Posted on 06/19/2022 7:33:56 AM PDT by SpeedyInTexas
Germany will restart coal-fired power plants and offer incentives for companies to curb natural gas consumption, marking a new step in the economic war between Europe and Russia.
Berlin unveiled the measures Sunday after Russia cut gas supplies to Europe last week as it punched back against European sanctions and military support for Ukraine.
The steps, part of a broader strategy initiated after the invasion of Ukraine, aim to reduce gas consumption and divert gas deliveries to storage facilities to ensure that the country has enough reserves to get through the winter.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
“restart coal-fired power plants”
It cost millions of dollars to shut them down and now tens of millions (or a lot more) to restart them. It’s not like turning the hi-def TV on and off.
Restarting coal power plants...
Where’s Greta Thunberg? She and her army of virtuous children should be marching into Russia to lecture Putin and demand an end to Russian aggression.
Isn’t the future of the world at stake?
Sounds like Germany is planning to hog all of the gas. Sorry France and other countries...
Shouldn’t have shut down those perfectly good nuclear power plants ,D’oh
More popcorn.
Quick, blow, blow on those windmills, you silly Krauts.
Its a start. They’re gonna have to do a lot more, but its a start.
How much of their economy are they willing to sacrifice to Gaia?
Sounds like the plan to reduce Russian gas imports by 2/3rds by the end of this year, is making swift progress.
Whenever it looks like a customer is about to cancel their order, the Russians have adopted the approach of jumping out to claim “You can’t quit, you’re fired!” They have now totally cut gas supplies to former major customers like Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria and the Netherlands; as well as making big reductions to the rest of Europe. The article stated that Russian natural gas supplies were now 35% of Germany’s use, down over 1/3 from 55% before the war - just a few months ago.
They try to paint this as Russia being strong, but it is an epic disaster to the business they built over decades, and on which they depend very heavily.
I had a recent email conversation with an ex-pat in Germany. He just couldn’t admit that Trump was right without taking a swipe at him and Americans in general. It’s a shame, because before he moved to Germany in the 70s, this guy was a sceptic of The Establishment.
*****************************
ME: By the way, who was it who asked Germany to both increase its defense budget and curtail its dependency on Russian petrochemicals, and was ridiculed and rebuffed on both counts?
EXPAT: Yes, it was Trump who accused Germany (and others) of being very delinquent and Germany being among NATO countries that took advantage of the US by not paying their share for defense. “Germany is a wealthy country, and they have to pay. They owed us billions of dollars, billions of dollars to NATO. They should be paying their bills. Why should we defend countries and not be reimbursed?”
He was right, but also playing with words and speaking to a largely ignorant US populace. NATO is not an organisation in which the members “pay dues”. Each country is supposed to contribute at least 2% of its GDP into its defense budget, something that Germany, for years, balked at doing. None of the NATO member countries “reimburse” the USA for its contributions to the NATO effort.
On the other hand, it was long before Trump came into office when the US Government began warning the Europeans that they needed to diversify not only their sources of energy (read: don’t put all your eggs in the Russian basket), but also to build varying routes of pipelines to transport the oil and gas. This is why the US Government backed pipelines like BTC, TANAP, and TAP, but not Nordstream 1 and, more recently, Nordstream
You're stupid, Speedy. And, the masses in this country aren't putting up with this insanity in order to feed the Russophobe you and your neocon buddies have.
Spoken like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or some other New Green Deal freak.
I don't believe for a minute there is anything conservative about you.
Dirty RuZZian
Dirty RuZZian
Trump was right again they stupidly blew him off 🤪
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump launched a sharp public attack on Germany on Wednesday for supporting a Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal with Russia, saying Berlin had become “a captive to Russia” and he criticized it for failing to raise defense spending more. July 2018
You’d be surprised how well you can conserve gas when you don’t have any.
That was said at the time to be a sign Trump was controlled by Russia and carrying their water and abandoning our allies. Mind boggling the press would make such a claim about that, since it is obviously the opposite, but claim it they did.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.