the first sentences, from the point of view of someone who has studied extensively finances and investing: The rising prices of electricity are Mainly caused by the insane creation of money in the last several years, especially of the US dollar. Money supply increase hugely weakens any currency. This was not felt too much during the lockdowns era, because this additional money increase needs time and possibility to circulate through the real economy, which was delayed by people locked up in their houses and holding money, afraid of what might have happened in the future. This is called inflation velocity. The US dollar in turn is the world's predominant oil currency, a.k.a. "petrodollar", and it is inversely correlated with the price of commodities, mainly of oil and natural gas. Therefore, by heavily printing money through the central banks via Quantitative Easing, the governments have INEVITABLY increased the price of electricity. We may want "free" government spending, but we certainly need to understand the real hidden cost of it. This is further intensified by the massive taxing and emission rights costs on anything related to the CO2 byproduct, in the last years in the west. Not to meniton the closure of oil megaprojects, such as the Keystone pipeline by a certain president. In other words, the fight against the CO2 emission definitely does not come for free. Again, we may want an idealistic, zero-emission economy, but we certainly need to understand the unavoidable consequences of this to our wallets' content. There are several additional factors, e.g. the ones mentioned in this video, as well as obviously the war in Ukraine, which by the way happened many weeks after this video here was uploaded, where heavy electricity price increase was already mentioned. Therefore blaming almost all electricity price increase on Russia is ridiculous and completely unrelated to how economics work. Far be it from me to be Russia's advocate, but it is certainly much easier to criticise Russia and some other, more neutral factors, rather than to pinpoint OUR own governments' actions, and our greed and idealistic notions, as the main cause of all this financial burden.
A lot of comments that advocate for nuclear power seem to forget that there is no technology or facility to store nuclear waste. This leads to the cost of nuclear power being higher than renewable energie sources. Also people seem to forget the danger of the waste
Exactly! And don't forget that this decision was made under the impression of the Fukushima disaster. After all, the decision will be right. Technology in making and storing renewable energy will improve quickly so this will not be necessary in the near future.
Very informative video, thanks! However, Lubmin is actually located on the coast of mainland Germany, not on the island of Rugen, as indicated in the video's map.
The longest bridge in Europe is 19 km long newly built bridge from Russia mainland to Crimea. In fact, these are 2 bridges, the first one is for car traffic, and the second is railway bridge. I am sure that all b1m followers will be interested to watch a video about Crimean Bridge.
*European leaders pushed the people into vesting themselves with fear and the promise of being irrational decades ago.* *th-cam.com/channels/kQ6J-ZgKJstCjS8kiImJ1A.html* *Just like the rest of the world*
Renewable energy and natural gas go hand-in-hand. More of the first may reduce overall usage of the second, but the peak demand for gas will be the same. The capacity will need to be there regardless. Batteries may replace natural gas backup eventually, but the material requirements are hard to fathom.
The solution is to overbuild renewables. Rethink X has calculated that building 5X more solar than what is needed for the summer months is enough to supply the needed electricity for the winter months. Batteries are only needed to time shift the Solar's daily production. If Wind is added into the mix this reduces the need for batteries even more.
What if we changed our lifestyles? A few weeks ago Technology Connections put out a video that provided a practical example of doing this: during night time, when electricity cost is low, he turns on his aircons to reduce the house overall temperature. During the day when it's hot, there is enough "latent cooling" in the house that he doesn't need to run the aircons during the peak energy demand time. We can do similar things: increase heating when renewable energy is plentiful, reduce heating when the grid is constrained, and supplement our heating with things like jackets.
When the amount of renewables is large enough, power to gas can be used to create artificial gas, stored in the same infrastructure for natural gas, used either in the same gas powered plants to produce electricity or fed into the pipe network for direct heating.
That's why you need nuclear. It's the only existing option to have a fossil free electricity grid. Say no to fossil gas. Every option for energy storage need to be developed, except hydro which require mountain rivers - and demolish the local environment.
@@migBdk Nuclear is very bad fit for renewables. Nuclear is as slow as coal in responding to dynamic load which will increase due to the intermittency of renewables. Nuclear will have very bad profitability in the coming decades because renewables will force nuclear plants to very low capacity factor. Ironically nuclear plants will need a lot of energy storage to operate in a grid the is dominated by renewables. In the end 5x renewables + battery storage will be cheaper than coal, gas or nuclear.
I saw another video recently talking about building additional high voltage underground links across the Gibraltar to Africa and being supplemented by power produced in North Africa. That would be additional options for energy.
*European leaders pushed the people into vesting themselves with fear and the promise of being irrational many decades ago.* *th-cam.com/channels/kQ6J-ZgKJstCjS8kiImJ1A.html* *Just like the rest of the world*
@@overdose8329 Maybe one day we'll develop room temperature superconductors and transmitting huge amounts of power over such vast distances will become feasible, but until then it's a complete pipe dream.
It's a law that was agreed on around 2002 and changed in 2010 and 2011 again after Fukushima. No one wants to go back and discuss this again. Also the energy providers would oppose it. They don't like nuclear anymore. To expensive and unsafe
Because we were spooked by Fukushima. Since then we've doubled down on coal power and natural gas. In hindsight, we should have extended the operations of our nuclear power plants instead and would have reduced our emissions a lot more.
@@ooooneeee We could do this, or invest in solar, wind and storage. Which is cheaper, safer and better for the environment. Sadly Germany did the opposite.
@@5thElem3nt while the new government will sadly keep decommissioning nuclear, they will thankfully also aggressively deploy more solar, wind, hydro and geothermal. They are not that sold on building more energy storage but hopefully they'll change their mind there.
Have to admit, I remained ignorant to NS2 and what it meant for Europe, until now. I guess I avoided the subject, not thinking it was very interesting (boff, “a pipeline”). Thank you for educating me on the project, B1M. As mentioned in other comments, keep up the great work!
*European leaders pushed the people into vesting themselves with fear and the promise of being irrational many decades ago.* *th-cam.com/channels/kQ6J-ZgKJstCjS8kiImJ1A.html* *Just like the rest of the world - you make bad decisions like America just did in 2020 you end up as another example of Darwin's Theory.
Two things; 1. The construction stoppage in 2019 was slowed down by sanctions but the Russians used that time refit their own ships to do the pipe-laying and hence the sanctions had no chance of killing the project. 2. The Russians self insured the project when Western companies backed off for the fear of US sanctions. Here's the thing, so long as this project is legal under EU & International law, there's no stopping it without the EU incurring significant costs in court when the investors seek compensation in case of cancellation. Hopefully someday someone will have to explain to me the absurdity of the claim that if the gas stops flowing through Ukraine and instead flows under the Baltic Sea will make Europe more dependent on Russian gas.
