Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd #316 — Russian Gas Pipelines & Politics, with Ben Aris (Patreon)

Published:
2022-02-15 17:08:33
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Guest: Ben Aris, editor BNE IntelliNews 

Recorded: February 12, 2022

Journalist Ben Aris clears the methane-soaked air on Russian gas & pipeline politics, helping us understand the deeper politics of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Read Ben Aris's article on Russia's pipeline politics: "How a V-shaped market and ageing pipes and fields sent gas prices soaring". Check out Ben's media outlet BNE IntelliNews, and follow Ben on Twitter.

Maps

*Russian pipelines

*Nord Stream 1-2

*TurkStream

Total time: 1:40:11

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

www.patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Files

Comments

Kawaii Leonard

This episode may not hold up in some ways, but the things said at this point in time about Nord Stream 2 are very important

CR

Neocons/W/PNAC – Pay a price? Democrats were literally lined up to fete Dick Cheney *LAST MONTH*. And if he weren't President, Joe Biden would've been at the front of the line giving him a sloppy.

CR

People have forgotten how significant gas prices were politically in the mid-2000s because of the war and why Obama overtly went all-in on fracking and domestic LNG production. Also, this deal is at odds with the other big LNG producers: UAE and Qatar, NATO's newest non-member Partner; Our Partners In Peace.

etienne

dude every 2 fucking years gas prices are too expensive or too cheap and that fucks up something or other in the economy and people start pulling their hair out about it. It keeps happening!

NYCM&AHole

Yulia Timushenko was tapping that gas

Jed Hovey

I keep thinking of that old Simpsons episode with the Homer doing the bear patrol and he says "see, no bears around, it worked."

etienne

2022: energy crisis I guess (more about gas than oil but w/ever) 2020: oil price collapse because asian economies shut down because virus 2018: oil price collapse because we had too much oil for some reason 2016: same [2016-2021] ten billion very serious thinkpieces about "peak oil" 2011: oil spikes because of a boo-boo in MENA tin pot dictatorships (ironically itself created by food prices going up because corn ethanol) 2008: oil price whiplashes between a historic spike down to a decade-low trough because of asian economic growth then the '08 crash 2003: supply shock because of Iraq and Venezuela 2001: peaks because 9/11 then goes down because no airflights 1999: crashes along with the dotcom then I guess you have a decade of stability going back to the 2nd oil shock, and then the fun starts again until '72 I learned English by playing GTA: Vice City and I've never not heard about the oil price since.

Matt McCartney

Outstanding interview. I now feel confident enough to take my rightful place as an internet Russia expert.

CR

Just say the opposite of everything said on this episode and you'll be a recurring guest on MSNBC as an Atlantic Council fellow by Friday.

ODA555

Excellent episode. Really helped me understand a bit more.

Patrick Coughlan

Good discussion and a good guest. Well done guys.

J P 3

Great interview.

Ander Pierce

Oof your voice hurts to hear Ames, hope the throat is feeling better haha

Ander Pierce

Putin's 'weekend in Ukraine' was less exciting than advertised. I'm sure his next 52 weekends will be too :P

bowmitt15

One of my favorite interviews you guys have done

mt

If Ben Aris reads this, it would be great to hear his take on whether Biden is earning money on ukrainian gas, like this guy claims. It would explain a lot why it is so inportant to keep gas flowing through Ukraine https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2020/bidenleaks-teil-4-wie-joe-biden-und-george-soros-nach-dem-maidan-in-der-ukraine-milliarden-verdient-haben/ The source of this info is Alexander Onischenko, a highly corrupt oil & gas magnate = he would know the lay of the land. Interview in German https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YsuK3BC5x0E

David Andrews

Another excellent episode. It's amazing how energy and pipeines are practically unmentioned by the state department, DoD or mainstream media. It's impossible to discuss the Russia / Ukraine conflict without pipelines being front and center.

NYCM&AHole

I love him using Börse (the German word for exchange (like stock exchange)) and not realizing it.

