Did anyone defend that decision?Originally Posted by JMA
The Nordstream pipeline was first conceived in the late 90s, I believe... no idea if the risk of over-reliance on Russia was part of the discussion at that time. Fuchs might know. The individuals who made the decision are likely long since retired.
I find it quite strange that a country that consumes as much gas as Germany doesn't have a single LNG terminal. Japan has (from memory, could be a bit off) something like 30 of them. Pipelines are great, but tie to a specific source, while an LNG terminal can take tankers from anywhere. Norway can pick up some of the difference, but not all, and pipelines from Norway can't deliver gas from any other source. LNG terminals in France and Belgium can bring some, but capacity is limited and they have to balance German demand with that of other customers. Europe isn't using all of its LNG terminal capacity and could bring in more... but none of those terminals are under German control. Whether or not the Germans could tap that capacity and whether existing internal pipeline networks could deliver the gas from the pipelines to Germany) is another question. It could probably be done, but it would take time.
Germany's dependence on Russian gas is sometimes overstated: gas accounts for about 21% of Germany's primary energy supply and Russia provides about 35% of the gas. Losing that would still cause considerable pain, especially given the decision to shut down German nuclear plants.
The point I was trying to make is that relieving German dependence on Russian gas is not just a matter of finding gas suppliers. The replacement gas (from Qatar, the US, or almost any other potential supplier) would arrive as LNG, and Germany will need to invest in the infrastructure needed to support a switch from pipeline delivery to LNG tanker delivery.
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