Europe will remain as dependant as it is right now, but Russia will gain leverage over countries through which the gas transit takes place, such as Ukraine and Poland, increasing its influence in these countries, to the detriment of not only the countries in question, but to the rest of Europe as well. So much for the concept of "European solidarity".
@@ArghastOfTheAlliance Then a country like Ukraine should build LNG terminals like Poland & Lithuania and import gas from the Middle East or from the US and forget about Russian gas. But we all know they can't afford it and it's why currently Russian gas is flowing east from Germany to Poland and into Ukraine. Even in Lithuania 85% of the gas consumed comes from Russia even though they claim they're energy independent from Russia after building a floating LNG terminal. Maybe Russian gas is like crack cocaine, it's addictive!
Germany realizes that once the flow through NS2 starts, it will become a powerful gas hub. As an intermediary, they will earn a lot from the sale of every cubic meter, and for their economy they will benefit from gas much cheaper than others. - They have always wanted competitiveness, because Germany is the second largest exporter in the world after China. Energy prices are an ingredient of every product, so low manufacturing costs are crucial for them.
@@magellanmax ukraine was making 2 billions annual on gas transit, got lower prices, and many times stole gas on transits. Despite that, they decided to invite nato in country, which led to crimea incident. They have antirussian propaganda since 90s, but they dont mind cheap gas.
The US is scared because of NATO. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but most other Eastern European nations are. If Putin is allowed to overrun Ukraine, he would likely turn his aggression towards another Eastern European nation. Putin has repeatedly voiced his interest in dissolving NATO and NATO members in the Baltic would likely be Putin‘s next targets.
The United States doesn't need Europe to buy it's gas. The sanctions against Russia are predominately geopolitical rather than economic. It's in the United States interest to limit the power of Russia as much as possible. Majority of United States natural gas goes through pipelines to Mexico and Canada, and even after that most US natural gas exports go to South Korea, Japan, and China. There's money to be made for the United States in Europe sure, but it doesn't make the foundation of US gas sales. Germany striking a deal with the US to relieve sanctions on Russia really shows how much power and influence the United States has over Russia, rather than the EU.
Why is the US interfering with this? obviously to sell their more expensive gas to make more money. My opinion is, shut up US and keep your nose out, it's you that's stirring the shit.
@@jamesmorris3123 Sell gas to who? Gas is flowing at the moment just fine. New pipeline will not change that. If you have not followed the world events recently, the US will sell far more guns than gas very soon. If you didn't notice, all of europe basically bought F-35s because of this pipeline. And will buy a ton more guns and US gets to send a lot of troops and military to east europe before this is over because biden gave in for putin, because biden knows war means money.
@@jamesmorris3123...We wouldn't have to interfere if the EU had the guts to stand up to Russia and Germany...Ukraine officials are backing U.S. Republicans who are trying to keep those two countries in check...Russia, Germany, and China are up to no good and apparently the EU is ready to roll over...You're welcome.
RE: "I’m Russian". Location: United States... How interesting. :-) And I am sure from the land of "democracy" it is easy to see that Russia is not such. :-)
The problem here is that no one in Europe is considering other options. African countries could solve Europe's gas problem. There's an existing pipeline from Algeria and Morocco to Spain.. There are plans on ground to build another pipeline from Nigeria (Africa's largest gas producer) to Morocco. A combination of gas supplies from these 3 nations to Europe would be beneficial not just to the EU, but the African countries as well which rely heavily on oil and gas exports. It would also counterbalance Russia's economic influence in Europe.
You left out the topic Gerhard Schröder. Do you know who he is? I tell you: He is the former German chancelor (prior to Angela Merkel) who negotiated with Putin about the pipeline. Today he is member of the board of Nord Stream and Gazprom. Interesting, right?
Just wanted to be the first to say: it's dead, Jim. It's dead. Russia made sure that would happen when they decided to snatch land from the Ukraine. Either way, this pipeline is not going to be completed.
USA and Ukraine worry about Europe becoming "to dependent on russia". Or is is that the USA would rather we buy their gas and Ukraine worries about those sweet transit fees.
With this Nordstream-2, Russia can easily attach Ukraine without worrying about damaging pipe in Ukraine... It is nt about transit fees, this is about our safety... How can you assure our safety if the NS-2 is started??
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Happy new year everyone! We have lots of great stuff in the PIPELINE for you in 2022 🙌
😅. Happy New Years.
Boom Boom!
and Hypersonic missiles if you do not buy my gas!
@Schrodinger's cat if it does, that clown Zelenskiy can steal some content and it won't get to the channel!
@Alex M you are outdated by almost 8 years. The map is correct. And everybody remembers Ukraine stealing gas previously, it's the primary reason why Nord Stream 2 exists.
Well this video aged bloody beautifully
Well your comment aged even better
@@BLVCKSCORP well yes
Yeah no kidding
It's not dividing Europe anymore 🤣
@@rumcajs009 Yeah its not dividing Europe any longer, it has divided itself, Pieces literally gone. Reduced to atoms.
Germany is closing down their last nuclear power plants this year so they're utterly dependent on gas to keep homes warmed in the winter and the grid powered. Solar and wind just won't cover the entire energy need.
Talk about creating a avoidable problem.
Yep. Never has and never will.
Effective storage of solar energy is lacking. Otherwise, the sun could probably do it all.
I'm already rejoicing at even higher energy rates. We pay 0,46€/kWh already.
Funny thing is greens are becoming even more influential as the years past
what a difference a month makes
Forget that foOl try a DAY
And 6 months from that. No gas anymore. German kissed Putin's butt as long as Putin liked it.
You found it interesting 7 months ago, How about now?
Business is booming
I watched this when it came out, and I came back to watch if after the Ukrainian situation. Turns out that this piece of reporting was quite prescient.
Well this pipeline should have never had political interference. This is a absolute shame. The only people who suffer are consumers and citizens.
It wasn't used as weapon by Russia, instead Germany decided that Europe has to freeze
@@SergeiSugaroverdoseShuykov And now the EU will be buying liquified gas from the US. I guess that's one of the goals that Biden and his cronies were after for a long time. If the regular citizen has to struggle to pay more every month it's fine by them, the powers-that-be might come up with a way to blame it on Putin!
@@SergeiSugaroverdoseShuykov Victoria Nuland stated back in Jan 22 of this year that they intended to shut down Nord Stream 2 in order to sell Germany more LNG. The same Victoria Nuland who was caught in a phone call discussing who should be the next leader of Ukraine, 3 weeks before the US backed Euromaidan Coup. There's a lot of interesting history behind the Oil market here.
Shame that EU citizens and Ukrainians are the ones to suffer. Especially with the looming food crisis over wheat/potash/sunflower oil markets too.
The US adds fuel to the flames, blames Russia then places sanctions that hurt the European people more than they hurt Russia. Ridiculous Foreign Policy strategy to be employed by the So called leader of the free world, but anyone who knows history is not surprised.
