Why sanctions will not work, and why it should drive renewable energy.

[Goonie]

Western powers have realised Russia is largely immune to sanctions

Russia has prepared a large enough war chest to weather the current sanctions, whilst knowing that the dependence of Europe on russian gas and oil means that Iranian style sanctions cannot be implemented without cutting of one's own nose.

The to invest in windfarms....

 

[Subduction Zone]

It is pretty hard for a country's own supply of wind and solar to be cut off. Those advocating for US independence of oil imports should be the first to be pushing for solar and wind here. Yes, recent improvements in oil recovery have enabled the US to be self sufficient when it comes to oil and gas production. But that cannot last. Sooner or later we will run out of oil. That is shown by our oil reserves. They are dropping rapidly as we use up as fracking can only produce a limited amount of fuel:

Is there more than that? Yes. But it too will be limited. It is better to get over our fossil fuel addiction when it is a choice rather than when it is forced upon us by reality.

 

[Dave G.]

Exactly. Sanctions basically never work anyway. They might slow things down then the country under sanctions does a slow burn under it all festering up all the worse. But Putin has 0 worries over sanctions. I watched a video that said he been stashing for this kind of thing since 2014.

Russia will over run Ukraine in a few days, whose next ? Putin outright said if anyone tries to stop him he will just eliminate them. I suspect his ultra sonic missiles back up those words which is why nobody will take him on. We don't even have the defense system for an ultra sonic missile or so they want us to believe.

By the way, re-powering the entire US with windmills is a pipe dream worse than that of The Man of La Mancha.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Exactly. Sanctions basically never work anyway. They might slow things down then the country under sanctions does a slow burn under it all festering up all the worse. But Putin has 0 worries over sanctions. I watched a video that said he been stashing for this kind of thing since 2014.

Russia will over run Ukraine in a few days, whose next ? Putin outright said if anyone tries to stop him he will just eliminate them. I suspect his ultra sonic missiles back up those words which is why nobody will take him on. We don't even have the defense system for an ultra sonic missile or so they want us to believe.

By the way, re-powering the entire US with windmills is a pipe dream worse than that of The Man of La Mancha.

Wind is just one source of renewable energy. Are you suggesting that we simply give up? Oil is a limited energy source with clear negative side effects. What is your solution?

 

[Goonie]

Wind is just one source of renewable energy. Are you suggesting that we simply give up? Oil is a limited energy source with clear negative side effects. What is your solution?

Your forgetting the second coming is coming, so no need to worry about the future right.....?

 

[rambot]

Well, if Western companies want to stop the incursions, maybe it's time to start siezing Russian foreign assets.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well, if Western companies want to stop the incursions, maybe it's time to start siezing Russian foreign assets.

Do they have enough to make a difference? And they could retaliate in the same way.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Western powers have realised Russia is largely immune to sanctions

Russia has prepared a large enough war chest to weather the current sanctions, whilst knowing that the dependence of Europe on russian gas and oil means that Iranian style sanctions cannot be implemented without cutting of one's own nose.

The to invest in windfarms....

I whole hearted agree and was thinking of having a thread pointing it out. Russia is hardened against sanctions and would likely sell any gas and oil not bought from Europe to China.


In pointing this out, I don't want US interventionism over there. We could have avoided this by giving Putin his buffer zone and agreeing that Ukraine is or should be a neutral country. (Another area where Trump almost certainly would have done better).


But I think it is worth pointing out simply that this will be just another reason of many other reasons why Biden is bad president and leader in general. In this case he is weak, and some of Putin's boldness comes on the heels of the Afghanistan debacle.

 

[Goonie]

I whole hearted agree and was thinking of having a thread pointing it out. Russia is hardened against sanctions and would likely sell any gas and oil not bought from Europe to China.


In pointing this out, I don't want US interventionism over there. We could have avoided this by giving Putin his buffer zone and agreeing that Ukraine is or should be a neutral country. (Another area where Trump almost certainly would have done better).


But I think it is worth pointing out simply that this will be just another reason of many other reasons why Biden is bad president and leader in general. In this case he is weak, and some of Putin's boldness comes on the heels of the Afghanistan debacle.

Sorry, but whilst I agree Biden is a weak president, his predecessor was no better, his lack of support for NATO and clear isolationist tendancy gave Putin support for this. Just look at Donald, a former US president crowing in praising Putin for his smarts. A damning image.

 

[bèlla]

Given China’s food reserves they’d have an alternative source for grain. I doubt they’re worried.

 

[Goonie]

I whole hearted agree and was thinking of having a thread pointing it out. Russia is hardened against sanctions and would likely sell any gas and oil not bought from Europe to China.


In pointing this out, I don't want US interventionism over there. We could have avoided this by giving Putin his buffer zone and agreeing that Ukraine is or should be a neutral country. (Another area where Trump almost certainly would have done better).


But I think it is worth pointing out simply that this will be just another reason of many other reasons why Biden is bad president and leader in general. In this case he is weak, and some of Putin's boldness comes on the heels of the Afghanistan debacle.

Also Trump had 4 years to rule out NATO membership for the Ukraine, given the status of the US within NATO it was in his power.

Where was the pressure on the Ukraine to rule it out themselves during that period?

 

[Goonie]

Given China’s food reserves they’d have an alternative source for grain. I doubt they’re worried.

