[wmiel]

What is more, the Nord Stream I and II pipes were put under the Baltic Sea to bypass Poland and Ukraine and avoid extending existing pipes, not because it was economically viable.

This is a political decision that hits Ukraine geopolitically.

It increased German and European dependency on Russian natural gas and decreases political costs of Russian hostility against Ukraine significantly.

[fuoqi]

No, don't trust the US propaganda used to promote its more expensive LNG and keep European countries in its leash. Both of Nord Streams are commercial projects first and foremost. IIRC they have payback period of something like from 10 to 15 years, which is quite reasonable for an infrastructure project. Look at the map, primary source of natural gas today in Russia is the Yamal peninsula, and path from it to Germany through the Baltic is shorter than through Ukraine. Also take a look at companies which invest into the project, almost half of the cost is paid by the European companies. Do you think they would invest so heavily into a purely geopolitical project?

Also it's a common sense to reduce your transportation risks, both Poland and Ukraine are clearly hostile towards Russia (does not matter why and who is responsible for that in your opinion), so why would you not avoid their territory for transportation of one of your main exports if it's possible? We already have seen how disputes can cause a significant disruption in 2008-2009 and now Poland tries to fine Gazprom for a ridiculous sum for building Nord Stream 2 (sic!). And finally Ukrainian gas transportation system is in a dire need of rehabilitation and modernization, e.g. due to its poor state they recently had a gas explosion near the Lubny city. The Ukrainian state does not have funds for it, Russia will not do it for obvious reasons, and Europe does not want to pay for it either.

>It increased German and European dependency on Russian natural gas

Blatantly false. Consumption of Russian natural gas has been more or less stagnant for a decade and does not show any signs of future growth. It has even shrunk, in 2007 Russia supplied 626 billion m3, while in 2018 only 549. If anything it will only decrease in the following decades. For example according to a Gazprom's model it will peak in 2027 around 580 billion m3 and will steadily decline thereafter.

[wmiel]

You're saying about 'US propaganda' and 'the leash', which pretty much explains clearly why your perspective is a bit distorted, but let me mention a couple of facts:

1. Cost of building the pipe on the sea bed, potential ecological issues and costs of maintenance are much higher than putting it on land. It was quite a lot of effort to do that.

2. Bypassing Ukraine and Poland decreases the political costs of Russian aggression towards these countries, of course it's a good thing from Russian or German perspective, but there's no doubt it increases the probability of military conflict in Eastern Europe. Obviously, as you mentioned, the fact that these countries can no longer influence the German-Russian natural gas transit is the biggest advantage for Russia.

3. It was Russia that seized a part of Ukrainian territory recently, not the other way around, and natural gas was always used as one of the means of Russian influence in the region. In that context saying that Poland and Ukraine are hostile towards Russia introduces a bit of distortion. Why shouldn't they be? Is it not enough reason? This is what will be worse because of that pipe.

4. It is going to increase western Europe dependency on Russian natural gas , if you increase supply that's what happens. Natural gas is the obvious choice to balance the renewables in the grid. Even some German politicians recently mentioned that it may tie German and Russian energy sectors too much.

5. It all plays nicely with German policy to phase out the Nuclear as they will in fact become a major natural gas hub in Europe. It is against the climate and may jeopardise efforts to slow down global warming. They want the same policy for whole European Union.

6. The fact that from Russian perspective there are clear geopolitical benefits doesn't mean that western european companies cannot make money on it. I don't think that potential to destabilize any region or benefit from global warming was ever concern to the oil and gas companies or investment banks. Of cour

7. The list of German and Austrian politicians that received personal benefits out of that project is quite long: https://euobserver.com/foreign/151123 If it was just an economic project, would that be necessary?

[fuoqi]

Do you deny that EU has a limited geopolitical independence and the US exerts a strong influence over it? In my book it's called a leash. It's not so different from Russia trying to keep on the leash (with varying success) countries like Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and other ex-USSR states.

1) If we will take into account how much Gazprom pays Ukraine and Poland for the transit and estimated cost of associated risks, then additional cost of a sea pipeline is nothing. Ecological concerns are hugely overblown in an attempt to stop the pipeline, Nord Stream 2 is effectively a clone of Nord Stream 1 and there was little to no concern at the time it was built.

2) Aggression against Poland? Are you kidding? As for Ukraine, it's a very difficult conflict with deep historic and cultural roots. I want to ensure you, as someone who is quite familiar with it by personally hearing stories from people in Crimea and from reading various sources based in Russia, Ukraine, and the West, that Ukraine is FAR from being a cute democracy-aspiring little victim of the big evil Russia as depicted by the western propaganda (e.g. see [0] if you are not familiar with the current situation inside Ukraine). Russia of course is not without a blame, but most of its actions, while drastic in nature, have a clear logic behind them and dictated by its interests and well-known phobias.

