Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Melanius Mullarkey]

33 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

I think Truss will fast track fracking as we have enormous reserves here in the UK.

Read somewhere that we could be producing significant quantities within 6 months.

Governments have been far too compliant to the green blob.

Drill baby drill.

Aye it’s as simple as that.

[LongTimeLurker]

40 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

That article is from June, and states that production is being wound down rather than ramped up...

It's being wound down because gas production caused earth tremors to keep environmentalists happy. It could pretty much at a flick of a switch be ramped up again in a way that would replace a significant portion of the missing supply from Russia. Odds on it will be if there is a big enough crisis this winter just as is the case with German nuclear power plants. 

[LongTimeLurker]

5 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

Aye it’s as simple as that.

Right now we are paying a premium on LNG shipments to have the fracking done in Texas instead of in the Blackpool area and wood pellets from the Amazon are being burned instead of coal produced domestically at the Drax power plant as supposedly sustainable biomass to keep the Green lobby happy. 

[Bairnardo]

Right now we are paying a premium on LNG shipments to have the fracking done in Texas instead of in the Blackpool area and wood pellets from the Amazon are being burned instead of coal produced domestically at the Drax power plant as supposedly sustainable biomass to keep the Green lobby happy. 

Is the LNG being shipped over making its way into the gas grid, or being used in has fired power stations?

Can the LNG producers get more money from selling this gas to the gas grid, or as feedstock for petrochemical processes?

Can this type of LNG even be blended into the gas grid in the UK in appreciable quantities?

[Left Back]

1 hour ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

I think Truss will fast track fracking as we have enormous reserves here in the UK.

Read somewhere that we could be producing significant quantities within 6 months.

Governments have been far too compliant to the green blob.

Drill baby drill.

That will be a great comfort to those that don’t make it through the winter.

[Left Back]

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

That article is from June, and states that production is being wound down rather than ramped up.

I've seen plenty of "this could be an alternative" suggestions, but none so far seem to be doing anything, which I think is pretty telling as to what use they will be in the short-term.

The West appears to have completely underestimated Russian economic resolve in the face of sanctions whilst simultaneously forgotten that, in the short-term, our economic stability relies on Russian gas far more than they rely on us buying it.

All the recent chat about how accepting a difficult winter is the price we need to pay in order to stand up to Russian aggression is bluster - this scenario wasn't part of the plan and any EU leader who tells you they aren't panicking about whether they have made a massive mistake is lying.

Everyone expected it to be over in a month.

[Todd_is_God]

53 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

It's being wound down because gas production caused earth tremors to keep environmentalists happy. It could pretty much at a flick of a switch be ramped up again in a way that would replace a significant portion of the missing supply from Russia. Odds on it will be if there is a big enough crisis this winter just as is the case with German nuclear power plants. 

And yet, in the 3 months since, it hasn't. Insteas the EU nations are about to spend hundreds of billions on aid packages and are talking about energy rationing over winter.

Why would they choose to do that if they could just use this instead?

 

[welshbairn]

Russia would never have invaded if they'd anticipated the West's reaction, and Ukraine's. Equally the West should have taken Russia's imperial strutting more seriously and thrown them some shiny pebbles like no prospects for Nato membership and Finland/Austria style (EU maybe) neutrality for Ukraine. Russia was always going to use the leverage of the energy stranglehold Germany (especially) walked into though, at least we know now that the Russian war machine isn't quite as formidable as we thought if they ever think about creating a land bridge to Kaliningrad.

Edited September 6, 2022 by welshbairn

[LongTimeLurker]

5 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

...Why would they choose to do that if they could just use this instead?

 

Firstly things aren't bad enough yet to prompt key Dutch and German political parties to drop their opposition to these measures, secondly EU storage levels are higher than targeted at this time in part due to UK LNG terminals with FSRUs soon to be in place on the German coast and US LNG exports about to ramp up again from the Texas terminal that was damaged in an explosion, and thirdly it's only Nord Stream being closed off so far which already had reduced flow due to the earlier turbines saga.

Edited September 6, 2022 by LongTimeLurker

[TxRover]

6 hours ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

I think Truss will fast track fracking as we have enormous reserves here in the UK.

Read somewhere that we could be producing significant quantities within 6 months.

Governments have been far too compliant to the green blob.

Drill baby drill.

Depends. If the wells were previously producing conventionally, and then shutdown, it might be practical to restart production via fracking within 6 months for a few wells, but it requires specialist equipment at each well for a period of time to restart, so it would be a prolonged process. If the wells were previously producing via fracking, you might never be able to restart them and even if successfully recommissioned, they might never reach previous production levels. Also, this process is even longer and more specialized. Drilling and fracking a new well is the “simplest”, from an initial equipment standpoint, but also the slowest and still needs special equipment to bring it online for production. Drill baby drill might help in 2 to 3 years or so.