Actually given the Ukraine is Europe's largest grain producer that is not Russia's problem.

 

[Call me Nic]

Sorry, but whilst I agree Biden is a weak president, his predecessor was no better, his lack of support for NATO and clear isolationist tendancy gave Putin support for this. Just look at Donald, a former US president crowing in praising Putin for his smarts. A damning image.

The US is the primary financier of NATO (aside from Germany) and we provide much of the muscle in defense spending. If NATO goes to war with Russia, the burden would be mostly shouldered by the US. I think being apart of NATO is a bad idea for our country. We need to focus on securing our own borders and economy first before we worry about the security of Europe.

 

[Goonie]

The US is the primary financier of NATO (aside from Germany) and we provide much of the muscle in defense spending. If NATO goes to war with Russia, the burden would be mostly shouldered by the US. I think being apart of NATO is a bad idea for our country. We need to focus on securing our own borders and economy first before we worry about the security of Europe.

The point of NATO partly was to ensure stability for the US Economy. I agree europe has not contributed enough to it but an isolated America is not good for your economy. An unstable Europe dominated by a despotic Russia, acting as a client state of China is hardly conducive to the us economy.

 

[Dave G.]

Wind is just one source of renewable energy. Are you suggesting that we simply give up? Oil is a limited energy source with clear negative side effects. What is your solution?

We have quite a lot of wind around here, they took part of the military facility here and built a prison. The base is tied to a portion of that prison and they fly in here from over seas. Anyway that facility is mainly powered by wind. Something like that is a great use for wind as we know our wind turbines to be in this age. There must be a better turbine in the future somewhere.

Another use is farming, we have a large cranberry grower locally too. He has four wind mills. He's either ground up all the birds around there now or they have learned there way around . I know there are no more Osprey there now and there were two nests in that area. They could have been batted into the next town also. Or they could have concluded it's an unfit neighborhood to raise their young in. But wildlife aside, I guess winds works for that guy.

The statistic on wind is 1/3 of your wind farm will be down for maintenance at any given time. Also it drives close neighbors nuts, we had one taken down locally after neighbors complaining of headaches and such from the constant sound. So if to use them they should be someplace remote. But really we need another generation or two of wind turbines . It all sounds like a great idea till your neighbor puts up one of those huge ones like we have around here. We had a small one locally, a guy had the room to put one up and not bother anyone. Things went along great till about the third year in it threw one of it's rotor blades and shook itself apart. That was the end of that.

One day there will be some kind of super power source that will come along and looking back folks will laugh at how we did things.

And now that I'm miles off topic I'll end there.

 

[Call me Nic]

The point of NATO partly was to ensure stability for the US Economy. I agree europe has not contributed enough to it but an isolated America is not good for your economy. An unstable Europe dominated by a despotic Russia, acting as a client state of China is hardly conducive to the us economy.

I agree that an unstable Europe is not good for us, but neither is a war with Russia where we are the primary fighter. Considering that Germany and many other nations in Europe are still so heavily dependent on Russian natural gas, I have doubts on whether they'd even be willing to help the US at all if this scenario were to take place. The Article 5 NATO argument that the media here in the US keeps talking about is only good if the countries that agreed to it choose to enforce it.. and with the energy issues Europe would have without Russian imports, I don't know if many of them would choose to follow suit if the United States decided to uphold it. Either way, this is a bad deal for us all.

 

[Blade]

why they won't work? They did nothing.. he knew after 1y Biden will do nothing what so ever to stop him. Putin plan was all drawn up when Trump was president yet oddly Putin did nothing. So no one is going to help

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Also Trump had 4 years to rule out NATO membership for the Ukraine, given the status of the US within NATO it was in his power.

Where was the pressure on the Ukraine to rule it out themselves during that period?

Actually it was important that Trump not do that. Trump was already under impeachment investigation for his meddling into asking Zelensky to investigate Biden' s corruption in Ukraine.

 

[Ana the Ist]

It is pretty hard for a country's own supply of wind and solar to be cut off. Those advocating for US independence of oil imports should be the first to be pushing for solar and wind here. Yes, recent improvements in oil recovery have enabled the US to be self sufficient when it comes to oil and gas production. But that cannot last. Sooner or later we will run out of oil. That is shown by our oil reserves. They are dropping rapidly as we use up as fracking can only produce a limited amount of fuel:

Is there more than that? Yes. But it too will be limited. It is better to get over our fossil fuel addiction when it is a choice rather than when it is forced upon us by reality.

Choice?

Do we have commercial airplanes that run on solar now? Tanks? How about those giant diesel sucking cargo ships?

Last I checked we didn't have any alternatives for those....though I guess it's possible that the cargo ships could be converted to nuclear.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Choice?

Do we have commercial airplanes that run on solar now? Tanks? How about those giant diesel sucking cargo ships?

Last I checked we didn't have any alternatives for those....though I guess it's possible that the cargo ships could be converted to nuclear.

You are grasping at straws. What percentage of fossil fuels burnt are done so by air travel? We probably never will have commercial electric airplanes. Batteries do not have a high enough energy to mass density. And cargo ships are actually quite efficient. It may seem that the suck down a lot of fuel, but fuel per mile per ton is rather low. Are you looking for excuses to give up? Do you really want to fry the world?