Only Ukraine? Not iraq, afganistan, syria, palestine, serbs? Why just Ukraine
The error was not the building of the pipeline, but the political decision of Germany to shut down their nuclear power plants instead of increasing nuclear power production. Geothermal energy could also provide heating of homes in parts of Germany on other European countries.
I completely agree. Germany shot themselves in the foot at a time they should be striving for economic independence.
The other error was kowtowing to the morons who run the US (both Biden and Trump admins) who only oppose Nord Stream 2 so they can sell their overpriced gas to Europe.
@@samowen2286 With sufficient nuclear and geothermal energy for baseload and heating in combination with solar and wind, which are more unreliable, Germany and the rest of Europe could reduce natural gas consumption would not need to buy from Russia or the US.
You're absolutely right. But Germans remember Chernobyl just as well as I remember it... Far away and yet we got some fall-out. And then came Fukushima. That's when Germany decided to move away from nuclear energy. Now it seems a stupid decision. But if tomorrow some nuclear plant in France, Belgium or Holland suffers a serious accident (let's hope not of course) that stupid decision will seem very wise again.
@@estraume Exactly. This whole ordeal is unnecessary. Nuclear is efficient, clean and safe. This anti-nuclear propaganda is just a cover for the screwed up geo-politics that's really moving these decisions.
Why did you say that the US "threatened" sanctions? The US straight up sanctioned several German and Russian companies and ports. I also feel like the political coverage was a bit one-sided in general. For example, It probably would have been important to mention that gas production in the EU fell by 22.5 billion cubic metres during the first six months of 2021. Gas storage facilities were underfilled by 18.5 billion cubic metres. And then to top it off, American, along with Middle Eastern companies withdrew 9 billion cubic metres from the European market and redirected their sales to Latin America and Asia. Meanwhile, Russia, including Gazprom, have increased deliveries to the European market by 8.7 per cent compared to the previous year. In hard numbers, American and Middle Eastern companies undersupplied by 9 billion, while Gazprom increased its supplies by more than 11 billion.
This is rather important context because despite all this talk about "threats" by the US and Ukraine, Russia has proven to be the only reliable partner here. They were the only one to fulfil their contracts.
An important question to ask is, Why are Europes gas reserves empty?
It might have something to do with Germans shutting down their nuclear power plants.
Latin American countries do not have the renewable energy infrastructure, nor the nuclear infrastructure that Europe does.
Why are you blaming them for using gas to heat themselves during a cold winter?
You are seriously arrogant.
@@yessir7147 Why don't you mention that a lot of european companies are reverse-selling the gas to Poland for higher profits instead of using it on the inner market?
@@yessir7147 nobody is blaming Latin American nations. The countries who redirected LNG deliveries from Europe to Latin America are being blamed.
Absolutely, and its all about the US wanting to scupper Nord Stream 2 -its easy for governments to lie the media will run with it. The US wants to supply gas to EU via their investment in the TAPI gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, running through Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea-Turkey, and through to the EU [Chevron].
@@JP-DarkVibe Well, which would you rather?
I know which one I prefer, but do you want NS2 or the US pipeline.
What seems to be forgotten is that this pipeline was started at the behest of the German government, which needed the gas after shutting down their nuclear plants. The Russains had to be persuaded after the debacle that was the southern pipeline project which got cancelled by the EU at a great cost to them.
Exactly anti-Russian propaganda in the US-led West makes fools of most who comment.
@@wordimobi5765 Russia is a great democracy and a reliable business partner! x'D
@@wordimobi5765 LOL.
Western media = anti-Russian propaganda
Russian media = THE TRUTH
@@Entasis5555 im from Germany and can contest that Russia is indeed a reliable business partner. 65 years of gas imports without any problems
@@John_Doe448 I like Poutine a lot but every winters it's the same joke with germany and russia.
“EU countries are making commitments to going green, which will reduce the dependence on Russian [natural gas].”
Did you mean to release this a week after the EU redefined natural gas as green? Cuz that now means that these natgas pipelines are officially green projects.
Not green, transitory. Meaning that if you cannot meet green obligations you can use gas as a lesser evil to coal and oil.
Carbon capture has legitimate promise. In either case it's considered transitory. What we need to do is go all in on nuclear.
@@ten_tego_teges lmao. Actually defending the political dodginess of the EU
It's a bad joke.
@@samowen2286 still better than any other region in the world.
"It could be used as a geopolitical weapon" well now we know it definitely will!
And those that were saying it could be a weapon are the ones who are making it a weapon.
@@KingOfZamunda wich one is tru use as wepon or make it as wepon
How can it be if it hasn't been turned on yet? Nord Stream One certainly can be though, but that is considered an act of war with Nato.
No it isn't, Americans only see it as a weapon, anything related to Russia is a weapon for them.
@@TheKirilover Everyone sees infrastructure and resources as weapons. Don't bring bias to an educated conversation.
B1M, throughout the past two years your TH-cam channel kept me excited even through a very rough time! I just want to thank you for continuing to make content!
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How do I get into these if I'm in newyork?
Is it too late to get on the Seedify whitelist? I’m trying to save over $5k so I can contact Jane.
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A few years ago I had a conversation with the then chief engineer of Nordstream 2. When I suggested there might be geopolitical concerns he became aggressive and ended the conversation abruptly. I read this as indicating that the potential for problems was understood from the beginning.
I mean that is correct. However NS2 is cheaper than getting gas from the US and right now it sadly wont work without gas. Sure, without gas the transition might go much quicker, but it might also cause civil unrest resulting in an slowdown in energy transition.
Being a new pipeline, it also has much lower leakage which is the primary form of emissions with gas.
While it was just stupid to turn of nuclear before coal and completely nonsensical to label gas as green, not turning on NS2 is just another stupid decision in our bodged energy transition.
@@_aullik You are clearly right on all counts. Friends of the Earth in the UK abandoned their anti-nuclear stance about 20 years ago, realising that nuclear has its uses.
@@_aullik there are alternative routes to transport russian gas to Europe - via existing pipelines through Ukraine, Poland, Belarus.
NS2 is a purely geopolitical project meant to split Europe and make central European nations vulnerable to russian agression
@@peterjohnson2752 me because they can send through more gas
@@milesdunstan-daams9162 russia can send more gas through existing pipelines as it did all these time before.
The choice not to do so is a purely political decision to blackmail European governments to force NS2 acceptance
This aged well.
Well..
No it didn't
@@IBMboy ….
@@djturbine7565 No it didn't. No Schadenfreude as we say in Germany
@@tyronevaldez-kruger5313 There is no schadenfreude, just sarcasm. Evidently lost on a German but no surprise there.
It's safe to say it won't divide Europe anymore.
its safe to say, it just DID
It’s still too early to say that it’s safe to say it won’t divide Europe anymore.