Cg

Sorry, new to the channel, How do i put this in my podcasts?

etienne

you should have received an email that contains a RSS link, if you didn't, maybe you could try messaging the page

xnfec

The UK's role in all this is unsubstabtive to say the least. Being unable to add anything useful, their politicians look for photo, opportunities and for possible distractions from their miserable failures at home. Liz Truss's main talent these days seems to be in cos-playing Margaret Thatcher when ever she finds an opportunity. I would have forgiven her for taking the private jet to Australia, had she not, in earlier times complained loudly about (labour) ministers not saving the tax-payer money by taking cheaper alternatives. She seems to be obsessed with photo-ops and her picture coming off the jet in Australia was of smugness personified. Ian Hislop referred to her the "irony lady".

mt

A factual correction for Ben Aris too: Olaf Scholz is not a socialist. He is the worse kind of blairite neoliberal promoter of privatizating and marketfetischization of everything, more than happy to inflict pain on workers and poor.

Andy Cassidy

Hate to be that guy, but I think it's 'bourse' which is an English word from the French.

Professor Jokes

Gas is not cleaner if methane pipeline leaks and harvesting are calculated.

etienne

Wrote a big thing about nuclear that seems to have been deleted but tl;dr nuclear power is not as dangerous as Greenpeace wants you to think, it's been hamstrung but arms industry and nimby pressures that don't need to exist, and it's still, after all those decades, far better than the alternatives, and it's pretty obvious we're not ready to switch off for another couple decades, or if ever. Very frustrating to see Japan and Germany and some US States turn off reactors and immediately suffer problems that were completely obvious and predictable.

Xander Udo

Loved the episode, thanks!!

etienne

fun fact: Obama promised to pull the plug on the Yucca Mountains waste disposal as a gimme to Nevada primaries voters

RT

Word. But there’s a lot to be hopeful about in nuclear right now, tons of investment and interest in small modular reactors, sized appropriately to replace old fossil energy plants (with decades and hundreds of millions of research dollars put into safety failproofing), I think NuCor has one under construction already. Commercial fusion has serious backers (CFS is the most credible IMO) and a much smaller technology readiness gap than I think is the common perception, but is I would argue hamstrung by lack of international collective commitment (ITER is a marvel but will not be constructed quickly enough to matter for decarbonization). The big question is, at what point will the global economy penalize carbon energy enough (e.g. carbon fee and dividend) or pay enough to ignore it (long term payouts for untapped reserves), and will it be soon enough to limit the extent of collapse? I think something like this would be necessary to drive widespread global adoption of baseload nuclear with wind and solar supplements, but given the incoherent response to COVID it seems unlikely.

Cameron Young

Great episode - thanks for this one

Xander Udo

This might be my euro-centered perspective, but I wonder to what degree the Ukraine situation might be related to Merkel's exit. The US perhaps saw an opportunity to pressurise against Nordstream 2 with Merkel gone. Russia perhaps saw the moment to test EU-unity and US-EU unity and make their move to push back against NATO.

Smutticus

Here's a German satirical reporter interviewing Dutch people in Groningen. Groningen is the region in The Netherlands that stopped producing gas because they were experiencing earthquakes and sinkholes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKWEEOz3YcQ

Lionel Boyd Johnson

Fantastic episode and just bookmarked BNE news site, thank you!

Sean Atkinson

So glad you had this expert on. As sometime happens, technical experts are oblivious to the moral universe they work in. How can this guy know so much, and get so much completely wrong? He thinks that allowing Nordstrom is a morally compromised position? I think making taxpayers pay four times the price to survive winter is the morally compromised position, obviously. He thinks that the reason that it has not been authorized yet is because of European lack of consensus? The only reason it has not been operational is our (USA) governments opposition. Berlin, and the EU would’ve gone for that in a heartbeat. If pundits answer him on Twitter its because like them he gets it all wrong but has the right accent.

twice

lol this aged poorly and fast

Michelle Shocked

Aris was quite clear; Nord Stream has not yet been authorized due to US pressure, not due to EU consensus or the lack thereof. He states that the EU sees Russia as "a business opportunity" and "a goldmine."

Michelle Shocked

I listened again, war predictions were circumspect and find this ep is invaluable for weeding through all the foo now flying around. Ames was 100% correct in predicting the blame will be laid entirely on Putin.

twice

lol delusion. Mark not only dismissed any possibility of invasion, but mocked (by name!) those who thought it was imminent. it was about as enormous a fuck-up as possible. he made fun of the people who headed for the airport, even! for his sake, it's a good thing he wasn't personally at risk, but i feel sorry for anyone in the region who took his advice.