Putin´s and Gazprom´s dirty gas game in Europe

Aviezer Tucker, assistant director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin has written an article in the Washington Times which deserves to be widely read - particularly in Europe - because it reveals the truth:  

We lost Bulgaria. We are likely soon to lose the Czech Republic. We gained Ukraine. Poland has always stood with us. Germany hedges its bets. France definitely is not with us. The United Kingdom probably will side with us. The Baltic States would love to join us if they have the resources. A fierce battle rages over Romania.

The adversary is Russia, a petro-state that projects power through control of the European energy market. President Vladimir Putin’s regime depends on selling hydrocarbons. That pays for the Russian state and for a patronage system that keeps his supporters and backers in clover.

Many of Gazprom’s decisions are political. It pays for long pipelines to bypass Ukraine. Political appointments and scams are costly. Analysts estimate that Gazprom needs to charge about $12 per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas to break even. It collects about $16 per 1,000 cubic feet in Eastern Europe. In the United States, the cost is about $2.

The price of natural gas in America dropped because hydraulic fracturing glutted the market with cheap gas. There are no such commercial wells in Europe.

If hydraulic fracturing can be used on a commercial scale in Europe, the price of natural gas there will plummet. It could force Russia to start working for a living and would have radical political repercussions.

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The holy grail for Gazprom is a European Union-wide ban or moratorium on the technology. The more countries adopt such restrictions, the stronger the case for it would be in Brussels, capital of the EU, and Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament.

The challenge facing Gazprom is to convince nations that pay it exorbitant sums of foreign currency to forgo a technology that can save them a lot of money, create local jobs and support their political independence. This challenge is not unlike the task the Soviet Union faced after World War II: The United States offered the devastated countries of Europe substantial free economic aid in the Marshall Plan. Fearing economic and political independence, the Soviets had to persuade Europeans to give up free money.

Some Czech anti-hydraulic-fracturing demonstrators, who protested against granting concessions to Hutton Energy, an Australian company headquartered in London, carried signs proclaiming, “We do not want your American money.” They could have dusted off similar signs from 1947.

This time, the mobilizing ideology is not anti-capitalism but environmentalism. Russia’s Mr. Putin has become a great champion of other countries’ environments. Gazprom and Russia pay directly or indirectly, through public-relations firms and environmentalist groups, for the creation of grand coalitions with authentic environmentalist groups. As in the national fronts of post-World War II Europe that paved the way for communist takeovers, the groups that are loyal to Moscow control the coalitions. Such organizations do not, for example, criticize nuclear power as long as it is provided by Russia or condemn the effect of drilling in Siberia on the Russian environment.

Read the entire article here

PS

Hopefully somebody shows this article also to Gazprom´s latest recruitment in Europe, German football legend Franz Beckenbauer!

Former editor of the Economist: Being part of the EU is the same as membership in Fifa!

The Economist has spent years trying to convince the British that the European Union and the euro are very much part of the UK future. No wonder then that Bill Emmott, editor of the europhile magazine during the years 1993 - 2006,  is still so blinded by this empire in decline that he compares being part of it with membership of the UN - and Fifa! 

On a recent BBC Newsnight debate, Jeremy Paxman drew applause by popping up on a screen a photo of Herman Van Rompuy, the rather nondescript Belgian president of the European Council, and asking the audience whether they had voted for him and even knew who he was. Argument over: of course we’d rather not be bossed about by unelected officials whom we can’t even name.

Except for this. It was tosh. Why didn’t he also put up photos of the Secretary General of Nato, or the head of the World Trade Organisation, or the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the International Maritime Organisation, or even the head of Fifa? We didn’t vote for any of those either; they come from funny foreign countries and we don’t even know their names – except perhaps the President of Fifa.

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So, whatever the Eurosceptics, and especially UKIP, try to say, the debate about British membership of the EU cannot be reduced to a choice of black or white, shackled or free, servile or sovereign. Unless we want to pull out of all of these organisations, that is. It is a matter of degree, of shades of grey, of how much loss of sovereignty is too much, of much more boring issues of benefits and costs.