Very soon Europe will run out of gas again due to Russia's control of gas supply. Good luck.
@@za7v9ier Russoa were trying to continue there buisness. USA cut there relationship, now biden is selling oil to europe, Good luck on the logistics.
It won't because it ALREADY HAS
I liked the explanation in this video, geopolitically it was kind of one sided though. America didn't only 'threaten' sanctions, they actively imposed sanctions on collaborating enterprises, forcing a halt until the deal with Germany came about. And not to mention the US has its own interest in reducing direct gas flow from Russia to Europe, being potentially able to sell more of their less attractive (more expensive and less environmentally friendly) fracking gas.
I'm by no means in favor of Russia's practices as well, but portraying the US as selfless and solely 'concerned about Europe's dependence' is naive.
Finaly, someone else who sees it as it is.
What people seems to miss is that:
(1) Russia's NS2 investments has already been refunded during 2021 gas price rise, so whatever happens with the pipe is irrelevant for Gazprom.
(2) European NS2 partners can quite easily sue German government for their losses.
(3) If the pipe won't start operating, Russia is just going to inrease LNG export to Europe.
(4) Pipes were produced in Russia, so the investments have already partially returned to the russian economy via steel production sector.
(5) SS2 pipe to China project has just started, which mean that European and Asian markets are finally becoming united not just via LNG, but with pipes too, and Russia will have the opportunity to sell gas to where the price is higher, which mean that usual low prices in Europe will skyrocket to compete with the high prices in Asia.
(6) As EU demands, Poland can now only buy gas with the short contracts. Which is why Gazprom has just now cut the supply to Poland through Belarus, and supplies her through Germany via NS1. Because Gazprom now has no contracts with Poland and no obligation to supply NG to her, there's no punishment to just not appear at the mounthly auctions.
(7) Oil and coal prices skyrocketed in the EU and Asia, and Russia can gain more profits thanks to the coal prices going up than any losses she experiences with the overall NG export shortage.
(8) Long-term contracts are also depend on the NG market price, not oil market price thanks to Poland. Long-term contract prices are already as high as $600.
So the war of EU with Gazprom resulted in (1) Russia won already, (2) Prices shall stay as high, as they are in Asia, (3) Russia can cut the supply any time without any cosequences, (4) This is entirely according to the rules that EU forced on the Gazprom.
In the long run Russia are going to sell more NG to Asia than the EU, NG prices in Europe are going to be highly volatile, russophobic countries like GB, Poland, Baltics and Ukraine will have the highest NG prices.
All of that could've been easily avoided if (1) Russia was allowed to build NS2 in time, (2) Long-term NG contracts were allowed in the EU, (3) Long-term gas prices were dependant on the oil prices as they used to be, (4) renewable energy sources were implemented with care, (5) US haven't organised the revolution in the Ukraine in 2014 and allowed it to be a pro-EU and pro-Russian state as it used to be back in 2013.
Now EU govmnt had shot all the feet of the household owners, industry, farmers and elecric generation companies, without causing any harm to Russia, but rather forcing her to finally build the united NG pipeline network that connects east and west parts of Russia, finally allowing many cities and villages in the central and eastern parts of Russia that used to run on coal to have the access to the NG.
100% true. 👍
This should be the top comment.
well written
Absolutely correct
Morale of the situation - USA don't care about European problems, they only care about their political conflict with Russia, and will run over whoever they can to do it. Europe should stop acting as the traintrack of the US and rather work together with their neighbors, not listen to a country from halfway across the world to create unnecessary tensions.
In the Netherlands, many people are insulating their homes better to lower gas costs. Others step away from using gas by getting a heatpump. In some way, these high gas prices accelerate the transition to a fossil-free future :)
You wish you naive dutchy
@@zvxkacka xd
same in Italy. Heatpumps are really booming. There are also energy incentives to renovate the houses for a better efficiency. The houses in italy are for the vast majority from before 1930s, so they are like E, F or G on the european energy scale, and this will impact the costs for heat, particularly in the north.
Europe needs to be as energy independent as possible, not depending on Russia for gas, that can use it as a weapon, changing prices as they want.
@@zvxkacka Care to explain to this naive Dutchy?
@@shugthehornyhaggis I didn't say that Russia has changed the prices, but I said that they can change them whenever they want, or completely shut down heat in the case of future disagreement. Of course it is better that the USA, I would rather take the gas from russia, but Europe needs to expand its renewable infrastructure in order to limit the dependency on foreign countries. Limiting oil and gas exposure by adopting efficient housing solutions and renovations, increasing the renewable share in the energy mix is the way to go. Gas is of course vital for Europe, and nord stream is an interesting energy project, but geopolitical situations need to be taken into account. The USA will let us in Europe to connect to Russia in such a way, or are they going to block the project? No idea
Everyone was right about this project's risk to Europe's security
What security? Aside the politics, this is the best way.
Everyone is in agreement? Patently false.
There wouldn't be any security problem for neither Ukraine or Europe if they would've made what's best for Europe, side with Russia.
@brotinger_1 The best for any country is to side with their powerful neighbours. Look at Canada. Even better, look at the relationship between France and Germany despite their shared, very long and complicated history.
@brotinger_1 you mean that country that was artificially split from Russia to weaken both groups?
Shouldn’t they focus on stopping coal use before moving away from natural gas ? Renewable heating will likely be electrical which would require switching equipment to replace furnaces, boilers and stoves/ovens
can you cook better food in an electric oven? How about a restaurant kitchen?
@@MrManny075 you can actually. Ever heard of induction?
And you have to produce that electricity in the first place - from what?
@@eafadeev lol exactly, especially after Germany phasing out their NPP.
@@eafadeev nuclear ☢️ energy
How does a pipeline conceived, designed and built by Europeans to meet the energy needs of Europe become "a threat to European energy security" over night.
I completely fail to understand the logic. Somebody plz educate me.
EXTREMELY relevant as of 25/02/22
Boy… that escalated quickly
I liked the video editing at 3:00 when the music synced with the transitions. That was nice.
This aged incredibly well.
Indeed.
Aged like fine wine.
this sums up one of the main reasons why whats happening in Ukraine at the moment
No
@@bobbobson7107 Why?
@@yarem4uk.r ukraine is about long term large scale geopolitics, and the survival of Russia as a power
@@bobbobson7107 Well, Russia is a corpse. hello from Ukraine))
@@bobbobson7107 Yup. Putin wants Ukraine because of it's rich resources and to expand territory wise to put nuclear missiles on aimed to the US and allies
Seems kinda hypocritical for other countries to fear German dependency on Russia regarding natural gas while the majority of the planet is dependent on oil from middle eastern countries, which get their problems and business practices swept under the rug because we need their resources.
Middle Eastern countries aren't going to be invading Ukraine anytime soon. Unlike Putin.
