HAD been lacking :). the most popular pet name in Ukraine right now is Bayraktar. But of course, as others mentioned, it will take only a few blown up 1$bln warships before things turn nuclear.
Most likely Russians will have a demo nuclear 'test' in neutral waters sometimes this year. There aren't any 'cooler heads' to prevail in this situation - just bloodlust and enablement
What i didn't realize until very recently was that natural gas can be liquefied and sold on an open market like a barrel of oil. With that in mind, these pipelines are not as critical. Additionally, pipelines operate by contracts which offer very generous discounts years in advance; Liquefied gas, on the other hand, is a commodity and is sold at market prices.
Seems logical to assume that Russian gas will still be sold, and that there will be buyers. Russia will be offering substantial discounts on it as well.
While natural gas can be liquefied, the infrastructure for LNG is much less mature than for gas pipelines. You still need to have the LNG terminals to be able to import the gas (and also at the export terminals as well).
Historically, LNG import terminals are concentrated in East Asia, which is generally too far away from major gas producers for a pipeline to be worthwhile to build but the energy consumption was high enough to warrant investing in such infrastructure. The US also built several LNG import terminals, but then the fracking boom caused so much natural gas to be produced that several of these were converted into LNG export terminals instead.
One of the side effects of the costs of building LNG infrastructure is that natural gas prices are very heavily regionalized: natural gas is far cheaper in the US (where it's pipeline delivery) than it is in Japan (with LNG imports).
Thanks, this explains a lot; Do you think it's reasonable to assume that due to pipeline closures and Russian isolation, gas prices will keep rising? I'm reading up on this selfishly - as i purchased some natural gas stocks like $OVV and $AR as the conflict was unwinding.
Is LNG route open for Russia? Seems like it's their only option at this point. And Pipelines are simply not safe as it should be easy to sabotage them for the enemy combatants.
I also noticed that in EU there are rumblings about legislation that would force Gas companies to be taxed at a higher rate to continue to pave the way for green energy. Not sure what are the prospects of this in the US.
In the near term (days to weeks, maybe a few months), I would expect gas prices to be more likely to rise rather than fall. I can't speculate well about longer term because there are too many variables in play: while peak demand could be relatively well-forecasted based on climate change legislation, the supply side of the equation is difficult to forecast.
> Is LNG route open for Russia?
I am not an expert on these affairs, but I believe Russia doesn't have a lot of LNG export capability at the moment, and LNG export terminals are not something quickly built. It's more likely to me that Russia shifts its gas exports away from Europe and into China via existing pipelines, rather than investing in LNG export capabilities.
It is more expensive. The reason why Lithuania and Poland built LNG terminals is not because it is economical or fun compared to pipelines. It is a pure sunk cost. The reason is to secure their supply incase Russia wants to exert influence through the gas supply like it did with Ukraine until 2015 when Ukraina started buying all gas from the EU instead.
They therefore cap the price they pay to what is available on the open LNG market, if the regular supply does not come through.
This is like comparing buying bottled water instead of using the taps in your house. Yes, technically you can do this, but transporting that bottled water is painful, and at the scale of a whole country doing it, is a huge logistical challenge. You could eventually get to the point where LNG replaced the pipelines, but that's not going to happen overnight, and the European energy grids need to heat homes this winter.
That's not quite it. The bottled water / tap water comparison is still transporting exactly the same commodity. Liquefied natural gas, however, is much denser than its non-liquefied equivalent.
Per Wikipedia, Nordstream 1 can deliver 55 G(m^3)/yr of natural gas. Per a US government source (https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50598), the United States has an LNG export capacity of about 12 G(ft^3)/day, or about 120G(m^3)/yr.
I imagine the operational costs of a direct pipeline are lower than the cost of liquefaction, transport, and re-gasification, but from the notice that LNG exists this is probably has an O(1) effect on price, not O(10).
Fortunately, Europe is also beginning to exit "this winter," so the energy situation is less dire than if this invasion had occurred in December going into January.
Well, that is not surprising; Not just chess, this will extend to any sport. This is a new iron curtain.
Air travel is now very much restricted; If you can't get into or out of Russia, you can't really hold events there.
I just got my first down voted comment by mentioning Alex Jones name (who predicted Ukraine major war in October). It is a fact, it is also a fact that every other rational analyst was wrong. But their analysis was sound - invasion of Ukraine is madness and a historic mistake for Russia. It's not about predicting things - it's about making sure that a single crazy person cannot end everyone's life going forward.
Don't see any reason for apologies for the rational analysis. Back to technology - this thing is turning into Twitter nonsense.
Yep, there was talk about disabling 'sell' button for outside investors in a reply to 'illegitimate' sanctions. If you are a russian equity bag holder i feel bad for you, son. But not too bad... due to the fact that proverbial 'bear poking' very quickly escalated to bear bitch slapping, what come next should be interesting to observe (provided you are in a bunker).
This is developing horribly for both Russia and Ukraine and the rest of us. It's pretty obvious that invasion was a mistake for Russia and it's pretty obvious that there is no way back. Putin cannot accept any compromise in this situation for political reasons nor can he accept defeat. Zelensky initially suggested something about neutrality guarantees, but now he has reached the bravery and bravado level of Djohar Dudayev. Not that neutrality guarantees would ever pass Rada in the first place.
Everyone is cheering this nonsensical war on the side lines. Civilians are being encouraged to throw molotovs at Russian invaders and automatic weaponry is being issued indiscriminately. Every country is giving Ukraine weaponry and keeps buying Russian energy.
Both sides have no way back, nobody is going to stop anyone. Ukrainians are extremely proud and suicidal (just look their anthem - "Ukraine hasn't perished YET"). The war will rage on and it will the biggest humanitarian crisis our generation has seen..
I had a horrible experience with Samsung plasma TV about 7 years ago. TV cracked in front of my eyes - it went from completely fine to having a huge 'spider web' crack right in the middle.
Samsung support claimed it was physical damage; After extensive research i found multiple other people who had the same problem. These TVs were extremely fragile, a slight impact could cause a tiny non-visible breakage; And then due to the heat generated during normal operation this tiny breakage could progressively turn into a cracked screen.
At the time, Samsung's determination seemed like an extreme injustice... i filed multiple complaints with consumer protection services. Samsung people reached out and after a few weeks of 'passionate' phone conversations they agreed to refund the cost of repairs provided that i sign off that it was 'indeed' physical damage (obviously i did that).
I never bought a Samsung product after that; But that TV still works :).
As for phones, i am still using iphone SE 1st gen. Simplicity, beauty, and absolutely perfect one handed operation on this phone has not been matched still. Which tells you everything you need to know about phone 'innovation'.