Read the entire article here

PS

Bill Emmott is currently the chairman of London library. It might perhaps be a good thing if somebody would ask him to spare us from further Fifa comparisons and instead concentrate on chairing the books. 

EU to get "toughest in the world" emission targets for cars

The European Commission Wednesday proposed further cuts to carbon dioxide, CO2, emissions from new cars and vans by 2020, making EU targets the toughest in the world:

Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action, called the new targets "a win-win for the climate, consumers, innovation and jobs." "With our proposals we are not only protecting the climate and saving consumers money. We are also boosting innovation and competitiveness in the European automotive industry," said Hedegaard. "And we will create substantial numbers of jobs as a result."

The EU climate queen Connie Hedegaard is once again talking nonsense. How on earth could these suggested measures "boost the competitiveness" of an European industry that is already now losing money!


The message from European Automobile Manufacturers' Association´s Secretary General Ivan Hodac was polite, but clear: 


"Indeed, contrary to some claims, the proposed targets for the European fleet are far more stringent than those in the United States, China or Japan."
This will increase manufacturing costs in Europe, creating a competitive disadvantage for the region and further slowing the renewal of the fleet, he said.


"Considering that most manufacturers are losing money in Europe at the moment, the industry needs as competitive a framework as possible. Targets - while ambitious - must be feasible.


Read the entire article here


PS


Another example of the only thing in which the European Union really excels: Shooting itself in the foot

Barroso´s only British fan revealed

A portrait of José Manuel Barroso´s only  known  fan  in  the  UK

José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, on the European Union in an interview published in the New Statesman July 11: 

"The biggest integrated market in the world, the first economy in the world, the biggest donor of development assistance in the world . . . "

After reading this speech, given on the same day, my first thought was that Barroso is beginning to repeat himself: 

"the EU is the world’s largest integrated economy. And when it comes to climate change, this union has served us well: Europe negotiates as a bloc at the UN, one with more authority than we could muster individually.By working together, we have been able to achieve so much more than we could alone. A gathering of individual agents, each fighting for different national priorities, could not have secured the Kyoto Protocol, or its extension.

We should draw strength from this legacy. Rather than letting ambition slip, we should pay tribute to our past achievements by raising our sights still higher".

However, it was not Barroso this time. It was David Cameron´s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Edward Jonathan Davey, Barroso´s probably only remaining public fan in Britain. (Although one suspects that there still are a number of closet Barroso fans around)

Maybe Barroso´s and Davey´s friendship goes as far as to sharing the same speechwriter? Who knows.

José Manuel Barroso - the Brussels court jester in action

In a new report blandly titled "Eurozone jobs crisis: trends and policy responses," the ILO warns that 4.5 million more jobs could be lost in Europe unless policies "change course in a concerted manner."

The coming jump would put the total number of jobless at nearly 22 million, the ILO says.

"What I can see from Brussels is that, and also from a European perspective, I find it a little bit ironic that some people are suggesting for Britain a role comparable to that of say Norway or Switzerland. Norway or Switzerland are two marvelous countries, I very much admire, the most advanced countries in the world in fact with great qualities of life. But I think Britain is expecting a bigger role in the world than small countries."


"The fact that some are suggesting for Britain a role that is smaller than the one Britain already has today seems to me a little bit curious. When the prime minister of Britain meets the president of the United States, or the president of China, he has much stronger status and much stronger leverage because everybody knows that Britain is a country that is very influential in the shaping of European policy. The biggest integrated market in the world, the first economy in the world, the biggest donor of development assistance in the world ."


José Manuel Barroso (in an interview in the New Statesman)


The Telegraph´s Nile Gardiner rightly points out that the former Portuguese maoist is suffering from illusions of grandeur: 


The idea that it could not survive as a major international actor outside the EU is the stuff of fantasy, beloved by the likes of Barroso and Van Rompuy, who are firmly in denial regarding the scale of decay that has set in across the Eurozone. The European Project has been, as Lady Thatcher so eloquently put it, “the greatest folly of the modern era.” It is heading in only one direction – decline and economic ruin. For Britain, life outside the EU offers only opportunity, sovereignty and freedom, and the chance for the British people to shape their own destiny.


