Green Energy, and the German Grid, from: Kiev Is Burning

[Strannik]

 

 

[Strannik]

 

 

 

[seahawk]

Both operations done by the US. The fake revolution in the Ukraine and the destruction of critical German/Russian infrastructure. I wish Germany would wake up, leave NATO and embrace a close partnership with Russia. And also throw out the remaining occupiers.

[Stuart Galbraith]

And this is why its a mistake to pare off thread elements like this and drop them in the FFZ.

Pulling the handle, im outa here.

[BansheeOne]

Again, the FFZ is probably not the best place, but it's a sufficiently distinct and important topic by itself to not be buried in the general Ukraine thread. In fact you'd get the same amount of trolling there, or in a separate thread in any other forum. If there's an upside to the trolling standing out much more here, it's that the sources can be much more clearly identified. 😉

[Soren Ras]

3 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

If there's an upside to the trolling standing out much more here, it's that the sources can be much more clearly identified

Which does have real value.

 

--

Soren

[rmgill]

Has anyone sussed out why the pipeline cannot be re-activated? 

Has there been any clear evidence provided by anyone as to whom actually ran the operation set the charges on the sea floor pipelines? 

[MiloMorai]

22 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Has anyone sussed out why the pipeline cannot be re-activated? 

Has there been any clear evidence provided by anyone as to whom actually ran the operation set the charges on the sea floor pipelines? 

Which pipeline?

If there was clear evidence, it would be all over the news.

[Tim the Tank Nut]

It isn't like they don't know where the leak is.  It isn't even that deep.  If they wanted to know what the damage looked like we'd already have pictures

[seahawk]

How, would you drive a submersible through all those gas bubbles?

[BansheeOne]

I initially imagined it to be a lot easier, too. I was clear that on the surface, not only does of course the air-gas mix represent a tremendous explosive hazard, like the world's biggest thermobaric bomb waiting for a spark; I was also aware that ships can lose buoyance in "sparkled" water and sink like the proverbial rock (there's a theory that explains losses in the Bermuda Triangle with methane eruptions).

Still I had the idea that some divers or RCVs could simply swim up laterally right next to the breaches and take a look at them. As it was announced that that would have to wait for a couple days to maybe two weeks until the pipes are exhausted, I thought myself rather naive. At this point I suspect it would be about as healthy for a diver as setting off a daisy chain of dynamite sticks and hang around to watch.

[Tim the Tank Nut]

if anybody wanted it fixed we'd send remote operated vehicles with cameras to assess the damage.  Don't you guys ever watch Expedition Unknown or Expedition X?  They're low budget entertainment shows and they have the hardware to do this.

The pipelines DO have shut offs.  They're not a single tube from the magic well all the way to the end user.  If nothing else, Russia is more than capable of shutting off the flow. That's been a topic of discussion here for months if not years.

The most pressure that can be on the pipe when it is ruptured is the pressure that is applied by the water.  The pressure applied by the gas itself goes upward, not sideways.  By their very nature anything that can dive in the water is protected by the water pressure.

I'm not entirely certain that the gas itself has a density that makes it dangerous over open water.  It may burn if ignited but it isn't likely to explode if ignited.  It certainly can't ignite itself at atmospheric density.

[bd1]

as for the who could do it, i guess everyone with a modern minehunting ROV could lay some sort of bomb to pipeline

 

edit - wait, there´s another way!  https://9gag.com/gag/aPgyyGw

Edited September 30, 2022 by bd1

[Strannik]

20 minutes ago, bd1 said:

as for the who could do it, i guess everyone with a modern minehunting ROV could lay some sort of bomb to pipeline

 

edit - wait, there´s another way!  https://9gag.com/gag/aPgyyGw

Polish television in a nutshell.😁

[Harold Jones]

I think the reason we haven't seen pictures of the damage is because the people who operate underwater pipelines have protocols about how and when it's safe to approach them after a breach.  I base this on common sense and the complete lack of 'experts' on twitter screaming about how unprecedented this lack of pictures of the damage is.  

[Strannik]

 

 

[Strannik]

 

 

[Strannik]

For reference:

[Sardaukar]

4 minutes ago, Strannik said:

For reference:

Kind of irrelevant now.

And who would buy anything from Russia anymore?

So, go back where you came from. 

[Josh]

2 hours ago, Tim the Tank Nut said:

It isn't like they don't know where the leak is.  It isn't even that deep.  If they wanted to know what the damage looked like we'd already have pictures

Ignoring the danger of explosion or fire, the shear turbulence must be impossible to navigate. One of the leaks is disrupting an area of water half a mile wide. When the gas has completely leaked out it should be possible to inspect.