@@CarShopping101 so where is invasion
@@CarShopping101 aren't u from united snakes that invaded few deserts in middle east 🤔 and u talk about other countries policies. Damn u Yankees
@@CarShopping101 you forgot Iraq? US basically made up some reason to invade the country and take advantage of their oil. Freedom much? 🤣
Middle Eastern countries aren't disrupting foreign elections and sowing chaos online. And yeah, America's far from perfect but we're sure as shit better for the world than Russia.
Germany heavily investing in renewable energy need a gas power plants to handle peak hours and bad weather (lack of wind or sun). Gas power plants are best for this as you can relatively easily increase power production (something you cannot do with nuclear or coal power plants). In a way pursuing green energy makes us depending on gas, because it is not always possible to store energy for later use (not all areas have feasible height differences for pump storage )
Correct, we will need gas power plants as backup as long as we can't store our energy. Some coal power plants can be switch on easily and used for this too, like the Eemshaven power plant in The Netherlands, but this newer one is one of the few.
Or just build nuclear. But not in the middle of a metropolitan, or next to the ocean.
@@stapleman007 nuclear won't solve that problem, as it can not statisfy energy peaks; it only provides a stable base load. Op already said this though
as a European could somebody tell me why I should care that Russia is cutting out the middle man/men. Why should I care that they don't profit from somebody elses product. And why is Zelensky warning us that Russia could use this as a weapon.
Thank you
You're smart, that's obviously only a problem for the "middle men". Having another pipeline that is very reliable is always a good thing for the energy safety (not the other way around like US claims). It has something to do with money and geopolitics. Obviously the US doesn't want Russia to be able to earn money by supplying gas and they would like to sell their own US gas to Europe. Also the Ucraine loses money when they are not transporting the gas. So they can't buy military machines (of course from the US) to fight against Russia.
Gives so much Kontext to the current situation
How can Usa think they can stop building plans in other countries?
That's the issue US thinks it can do whatever it wants
@@Hhhh22222-w because we CAN do whatever we want. The whole Western world is in our pockets.
@@davidturner4076 You have nothing but your ego
@@ToniGuerreroCeuti then why is Germany obeying our command to delay Nordstream 2?
if they ask, better stop it yourself, or they will stop it for you. you don't want the latter option😂
You should say something about Germany closing their nuclear plants. I rally wonder why they want to relly so much on Russian gas.
"keep the friends close and the enemies even closer"...
Those topics have basically nothing to do with each other. Electricity by gas only makes up for 12% in Germany, the other 12% being nuclear. 47% renewable, rest basically coal. Gas is only considered to be needed in the future for the "Dunkelflaute" meaning no wind and no sun at the same time for "long" periods of time. Also we don't want to rely on Russian gas, we basically don't want to rely on anybody else for that matter. Thats why we push the "Energiewende" to be able to live on our own resources. Right now that unfortunately collides a little bit with the climate change issue, since we would like to use our own coal until we get to the goal of 100% renewable energy production around 2040. So we are basically being smart, shutting down the most expensive power supply and live of the cheap coal until we can also shut it down finally.
@@computercrack the gas is not meant for just germany. they said it several times in the video. Other countries will get gas through the pipeline that goes through germany. Your assumption that electricity by gas is not an issue is false.
Russian gas is largely used to directly heat homes, not to generate electricity that is used in electric heating. If you can heat your home with electricity, then you can heat your home with renewables.
@@davidanalyst671 I don't argue that. But the original post asked why we rather rely on Russian gas than nuclear and just said that has nothing to do with each other. Germany doesn't need gas power plants, we can do without (just use more coal). We use half of the gas for house heating.
Gas and electricity has gone up almost 50% and will go up even more in April after price cap is increased. We need this
Europe who turned their back on Nuclear power is now restarting coal based power plant, so much for the net zero carbon emissions by 2030 plan 🤣🤣🤣
If it was an American pipeline the US would be most supportive...
Of course?
USA is importing billions of dollars of oil from RUSSIA every year…They are easily the most hypocritical nation at the moment…!
Damn I’d be pissed if someone broke my 1200 km pipe
Even though I’m getting ready for class, this is worth a quick break
Energy bills gone up from £80 to £95! You’d be lucky, ours went from £80 to £148!!!
Belgium, my gass bill with today’s prices go from 1200€ tot 5000€ a year…
Its time to open some new nuclear power plants.. no useless wind turbines.. pointless solar panels and god damn russian gas!
Well this turned into a big waste of money... Germany will likely use the pipe to pump shit back to Russia at this point.
Lol
We could send bombs with it :D
Like someone said, your video editing skills are awesome, I just realized after one year actually, which is even better.
The video didn't mention how Germany is shutting down nuclear power plants.
Because it has nothing to do with NS2
@@computercrack It does with the overall political situation in the EU.
@@guppy719 no it doesn't. Germany doesn't rely on gas for electrical power. We don't need NS2 for that. Germany doesn't even need NS2 on itself. There is enough capacity in NS1 and the Ukrainian pipelines for the German gas consumption. There is no increase in gas consumption because of the nuclear shutdown. That's one of the biggest arguments against the whole project. Why build if we don't need that much capacity? In the future Germany is going all electric (cars, heating) and the gas consumption is going to decrease over the coming years (almost 50% is used for heating homes). Gas will only be used for the short periods of time when there is no wind and no sun at the same time
@@computercrack Germany does use gas for electrical power that was an easy google search so I don't know what you are going on about.
@@guppy719 yea gas makes up for around 12% of the electricity production. So we don't rely on gas (much). Germany can shut down all gas power plants without an issue. About 47% is renewable electricity production and this share is rising every year. Gas usage is going to decrease over the next decade, cause heating of houses will go away from gas (almost 50% of gas in Germany is used for heating homes). NS 1+2 each have a capacity of 55bill cubic meter, Germany doesn't even use like 90bill or so and that's been pretty constant since 2008.
EU citizens are paying from x2 to x3 the prize for LNG from NA now. It's so over for EU it's not even funny, literally paying more because Washington said so. That's so pathetic
I think you are missing some points. First the US want to sell us their fracking gas which has a huge negative environmental impact. Second as a German I do not want to pay transfer fees to east european countries because our gas prices are already the highest in Europe.
true, they just want to sell us their even dirtier gas, fuck the US, we can decide on our own from whom we want to buy
@@mqritz_ just not from Russia
Sadly our German politicians care more about geopolitical interests then the interest of the people. And that's fact for every party that ruled during this project
Don't want to pay east European countries gas transfer fees? Go nuclear.
You start sponsoring Russia instead 🤦♂️
Germany is doing this to itself. As other countries are building more nuclear power stations to provide for energy stability in a clean energy future, Germany is clinging on to dirtier natural gas from Russia. If anything, German politicians consistently put economic growth above all else. Merkel saw a way to get cheaper natural gas and said to hell with the values of multilateralism Germany espouses to the rest of the world.