Well put, Nile Gardiner. 


There is, though, a bright side to Barroso, which should not be forgotten: The longer this clown - or court jester - is around with his act, the more people see the reality of a European project in steep decline. 

China´s "man-made" growth statistics

AP reports that Asian stock markets were higher today after China said its economy grew in the second quarter of this year at its slowest pace since 2009 - which was in line with analysts expectations: 

China's gross domestic product expanded 7.6 percent in the April to June period from the same period a year earlier, down from 8.1 percent growth in the first quarter. China also reported that retail sales and factory output growth slowed in June

Equities in Asia had mostly fallen the previous few days amid speculation that China's growth may have slowed more than the consensus 7.6 percent forecast. Some analysts say expected interest rate cuts and fiscal stimulus spending by China should spur lending, investment and stronger economic growth in the second half of the year.

It appears, though, that those optimistic analysts have chosen to "forget" one important consideration -  realism. They should read this Bloomberg report: 

The figures that go into China’s gross domestic product are “man-made” and “for reference only,” Li Keqiang, then a regional Communist Party head, said in 2007.

The comments by Li, now a vice premier who’s expected to become premier next spring, were revealed in a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks in late 2010. Li’s remarks are especially relevant as China announced today that the economy expanded 7.6 percent last quarter from a year earlier, the slowest pace in three years.

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“Out of the black box comes a number, and that number doesn’t always line up with the other numbers,” says Andrew Batson, Beijing-based research director at macroeconomics consultant GK Dragonomics. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the GDP numbers this year are smoothed.”


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One legacy of the planned economy is that bureaucrats are given targets by the central government for everything from steel production to harvests and local GDP. These same officials traditionally have been promoted on their success in making their numbers.

“We have a saying in China: The cadres produce the data, and data produces the cadres,” said Jin Yongjin, a professor of statistics at Renmin University in Beijing.

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China still tends to treat its data gathering as a national secret, said Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of Beijing-based J Capital Research, which analyzes equities. She cited the government’s refusal to release the weighting of goods tracked to compile its consumer price inflation index.

“Why would you ever lift the hood and show people how you do it?” Stevenson-Yang said. “That only reduces your ability to change numbers if you need to.”

Australian climate madness: Hundreds of towns "could cease to exist by 2050"

Australian climate change madness:
A new report is warning hundreds of inland Australian towns could cease to exist by 2050 if locals do not adapt to climate change.
The report, commissioned by a wonderful institution called "Federal Government´s National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility" is of course a joke:

The report studied 1,600 bush towns and found the ones with low education rates are least likely to make the decisions needed to adapt to a hotter future.

But in many regional areas there is resistance to change because of lingering scepticism about climate change.

The same scepticism means the research may not have much impact on the areas it targets.

The report was commissioned by the Federal Government's National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.

Author Professor Andrew Beer says climate change and market forces will de-populate entire towns.

"It's impossible to predict because between now and 2050 is a very long time," he told The World Today.

"But you could easily see the loss of 10 per cent. So 160 country towns across Australia could be gone within 20 years and a further 10 per cent by 2050 - simply because of climate change and the failure to adapt to it.

"So, many people living in a small place right now will discover that their town won't be there in 40 years' time."

Even the man behind the report, warmist professor Andrew Beer has to admit that "it´s impossible to predict because between now and 2050 is a very long time", but that does not prevent this academic giant from talking about hundreds of towns disappearing by 2050! 

No wonder that people who live in, or close to the towns which will disappear according to professor Beer, beg do disagree:

Mount Gambier resident Leon Ashby disagrees.

Mr Ashby is a spokesman for the No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics Party, which believes that while the climate is changing, it is only minor and not due to humans.

He says the party has 800 paid-up members, but represents an opinion that is much more widely held in rural areas.

"I lean over the fence post, and talk to a lot of farmers and that, and I would say 80, 90 per cent would scoff at what's happening politically when you are talking about climate change," he said.

Read the entire article here