[bd1]

oh  btw since russia does not have a border treaty with estonia, nordstream pipelines start in estonian territory (temporaly occupied) .....

[Colin]

3 hours ago, Tim the Tank Nut said:

if anybody wanted it fixed we'd send remote operated vehicles with cameras to assess the damage.  Don't you guys ever watch Expedition Unknown or Expedition X?  They're low budget entertainment shows and they have the hardware to do this.

The pipelines DO have shut offs.  They're not a single tube from the magic well all the way to the end user.  If nothing else, Russia is more than capable of shutting off the flow. That's been a topic of discussion here for months if not years.

The most pressure that can be on the pipe when it is ruptured is the pressure that is applied by the water.  The pressure applied by the gas itself goes upward, not sideways.  By their very nature anything that can dive in the water is protected by the water pressure.

I'm not entirely certain that the gas itself has a density that makes it dangerous over open water.  It may burn if ignited but it isn't likely to explode if ignited.  It certainly can't ignite itself at atmospheric density.

When the seawater and the pipe have equalized the gas flow will subside, they estimate that will happen by Sunday. Apparently only one NS2 pipe was hit, but both NS 1 were hit, I am guessing they made that call based on the surface leaks locations. 

ROV's require a mothership and no ship will get near the gas cloud till it dissipates. Once the ROV is in the water the ship is constrained in manoeuvres and could not dodge a shift in the wind. My guess is that over the next week they have a ROV down and will have surveyed the damage and started to collect evidence, there will likely be remains of the devices used. 

I also bet that you will see a lot of activity in the region as ROV are used to survey the remaining pipe and other underwater infrastructure for any other devices. I am betting they have a guard ship patrol for the next few months and you see a who bunch of navigation restrictions near critical Infrastructure.    

The pipe sections can be repaired by making clean cuts and then installing valves, then fitting a new section between those valves. My guess they will proceed with this regardless of the sanctions to avoid long term corrosion and ingress of silt and other material. Then long drawn out court cases as to who eventually pays for it.

[sunday]

14 minutes ago, Colin said:

When the seawater and the pipe have equalized the gas flow will subside, they estimate that will happen by Sunday. Apparently only one NS2 pipe was hit, but both NS 1 were hit, I am guessing they made that call based on the surface leaks locations. 

ROV's require a mothership and no ship will get near the gas cloud till it dissipates. Once the ROV is in the water the ship is constrained in manoeuvres and could not dodge a shift in the wind. My guess is that over the next week they have a ROV down and will have surveyed the damage and started to collect evidence, there will likely be remains of the devices used. 

I also bet that you will see a lot of activity in the region as ROV are used to survey the remaining pipe and other underwater infrastructure for any other devices. I am betting they have a guard ship patrol for the next few months and you see a who bunch of navigation restrictions near critical Infrastructure.    

The pipe sections can be repaired by making clean cuts and then installing valves, then fitting a new section between those valves. My guess they will proceed with this regardless of the sanctions to avoid long term corrosion and ingress of silt and other material. Then long drawn out court cases as to who eventually pays for it.

A very sensible post, indeed.

[BansheeOne]

Quote

Sabotage in the Baltic

Attacks Expose Vulnerability of European Infrastructure

The search for the perpetrators has begun following Monday's sabotage attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. Which countries could have been behind it, and how secure is Europe's critical infrastructure at the bottom of the sea?

By Maik Baumgärtner, Markus Becker, Ullrich Fichtner, Matthias Gebauer, Claus Hecking, Martin Knobbe, Marina Kormbaki, Marcel Rosenbach, Fidelius Schmid, Anna-Sophie Schneider und Gerald Traufetter

30.09.2022, 18.37 Uhr

The route of the gas pipelines through the Baltic Sea could have been copied out of a cruise catalogue. From Ust-Luga near St. Petersburg, the route leads through the Gulf of Finland, then south past the Estonian island of Hiiumaa, past Gotland in Sweden, past Bornholm through Danish waters before approaching the German coast and ending in Lubmin in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It's a route where you wouldn't typically expect anything out of the ordinary to happen, a region intended for comfortable vacations. A place where all was well.

Take the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline, for example, the completion of which wasn't permitted until 2009, when officials finally reached an agreement on contractually stipulated respect for cod spawning periods. The "Core Issues Paper on Fish and Fisheries," which teemed with mentions of sprat, herring and ruffe, was just a part of the environmental impact assessment – and it was 50 pages long on its own. Such papers tell the story of a different, better yesterday, of orderly procedures, of peaceful rule of law, transparent processes and binding treaties. On Monday, however, a little more of that world disappeared.

