Well, i vigorously disagree.

The Russian-Central Asian announcement is just bluster - no pipeline will be built because they are already there! Russia fully controls Central Asian gas already, so it can threaten us more than reality does.

As to Belarus, I've written previously about it. It's about internal oligarchic fights, mostly. I can only send you back to these on TOD:
Russian gas and European energy security
Ukraine vs Russia: Tales of pipelines and dependence

You ignore that there already IS a pipeline through Russia! How does the mere possibility of *another* Russian-Central Asia pipeline threaten EU security?

Central Asia is NOT adjacent to any part of Europe, including Ukraine. The only way to build an EU-CA pipeline that bypasses Russia is go across the Caspian, through the Caucasus, and then across Turkey and the Balkans.

Europe can build it if it wants to, but nobody wants to spend the money just IN CASE Russia might disrupt supplies again for a few days. How much more secure would it be, anyway? In the long term, gas supplies through Russia are far more stable and predictable than the potential for disruption in half a dozen young democracies and dictatorships with potentially serious ethnic, religious, or terror problems. Looks like a good way for Al Qaeqda or the Chechens to get Europe's attention! Or, what would stop the Russians from encouraging "separatists" or "criminals" to disrupt pipeline operations or steal fuel? Abkhazia and South Georgia don't have to be the only Russian clients in the region.

If you're looking at tens of billions of dollars for (carbon) energy security, there's much better things to do with the money - like wind, solar, and fuel economy.

Finally, it's not like energy is the only risk Russia poses to the EU. There's lots more to create tension over, so spending all that money on this one problem seems like a bad deal. And, of course, the relationship is really not that one-sided: the EU actually has plenty of other responses it can (and does) take to exert pressure back on the Russians,


But politics can only influence the choice between different routes that are each economically viable and acceptable to the other players. It cannot drive a route on its own - that was my point.


Well, "economically viable" is too broad when politics comes into play. The politicians have the government budget that can subsidize construction expenses directly or give some tax breaks/incentives. If I'm not mistaking there is a quite close relation between top officials and top management of US oil companies, with some having financial interests in those companies...

Jerome:
Sometimes a little historical background can help people understand the deal. The interstate natural gas business in the United States was started by Texas Eastern, who purchased and converted the "Big Inch" and "Little Big Inch" pipelines in the United States from a crude and crude products line to natural gas. There's a wonderful history of the construction at http://culturalresourcegroup.com/pdf/inchlines.pdf

Reading it you will learn what real patriotism and real leadership can do. During the Second World War the Germans sent 5 U Boats to the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts to sink tankers and it was incredibly effective-they knocked out a third of the US tanker fleet almost immediately, and the East Coast refineries and the whole European war effort was stalled out. The Allies couldn't land at Normandy or Sicily without oil, and the Germans couldn't finish conquering Russia or invade England without oil.That's why Hitler was willing to lose a million soldiers on the road to Baku and had his best tank divisions in North Africa under Rommel tring to conquer the oilfields of Libia. The big oil companies cooperated in a no profit construction project that resulted in a 24" crude line and a 20" products line to the East Coast refineries from the East Texas field and the Houston Refineries.

Its a long PDF, 54 pages, but well worth a read, also has some great old WW II posters. But its efforts like this that give me a little faith in the future. This is a fine explanation of the gas rationing in the US during WW II, and even has some explanations of the old railroad tank car shipments of crude.
Bob Ebersole