Good pipelines make good neighbors--eventually

ARTICLE: “A bear at the throat: The European Union is belatedly grasping the riskiness of its dependence on Russian gas, but it is disunited and short of ideas for how to reduce it,” The Economist, 14 April 2007, p. 58.

A quick overview: Russian gas clearly dominates east central Europe, because that’s the way it was under COMECON. Russia’s gas lines have dramatically penetrated western Europe since the end of the Cold War. Thus, Europe as a whole worries about this sort of dependency.

Two things I notice are primarily from the neat map that accompanies this story.

First, Russia is deeply networked with Europe on the basis of all those pipelines. Not yet a good neighbor, but then again, Europe could go a lot further itself besides snapping up Russia’s former satellite states and largely keeping Russia at arm’s length on serious integration. So yeah, Russia for now uses its energy for everything it’s worth. That’s crude all right, and it reflects the leadership generation that Russia both enjoys and suffers right now (our third iteration from the brilliance/stupidity of Gorby and the just-deceased Yeltsin--not moving fast enough for many, but for me, from a security angle, I’m pleased as punch because I just see stuff I don’t have to deal with).

Second, if you want great alternatives to Russian gas, then you go through Turkey and you access Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Either way, you better be nicer to Turkey.

Comments

[Michael]

Nicer to Iran, too, apparently. Or Norway, speaking of which. . .

Another, longer-term solution would be for Europe to find another energy source altogether. One I've heard about is Thorium, which can be used in nuclear fission, but with fewer hazardous byproducts. According the the Wikipedia article, one estimate shows Norway (who's already much friendlier towards their neighbors) having the world's third largest supply of the stuff. Unless they could somehow convert the electricity into a flammable gas (electrolysing water maybe?) it wouldn't eliminate their dependence on natural gas, but it would reduce it.

[Erwin van der Rijnst]

Granted, both ways would require we be nicer to Turkey. Gas from central asia however requires we are nice to russia also... and gas from the persian gulf requires we are nice to Iran...

So Europe's got to be Mr. Nice Guy to get what it wants...

So tom, can you please keep on telling americans not to push the iranian nuclear issue that much and not to sell us rockets that piss of the russians??