Contracts don't seem to apply any longer in the Baltic Sea. Russia’s war in Ukraine has, it seems, reached Europe's great inland sea and turned its floor into an offshore war zone. On that day, officials reported shocks from the underwater worlds off Denmark and Sweden, in the Bornholm Basin, baffling damage and large-scale destruction.

Initially, reports spoke of three leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, with a fourth added later. It then emerged that the first explosion had taken place in a Russian-built section of the pipeline. The affected pipelines are not currently being used to transport gas, but they were still filled with hundreds of millions of cubic meters of natural gas.

The aerial shots of circles of roiling seawater, a vast whirlpool, immediately became the focus of news reports around the world. But what is the story behind those images? Has Russia really opened up a new front? Did the United States, as immediately discussed by many voices on Twitter and other social media platforms, finally drive a stake in the heart of a pipeline project that it has always strongly opposed? Are Ukrainian forces involved? Is it conceivable that "rogue units" were at work, out-of-control intelligence agencies that wanted to write history on their own? Or was it, as is often reflexively whispered in conspiracy theorist circles when it comes to processing unexpected and perplexing developments, Israeli's Mossad?

[...]

The seabed has been a theater of operations for militaries for decades. The neural pathways of global trade and the pipelines and cables for energy and communications run along the bottom of the sea. The technical term is critical infrastructure. And even though it is extremely difficult to reach, it is also extremely vulnerable and irreplaceable.

Known in military circles as "seabed warfare," several countries have the operational assets and specialized forces for this hostile underwater world, but they are unevenly distributed. Within the EU, Ireland, Portugal and France are particularly active in this realm, according to an analysis commissioned by the European Parliament in June. The primary concern of the analysis was to address the vulnerability of European submarine cables, which the authors concluded is excessively high.

In February, then-French Defense Minister Florence Parly unveiled a comprehensive new seabed-warfare strategy for the French navy. In addition to protecting French resources, it explicitly addresses underwater transport routes for electricity, oil, gas and data. "France wants to defend its sovereignty, its resources and its infrastructure even in the depths of the ocean," Parly said. The minister referred to similar projects by the Chinese and the British. To strengthen its own capabilities down to a depth of 6,000 meters, the French navy plans to invest primarily in autonomous underwater drones and remote-controlled mini submarines.

Officially, it's always about defense capabilities. A leaked 2008 U.S. Department of Homeland Security document that identified critical infrastructure targets at particular risk around the world listed pipelines such as the Druzhba – the two Nord Stream pipelines didn't yet exist at the time – in addition to key submarine cables and their landing points that they deemed to be worthy of protection.

But those countries with the ability to monitor the seabed and defend assets there are, of course, also capable of attacking the undersea assets of others or committing sabotage. The June EU analysis identified "maritime improvised explosive devices" (MIEs) and mines as possible weapons that could cause massive damage underwater. The report provides detailed consideration to only two possible opponents: Russia and China.

NATO says it has been observing increased Russian submarine activity near key cable routes since as early as 2015. Moscow is evidently showing increased interest in the underwater infrastructure of NATO member states, a senior alliance military official is quoted as saying.

On the day of the explosions in the Baltic Sea, German Navy Inspector Jan Christian Kaack pointed to the strategic importance of underwater warfare and the role played in it by the Kremlin in an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt. "Russia has built up significant capacity underwater," he said. "There is quite a bit of critical infrastructure like pipelines or submarine cables for IT on the floor of the Baltic Sea, but also the Atlantic."

German intelligence officials with the BND also believe that Russia's military has the know-how and equipment to operate on the seabed. Western intelligence agencies, for example, know of underwater robots in Russia's inventory that have the capability of traveling from Russia along the pipeline to potential attack sites to plant explosive charges. They are currently trying to determine where these robots were last located. Government sources say that the BND will also now investigate all movements in the Baltic Sea going back to Jan. 1, 2022.

The Germans were warned in summer by the CIA about a possible attack scenario on the Nord Stream pipelines. U.S. intelligence claimed to have intercepted Russian communications in which concerns were expressed about possible Ukrainian attacks on Western infrastructure. The Ukrainians allegedly tried to rent a boat in Sweden for this purpose. The CIA did not consider the scenario of a Ukrainian attack to be very credible, but the mere fact that the possibility of an attack on Western infrastructure was mentioned by the Russian side prompted the Americans to warn the Germans about the scenario.