Living in Texas, let me assure you that you DON’T want fracking anywhere near your water supply.

[vikingTON]

10 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Right now we are paying a premium on LNG shipments to have the fracking done in Texas instead of in the Blackpool area 

Well no, we're paying a premium - emptying the coffers of most of Europe - to produce record profits for American companies. Strange that the G7 didn't announce a price cap on all sources of energy in that context - so much for NATO solidarity! 

 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

10 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Right now we are paying a premium on LNG shipments to have the fracking done in Texas instead of in the Blackpool area and wood pellets from the Amazon are being burned instead of coal produced domestically at the Drax power plant as supposedly sustainable biomass to keep the Green lobby happy. 

Yes I know that. Im talking about going in, fracking the f**k out of Lancashire and producing "significant quantities" within 6 months. 

[Silvio Tattiescone]

3 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

Yes I know that. Im talking about going in, fracking the f**k out of Lancashire and producing "significant quantities" within 6 months. 

[TxRover]

4 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

Yes I know that. Im talking about going in, fracking the f**k out of Lancashire and producing "significant quantities" within 6 months. 

Can’t be done, not “within 6 months”, see post 4 up.

[welshbairn]

4 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkay said:

Yes I know that. Im talking about going in, fracking the f**k out of Lancashire and producing "significant quantities" within 6 months. 

On the other hand it could earthquake all the red wall constituencies into rubble, so not all bad.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

9 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Can’t be done, not “within 6 months”, see post 4 up.

Indeed, but delusional Toryboy gonna delusional Toryboy.

[ICTChris]

Maybe not the right thread but the CEO of the Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar has given an interview at a defence industry trade show.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Drones-will-play-role-in-any-Taiwan-conflict-Turkey-s-Baykar
 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

5 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

On the other hand it could earthquake all the red wall constituencies into rubble, so not all bad.

It would be sad to see the Blackpool Tower go.

I went up it last summer and came out all pink.

Spoiler

 

[renton]

31 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Maybe not the right thread but the CEO of the Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar has given an interview at a defence industry trade show.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Drones-will-play-role-in-any-Taiwan-conflict-Turkey-s-Baykar
 

As predicted, in the face of sophisticated air defences, relatively low flying drones with short range weapons become less useful. The recent resurgence in the use of the TB2 in Ukraine has coincided with the appearance of US AGM-88 HARM missiles designed for supressing air defences (i.e. it homes in on emitted RF signals from SAM sites)

Drones weren't a revolution, really. Their long endurance, ability to stay on station, ability to stand off and basic attritability makes them ideal for close air support - far more than using fast jets for the same purpose. Previously only a few nations possessed the necessary budgets to generate fast jet close air support assets. What drones like the TB.2 have done is radically lower the entry bar for nations to get into that game. It looks like a revolution for those who could use drones assymetrically against those who had no air force to really speak of, but within the context of modern air wars fought by the industrialised first world nations, drones are useful but only make more efficient a pre-existing capability. Even then, it's a capability that only can exist within the existing air doctrine that calls for suppresion of air defences and degredation of Command and Control nodes as a 'day 1' type of strategy - before close air support can be used to support ground forces.

[ICTChris]

31 minutes ago, renton said:

As predicted, in the face of sophisticated air defences, relatively low flying drones with short range weapons become less useful. The recent resurgence in the use of the TB2 in Ukraine has coincided with the appearance of US AGM-88 HARM missiles designed for supressing air defences (i.e. it homes in on emitted RF signals from SAM sites)

Drones weren't a revolution, really. Their long endurance, ability to stay on station, ability to stand off and basic attritability makes them ideal for close air support - far more than using fast jets for the same purpose. Previously only a few nations possessed the necessary budgets to generate fast jet close air support assets. What drones like the TB.2 have done is radically lower the entry bar for nations to get into that game. It looks like a revolution for those who could use drones assymetrically against those who had no air force to really speak of, but within the context of modern air wars fought by the industrialised first world nations, drones are useful but only make more efficient a pre-existing capability. Even then, it's a capability that only can exist within the existing air doctrine that calls for suppresion of air defences and degredation of Command and Control nodes as a 'day 1' type of strategy - before close air support can be used to support ground forces.

I think it's maybe giving some countries with lower budgets a chance to use air power - I assume that Turkmenistan and Ethiopa don't have powerful air forces.

Regarding the HARM missiles, there are reports today that the Ukrainians have been using air strikes as well as TB2 strikes in Kherson in recent days.  It's not confirmed but would be one of the first times that there's been reports of the Ukrainian Air Force being active offensively.