Thank you for the consistently amazing content 👑
Thank you so much!! We have more in the PIPELINE 🙌
@@TheB1M You are handsome and smart and a youtube star. I really wish I had a husband just like you. But alas... it is a... pipe dream :P
@The B1M have you ever done a behind the scenes? I love your videos and would like to see how they're made!
February 2022: screw your pipeline Putin we don't want it
Great and summary of a complex issue. I’ve also been watching the back-catalogue and I can see the improvement of the (already high) quality of this channel over the years, keep it up :)
There is no such thing as a "simple pipeline".
Happy New Year, Fred! Keep up the excellent content.
it is not oil. there is no cleanup when the pipeline leaks.
what can't understand is why shut other power off ( Nuclear) before everything was running smooth with the new pipeline?
Because Russians owned a bunch of German politicians? They are not hugely popular in Germany now.
Happy New Year Folks in B1M. Currently, I live in the states. However, I have lived in England before and I must say I really appreciate how you talk about this divisive mega-project within different lenses. I appreciate that you don't say whether this is a good idea or not rather you say this is what could happen and these are the valid opposing viewpoints and so on and so on and I really appreciate the neutral and objective lens. I will always come back. Don't you worry. You have a true fan in me! ;)
All those reasons you gave at the start for rising energy bills are wrong. The only thing causing that is politics. Pure and simple.
Only partially correct. One important factor is far more boring and simple. A miscalculation (aka under-projection) of projected demand .. you order gas several months advance of delivery. The economy recovered faster than projected. This mixed with a very cold autumn in most of Europe. And then of course: Russia using its leverage of the central corridor (which currently only operates at half capacity) to push for a fast approval of nordstream2.
It says so much about about current Ukraine war. Yesterday, both Nord stream 1 and 2 pipelines are blown.
Fred. I love your narration!
Happy New Year from Indiana, USA. 🎉🎉🎉
Great breakdown of the issue, hopefully Ukraine can reduce its reliance on revenue from the other pipe soon.
Big oil and gas is the ultimate social economic hard drug. Once you get easy money from your take of the action you become hooked and a diced to it. When the oil and gas boom happens the entire society gets high so to speak. When the bust comes, the withdrawal symptoms are hurendous. Most hooked oil and gas economies become one trick ponies where 80 % of jobs are directly or indirectly affected by big oil. It becomes more and more difficult and expensive to break the addiction cycles.
Ukraine is not an issue here. Russia has enough transportation capacity to supply gas right now, but they simply dont. That what caused the 2000 EUR prices for gas. They already using the pipe as a weapon against the regular people of Europe. Wait few more years and russian troops will show up near your house as did near my.
@@tankt3489 haha, Russian invasion of europe. Sure
@@tankt3489 It is the opposite: Russia is not an issue. It wants to supply as much gas as possible. But Ukraine has started to blackmail Russia since the 2000s about the prices by not paying and stealing the gas from the pipe. This is the reason why Germany has wanted to build Nord Stream 1 and now Nord Stream 2. The gas supply can be uninterrupted this way. It is also funny how the Ukrainian regime is fearmongering about Russia and telling how bad NS2 is all while they want to keep the gas from the "aggressor" and the profits from transiting it to itself.
@@StrangerHappened Shhh!!! 🤭
Impressive by any standards. The time scale is mind-boggling.
Europe lives in fear of a cold winter...
Good Joke 16 °C in late December isn't cold
Because December is the only month in winter. :/
This video didnt aged well
well this is awkward..
Anyone here from the future watching a video about a failed project?
In my opinion it can't fail like that, It will work but not right now, Once the show ends, Agreements will be done and they will act like brothers in blood, It's about common interests and business, None of these countries actually CARE for the people in Ukraine as they say, they are just hypocrites, If they did, they would care for Palestinians, Ughyrs, Kashmirs, Yemen and the list goes on.
The B1M always provide informative and entertaining videos about large construction projects and this video is no exception. Keep up the excellent work!
Germany/EU Better Figure Out a Safer/Efficient Design for Nuclear Power Plants
Adding renewables will not decrease the amount of reliance on Russian gas. It might very well be the opposite
True gas will still play important role in balancing the grid.
Renewables will sometime decrease the amount of gas needed very very significantly, almost 100%. Gas power plants will only be needed to provide energy when there is no wind and sun at the same time
@@computercrack it will only increase the gas power dude renewables are literally useless in producing power. Its go nuclear or go gas my guy.
@@sutenjarl1162 completley wrong. 100% renewable energy production is possible for Germany, no need for nuclear or gas (gas only for maybe 5% when there is no wind or sun)
Well this video aged quickly...
Came back to this after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
I am glad to see this channel growing from about a 100K to where it is today.
Lol I thought you are from US but I was surprised to acknowledge that you are from Europe just like me. Gr8 content my friend! Please upload more videos about EU countries : )
W the accent :o?
Yeah...such a "US" sounding accent isn't it?😛
He has a very British accent...
If Russia is only supplying 40% of the EU's gas via Nord Stream, who's supplying the other 60% as Russia is being accused of being the threat to the EU's gas? If that's true then why would Russia even make such an investment with the EU/NATO countries when Russia could've invested in its gas pipeline running to China and other countries thereabout unless Russia was assured that NATO/EU wouldn't create a security issue from the Russian's perspective? You see, the allegation that Russia's 40% supply to the EU is less than the 60% supply coming from elsewhere unnamed and free of threat allegations? In short, it makes people think when things like this makes no sense other than taint and justification to execute some hidden but obvious plan, it appears?
Well I assume that they have some domestic production, and I they get some % from Spain. All in all it's different because 60% is certainly not coming from one source, therefore no fuss is created about it.
Actually, 85% of Europe's gas is Russian, just 45% of it is rebranded and marked up. Europe lives off of Russian gas, so Europe very much wants Nord Steam 2.
Yes, it's as dumb as it seems, since it really was a win/win for all - except for other countries selling natural gas/LNG. Bad business to try to weaken the competition -rather than improve your own product/service.
The US is just salty that the EU wouldn't keep buying their expensive LPG
What does my head in is, we (UK) have so much natural gas and reserves yet we pay so damn much. And most of it gets sent abroad.
It's all been squandered, while Norway has wisely invested their oil wealth.
Nord Stream 2: The worthless $11BN-megaproject...
Let me correct and elaborate on the first sentences, from the point of view of someone who has studied extensively finances and investing:
The rising prices of electricity are Mainly caused by the insane creation of money in the last several years, especially of the US dollar. Money supply increase hugely weakens any currency. This was not felt too much during the lockdowns era, because this additional money increase needs time and possibility to circulate through the real economy, which was delayed by people locked up in their houses and holding money, afraid of what might have happened in the future. This is called inflation velocity. The US dollar in turn is the world's predominant oil currency, a.k.a. "petrodollar", and it is inversely correlated with the price of commodities, mainly of oil and natural gas. Therefore, by heavily printing money through the central banks via Quantitative Easing, the governments have INEVITABLY increased the price of electricity. We may want "free" government spending, but we certainly need to understand the real hidden cost of it.