There were other reasons to suggest Russian responsibility for the attack, they said at a closed-door meeting this week in which intelligence officials briefed the chancellor and other officials. They said the action was intended to throw the gas market into chaos and drive up the price of gas. Perhaps Russia also wanted to show the world that it was capable and determined to carry out such an attack – a warning shot, in other words.

[...]

One rather convoluted theory that nevertheless provides a convincing Russian motive goes as follows: The German BND foreign intelligence agency believes that the destruction of the pipeline could potentially have been undertaken to evade possible lawsuits for damages incurred by the suspension of gas deliveries. In the past, whenever Russia has throttled gas deliveries or used its energy supplies as a political tool, those responsible have always sought to present technical, economic or otherwise unassailable constraints as arguments to ward off potential legal action.

According to this logic, Moscow's motive for destroying its own pipelines stems from the idea that natural gas deliveries aren't possible if the pipelines are destroyed. And if deliveries aren't possible, then Russia cannot fulfil its contractual obligations – and Moscow would not be legally liable. In other words, a ruined pipeline represents force majeure – it's beyond Russia's control. A strange argument, perhaps, but certainly plausible.

Russian energy expert Mikhail Krutikhin, a Russian energy expert who believes that Russia is behind the explosions, believes that the avoidance of contractual penalties is more than just plausible. "Gazprom was apparently ordered long ago to cut deliveries to Europe but to avoid contractual penalties. And for that, one must prove force majeure," Krutikhin told DER SPIEGEL.

Krutikhin says that Gazprom has the technology to damage the pipelines using so-called "piglets," the small robots that are able to move through the pipeline for maintenance or inspection purposes. "Theoretically, it is possible to attach an explosive charge to them."

The analyst is certain that sabotage is in the Gazprom toolbox. The company, he says, tried one month ago to destroy the Ukrainian pipelines. "They upped the pressure without warning the Ukrainians. That could have produced serious damage on the Ukrainian side if they hadn't responded in time." This behavior, he says, is a typical Gazprom tactic which was used as early as 2010 in Turkmenistan.

And yet, intelligence agencies also believe there are strong arguments against Russian involvement. Top officials said this week that irreparably damaging its own pipeline is not in Russia's interest. It is especially nonsensical if Moscow wants to reserve the option of resuming natural gas deliveries to Europe at some point in the future – and to continue using energy as a political lever. Myriad questions remain unanswered.

[...]

The vulnerability of critical infrastructure is something that NATO has long been concerned about. In June 2021, national leaders from the alliance issued a statement called the "Strengthened Resilience Commitment," which today reads like a dark premonition of an energy war with Russia. "We will step up efforts to secure and diversify our supply chains, as well as to ensure the resilience of our critical infrastructure," the statement reads. "We will bolster our efforts to meet challenges to our energy security."

At its June summit this year in Madrid, NATO strengthened its commitment to resilience, and it not only became part of the strategic concept that determines the alliance's future alignment. The summit declaration also mentions "national-developed goals and implementation plans" for the strengthening of infrastructure. It's just that not much has apparently happened since then.

Europe, in particular, is lagging when it comes to the protection of undersea pipelines and cables, because countries have competing views on how important it is. In France, it is seen as a "key issue" in military planning, but in Denmark, it is primarily in the hands of private companies, as an EU analysis published in June makes clear. The report notes that Europe can deal with minor damages but warns that "a number of very vulnerable sites exist." It also says that several countries have the capability and potentially the intent to attack the EU data network. While cables and pipelines are frequently mentioned in EU strategies, the analysis notes, "hardly any actions and programs address the issue directly."

The report's authors believe the risk of a large-scale attack on undersea cables to be low, "considering it could equate to an act of war." Since Monday of this week, however, it seems likely that such views will appear in a different light – and defining what, precisely, constitutes an act of war and identifying appropriate responses is more urgent that ever.

[...]

https://www.spiegel.de/international/sabotage-in-the-baltic-nord-stream-attacks-expose-vulnerability-of-european-infrastructure-a-03337f93-a32a-40a1-9266-fc2692289e33

[urbanoid]

2 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

By Maik Baumgärtner, Markus Becker, Ullrich Fichtner, Matthias Gebauer, Claus Hecking, Martin Knobbe, Marina Kormbaki, Marcel Rosenbach, Fidelius Schmid, Anna-Sophie Schneider und Gerald Traufetter

Is it 'our' Markus Becker?