> if Russia decides to cut off the gas they straight up have insufficient energy to make it through the winter.
I agree with your sentiment on massive incompetence regarding Energy policy but this is an exageration.
1. Russia won't cut off gas despite it's threats because gas is quite literally one of the few revenue sources for the Russian economy. Much like Qatar, Russia would implode without Gas money.
2. There are plenty of other gas providers Qatar, Norway, Algeria, even US/Canada LNG, who can sell to the EU.
What they likely won't sell is at the cost of Russian gas which is the pressing point for Central and Eastern European countries.
But the point is, you would shut down heavy industry and go into deficit before you were faced with a doomsday scenario of people freezing during winter.
Shutting down heavy industry is already a doomsday scenario. That would imply millions of people out of work and billions if not trillions of dollars of lost GDP.
> Russia would implode without Gas money
Russia can sell to China and India. US/CAN has insufficient LNG transport capacity to completely replace pipelines from Russia. Germany has insufficient import terminal capacity.
Yes, they wouldn't run out of gas, but the price would likely spike 5-10x and crater the EU economy which is equally as bad.
That is not quite correct. First of all, Russia cannot simply sell to China and India. It takes years to build the necessary infrastructure to do that.
Regarding import terminals: there are LNG terminals all over Europe that are far from their full capacity which all have connections to the German net. That alone would suffice in delivering enough LNG. Apart from that, we're on the fast track of having extra terminals ready by autumn.
Also price spikes as massive as those you mentioned will be prevented by emergency government regulation of the market (already announced).
As someone who works in the industry, I have a lot of confidence stating that we will be fine, thank you.
Last time this happened, during the financial crisis in 2008, Germany recovered remarkably fast. China is doing it due to lockdowns. Shutting some gas hungry indistries down over winter isn't ahlf as bad as it sounds.
>Russia won't cut off gas despite it's threats because gas is quite literally one of the few revenue sources for the Russian economy. Much like Qatar, Russia would implode without Gas money.
Russia literally shut down Nordstream today for at least 10 days.
Getting paid for gas in Euros or dollars they can't spend is worse than not selling it.
Planned maintenance announced with less than 1 week notice and within days of Putin doubling down on Ruble demands.
It is also worth noting that Gazprom has already stopped supplying gas to countries and companies refusing to bow to the rubles demand—Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, as well as some customers in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.
I agree with your sentiment on massive incompetence regarding Energy policy but this is an exageration.
1. Russia won't cut off gas despite it's threats because gas is quite literally one of the few revenue sources for the Russian economy. Much like Qatar, Russia would implode without Gas money.
2. There are plenty of other gas providers Qatar, Norway, Algeria, even US/Canada LNG, who can sell to the EU.
What they likely won't sell is at the cost of Russian gas which is the pressing point for Central and Eastern European countries.
But the point is, you would shut down heavy industry and go into deficit before you were faced with a doomsday scenario of people freezing during winter.