This is further intensified by the massive taxing and emission rights costs on anything related to the CO2 byproduct, in the last years in the west. Not to meniton the closure of oil megaprojects, such as the Keystone pipeline by a certain president. In other words, the fight against the CO2 emission definitely does not come for free. Again, we may want an idealistic, zero-emission economy, but we certainly need to understand the unavoidable consequences of this to our wallets' content.
There are several additional factors, e.g. the ones mentioned in this video, as well as obviously the war in Ukraine, which by the way happened many weeks after this video here was uploaded, where heavy electricity price increase was already mentioned. Therefore blaming almost all electricity price increase on Russia is ridiculous and completely unrelated to how economics work. Far be it from me to be Russia's advocate, but it is certainly much easier to criticise Russia and some other, more neutral factors, rather than to pinpoint OUR own governments' actions, and our greed and idealistic notions, as the main cause of all this financial burden.
A lot of comments that advocate for nuclear power seem to forget that there is no technology or facility to store nuclear waste. This leads to the cost of nuclear power being higher than renewable energie sources. Also people seem to forget the danger of the waste
Exactly! And don't forget that this decision was made under the impression of the Fukushima disaster. After all, the decision will be right.
Technology in making and storing renewable energy will improve quickly so this will not be necessary in the near future.
REST IN PEACE, NORD STREAM 2.
Here after amit Sengupta video. It makes so much sense why uk, us destroyed it.
"This project is all about power."
- Everyone, in their own way.
This video isn't aging well and it is only 2 months old.
Very informative video, thanks! However, Lubmin is actually located on the coast of mainland Germany, not on the island of Rugen, as indicated in the video's map.
I was wondering about that lol
@Zader Temyn alles klar
That was informative, thank you! Great summary of an issue I’ve only heard about through headlines.
"Continuing to create global headlines" indeed ... Very Nostradamus-like this video
The longest bridge in Europe is 19 km long newly built bridge from Russia mainland to Crimea. In fact, these are 2 bridges, the first one is for car traffic, and the second is railway bridge. I am sure that all b1m followers will be interested to watch a video about Crimean Bridge.
*European leaders pushed the people into vesting themselves with fear and the promise of being irrational decades ago.*
*th-cam.com/channels/kQ6J-ZgKJstCjS8kiImJ1A.html*
*Just like the rest of the world*
Renewable energy and natural gas go hand-in-hand. More of the first may reduce overall usage of the second, but the peak demand for gas will be the same. The capacity will need to be there regardless. Batteries may replace natural gas backup eventually, but the material requirements are hard to fathom.
The solution is to overbuild renewables. Rethink X has calculated that building 5X more solar than what is needed for the summer months is enough to supply the needed electricity for the winter months. Batteries are only needed to time shift the Solar's daily production. If Wind is added into the mix this reduces the need for batteries even more.
What if we changed our lifestyles?
A few weeks ago Technology Connections put out a video that provided a practical example of doing this: during night time, when electricity cost is low, he turns on his aircons to reduce the house overall temperature. During the day when it's hot, there is enough "latent cooling" in the house that he doesn't need to run the aircons during the peak energy demand time.
We can do similar things: increase heating when renewable energy is plentiful, reduce heating when the grid is constrained, and supplement our heating with things like jackets.
When the amount of renewables is large enough, power to gas can be used to create artificial gas, stored in the same infrastructure for natural gas, used either in the same gas powered plants to produce electricity or fed into the pipe network for direct heating.
That's why you need nuclear. It's the only existing option to have a fossil free electricity grid. Say no to fossil gas.
Every option for energy storage need to be developed, except hydro which require mountain rivers - and demolish the local environment.
@@migBdk Nuclear is very bad fit for renewables. Nuclear is as slow as coal in responding to dynamic load which will increase due to the intermittency of renewables. Nuclear will have very bad profitability in the coming decades because renewables will force nuclear plants to very low capacity factor. Ironically nuclear plants will need a lot of energy storage to operate in a grid the is dominated by renewables. In the end 5x renewables + battery storage will be cheaper than coal, gas or nuclear.
I would say Nordstream 2 aged like fine milk
I saw another video recently talking about building additional high voltage underground links across the Gibraltar to Africa and being supplemented by power produced in North Africa. That would be additional options for energy.
It’s not feasible
*European leaders pushed the people into vesting themselves with fear and the promise of being irrational many decades ago.*
*th-cam.com/channels/kQ6J-ZgKJstCjS8kiImJ1A.html*
*Just like the rest of the world*
@@overdose8329 Maybe one day we'll develop room temperature superconductors and transmitting huge amounts of power over such vast distances will become feasible, but until then it's a complete pipe dream.
Actually what I was thinking is why on earth is Germany shuttering more nuclear plants, a clean source of energy, in the middle of this crisis
Because nuclear power plants are not clean and they are way too expensive.
It's a law that was agreed on around 2002 and changed in 2010 and 2011 again after Fukushima. No one wants to go back and discuss this again. Also the energy providers would oppose it. They don't like nuclear anymore. To expensive and unsafe
Because we were spooked by Fukushima. Since then we've doubled down on coal power and natural gas. In hindsight, we should have extended the operations of our nuclear power plants instead and would have reduced our emissions a lot more.
@@ooooneeee We could do this, or invest in solar, wind and storage. Which is cheaper, safer and better for the environment. Sadly Germany did the opposite.
@@5thElem3nt while the new government will sadly keep decommissioning nuclear, they will thankfully also aggressively deploy more solar, wind, hydro and geothermal. They are not that sold on building more energy storage but hopefully they'll change their mind there.
Have to admit, I remained ignorant to NS2 and what it meant for Europe, until now. I guess I avoided the subject, not thinking it was very interesting (boff, “a pipeline”). Thank you for educating me on the project, B1M. As mentioned in other comments, keep up the great work!
It's not about a pipeline, it's about who is building it.
Germany is the one who wanted it built and the ones very much involved with building it
"U.S. threatening sanctions". I'd like to apologize for my country's government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong once again.
If the policy leads to more dead russians it is a great policy. I can't understand why the U.S. would oppose that, I thought they like wars.
You should be proud of your government - they protect us, Ukraine. I in Ukraine am very thanksful to the USA for protecting us!
Ive watched this before but watching it again now is like listening to a futurist...I really love this channel thank you
Great break down in the significants and both geopolitical term and engineering term. And the editing is also superb.