3) How dares Russia, the Evil Empire, to exert and expand its influence over other countries! Only forces of good (read USA) can do it! It's a pure matter of bilateral relations between Russia and Germany (modulo intra-EU obligations taken by Germany). Why the hell do you think the US and Poland can have their say in it? Also note that the previous gas conflict with Ukraine (which largely kick-started Nord and South streams) has happened long before 2014 and that it has roots as far as in the 90s.

4) You continue to repeat the same propaganda assertion without backing it up, while I have presented the numbers which clearly show that amount of supplied gas will stay approximately the same, thus the dependency will not rise. Instead gas transit between Germany and Russia will become independent from the middle-man countries. Will transit through Ukraine decrease significantly? You bet. But Russia is under no obligation to feed the hostile regime, which can not even properly take care of its transit system.

5) No, it's the other way around. Natural gas does help to increase renewables share. Gas plants are the best tool after hydro storage to compensate for their intermittence with a relatively small environmental impact. It's one of the reasons why Germany is so interested in the pipeline, due to its heavy bet on renewables instead of nuclear it needs natural gas since Norway hydro and domestic storage is not yet sufficient. Until the energy storage problem will be properly solved at the required scale, natural gas and renewables will go hand to hand (though in the following decades natural gas may get essentially rebranded into hydrogen, but most of its generation will be still from NG). If you are so worried about climate, then start with Poland which in this day and age still uses coal for 70% of its electricity generation, but instead for some reason you attack much cleaner gas instead.

6) So you do admit that companies which invest into this project will make profit of it and are eager to do it? It makes the project commercial in my book. The fact that it also has a nice political bonuses for the involved countries is nothing more than an icing on the top. Your claims about destabilization are highly subjective and debatable. If anything, stronger economic ties between Russia and Europe will only contribute to stability of the region (at the expense of the US influence over the key countries).

7) Yes, because large capital does not like to invest huge money into projects which can be later shut down by politicians. So they lobby such project beforehand and only start investing into it seriously if sufficient backing and insurances have been achieved. If anything, it only confirms the commercial nature of the project. Or do you think that Russia has bought all those European politicians in the current anti-Russian climate?

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26381672

[wmiel]

1) From Russian perspective the biggest risk of having Poland and Ukraine as transit countries is that it limits the political costs of aggression towards Eastern European countries, period. It is not a good thing, because it decreases the stability in Europe, which serves only Russia as their strongest cards, such as military power, disinformation and intelligence services, can be played most effectively only in these circumstances.

2) It does not need to be a military aggression. I see your stance against Ukraine, but let's be clear Russia for a long time was involved in Ukrainian political processes as it tried to be in the USA, UK and around the world. It was Russia that annexed part of its territory and this is unacceptable.

5) If you need natural gas to balance the only other energy source you have - the renewables that's dependency. Poland is whole other topic - it limits natural gas usage to not be as you call it on "Russian leash" that much and will be seeking nuclear as the way out of that problem.

6) The nice political bonuses will potentially enable aggression in eastern part of Europe. I guess that's fine for you, but it's a very Russian perspective.

The rest basically is the argumentation based on "what you're saying is a US propaganda" so I'm not even going into that. Cheers. EOT.

[fuoqi]

So in the end your position boils down to "but, but Russian aggression!!111". You were unable to refute any of the evidence of Nord Stream 2 being a commercial project first and foremost presented in my comments. When I gave you hard numbers, you've continued to repeat the baseless assertions about Europe becoming more "dependent" on Russia. BTW try to calculate on how much this "dependency" will increase in the ultra-optimistic for Russia scenario of Nord Stream 2 being used at full capacity.

When you started to talk about the climate change, I've countered with the well recognized deep connection between natural gas and renewables at the current moment in history and presented the dirtiest Poland energy sector as a counter-example, on which you've replied with another apologetic propaganda line "but, but independence from Russia!!!11".

>It was Russia that annexed part of its territory and this is unacceptable

More unacceptable than bombing of Yugoslavia and recognition of Kosovo by the West? Or US' military invasions into Iraq and later Syria unsanctioned by the UN? I know that you'll reply with another "but, but it's different!" rooted in the deep and naive belief that the West lead by the US is always right and always on the side of "good guys". Also don't forget that even the Western polls admit that Crimeans overwhelmingly support the unification with Russia and this support again has deep historic and cultural roots. Now compare this effectively bloodless "annexation" with Ukraine blatantly killing its own citizens in Donbas using unconstitutionally deployed military forces.

I recommend for you to widen your horizons outside of propaganda templates and learn more about Russia. Right now you think about it not as of country with its own thoughts, believes, phobias, and interests on the world stage, but as of a pure evil incarnate whose only wish is to see the world burn. Note that in all wars the first thing propaganda does is dehumanization of enemies. I hope you can see the similarity.

A good start would be this lecture read in Yale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