*European leaders pushed the people into vesting themselves with fear and the promise of being irrational many decades ago.*
*th-cam.com/channels/kQ6J-ZgKJstCjS8kiImJ1A.html*
*Just like the rest of the world - you make bad decisions like America just did in 2020 you end up as another example of Darwin's Theory.
Two things; 1. The construction stoppage in 2019 was slowed down by sanctions but the Russians used that time refit their own ships to do the pipe-laying and hence the sanctions had no chance of killing the project. 2. The Russians self insured the project when Western companies backed off for the fear of US sanctions. Here's the thing, so long as this project is legal under EU & International law, there's no stopping it without the EU incurring significant costs in court when the investors seek compensation in case of cancellation. Hopefully someday someone will have to explain to me the absurdity of the claim that if the gas stops flowing through Ukraine and instead flows under the Baltic Sea will make Europe more dependent on Russian gas.
Europe will remain as dependant as it is right now, but Russia will gain leverage over countries through which the gas transit takes place, such as Ukraine and Poland, increasing its influence in these countries, to the detriment of not only the countries in question, but to the rest of Europe as well. So much for the concept of "European solidarity".
@@ArghastOfTheAlliance Then a country like Ukraine should build LNG terminals like Poland & Lithuania and import gas from the Middle East or from the US and forget about Russian gas. But we all know they can't afford it and it's why currently Russian gas is flowing east from Germany to Poland and into Ukraine. Even in Lithuania 85% of the gas consumed comes from Russia even though they claim they're energy independent from Russia after building a floating LNG terminal. Maybe Russian gas is like crack cocaine, it's addictive!
Germany realizes that once the flow through NS2 starts, it will become a powerful gas hub. As an intermediary, they will earn a lot from the sale of every cubic meter, and for their economy they will benefit from gas much cheaper than others.
- They have always wanted competitiveness, because Germany is the second largest exporter in the world after China. Energy prices are an ingredient of every product, so low manufacturing costs are crucial for them.
@@magellanmax ukraine was making 2 billions annual on gas transit, got lower prices, and many times stole gas on transits. Despite that, they decided to invite nato in country, which led to crimea incident. They have antirussian propaganda since 90s, but they dont mind cheap gas.
Still need that explanation, bro?
It is not the project. It is you know who divided Europe and the world.
So Ukraine, Poland, USA, Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia were absolutely right on this!!
"So Ukraine, Poland, USA, Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia were absolutely right on this!!"
And a lot of Germans that NEVER wanted this project too.
@@robertwagner8544 why ?
@@kishorpd.pandey5059 because they didn’t want to built their prosperity on Eastern European blood
Excuse me, but what has US to do with this?😂
Are they scared that their fracking gas wont be a priority sale anymore or what?
They will luse influence over Europe. Thay already have so much influence, far more then Russia ever had.
Europe is US puppy.
The US is scared because of NATO. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but most other Eastern European nations are. If Putin is allowed to overrun Ukraine, he would likely turn his aggression towards another Eastern European nation. Putin has repeatedly voiced his interest in dissolving NATO and NATO members in the Baltic would likely be Putin‘s next targets.
The United States doesn't need Europe to buy it's gas. The sanctions against Russia are predominately geopolitical rather than economic. It's in the United States interest to limit the power of Russia as much as possible.
Majority of United States natural gas goes through pipelines to Mexico and Canada, and even after that most US natural gas exports go to South Korea, Japan, and China. There's money to be made for the United States in Europe sure, but it doesn't make the foundation of US gas sales.
Germany striking a deal with the US to relieve sanctions on Russia really shows how much power and influence the United States has over Russia, rather than the EU.
This vid came up for me after the cable blew up. XD
Don’t want too much Russian control, but Germany needs US approval.
Germany never asked us approvals to start world wars, at least this time they did.
Why is the US interfering with this? obviously to sell their more expensive gas to make more money. My opinion is, shut up US and keep your nose out, it's you that's stirring the shit.
@@jamesmorris3123 Sell gas to who? Gas is flowing at the moment just fine. New pipeline will not change that. If you have not followed the world events recently, the US will sell far more guns than gas very soon. If you didn't notice, all of europe basically bought F-35s because of this pipeline. And will buy a ton more guns and US gets to send a lot of troops and military to east europe before this is over because biden gave in for putin, because biden knows war means money.
@@jamesmorris3123...We wouldn't have to interfere if the EU had the guts to stand up to Russia and Germany...Ukraine officials are backing U.S. Republicans who are trying to keep those two countries in check...Russia, Germany, and China are up to no good and apparently the EU is ready to roll over...You're welcome.
I’m Russian, but I hate to see this project operate until we switch to some kind of democracy. But who am I to disagree while people are freezing.
You mean Russia is not a democracy because you don't like the government?
@@asdf3568 Because we have a government created trolls/bots factory)
@@sedrakpc You shouldn't believe the U.S propaganda machine.
RE: "I’m Russian". Location: United States... How interesting. :-) And I am sure from the land of "democracy" it is easy to see that Russia is not such. :-)
@@youknowwho5900 Yea, indeed! Check the 2nd reply. th-cam.com/video/AqfTzHhg6AM/w-d-xo.html
The problem here is that no one in Europe is considering other options. African countries could solve Europe's gas problem.
There's an existing pipeline from Algeria and Morocco to Spain.. There are plans on ground to build another pipeline from Nigeria (Africa's largest gas producer) to Morocco.
A combination of gas supplies from these 3 nations to Europe would be beneficial not just to the EU, but the African countries as well which rely heavily on oil and gas exports. It would also counterbalance Russia's economic influence in Europe.
You left out the topic Gerhard Schröder. Do you know who he is? I tell you: He is the former German chancelor (prior to Angela Merkel) who negotiated with Putin about the pipeline. Today he is member of the board of Nord Stream and Gazprom. Interesting, right?
Now it's abandoned junk. Russia thought NS2 would make it the master of Europe...just the opposite has happened.
I hope. USA should disciplined Germans. It was Prussia & Russia deal.
Just wanted to be the first to say: it's dead, Jim. It's dead. Russia made sure that would happen when they decided to snatch land from the Ukraine. Either way, this pipeline is not going to be completed.
When the conflict in Ukraine is over one way or another, and the news cycle moves on, it will be quietly reopened.
@@dansands8140 If that happens I don't think that would be a bad thing, but I doubt it will...
Its stopped for now.not completely abondand
😆 Ha! Ha! May Ukraine live long and prosper! Looks like the Wrath of Putin is going to end up pretty much like in the movie.
USA and Ukraine worry about Europe becoming "to dependent on russia".
Or is is that the USA would rather we buy their gas and Ukraine worries about those sweet transit fees.
With this Nordstream-2, Russia can easily attach Ukraine without worrying about damaging pipe in Ukraine... It is nt about transit fees, this is about our safety... How can you assure our safety if the NS-2 is started??