David McWilliams: Putin knows West’s economic strength is its weak spot

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...-economic-strength-is-its-weak-spot-1.4811284

Trade will have as much bearing as tanks on Ukraine’s endgame, and the West’s hand is weak​

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The entire western strategy against [broken link removed] is an economic one. The economic implications of the current conflict can be broken down into three broad areas.

The first concerns financial markets over the next few weeks and months, particularly commodity prices. In economics terms, Russia is a large petrol station, with a productive wheat farm attached to it. As well as being the second largest oil exporter in the world, Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter.

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The second area that will be critical over the coming months is the extent to which economic and financial sanctions will deter Moscow. There are various types of restrictions, beginning with the mafia boss approach, where the West treats Putin like a mafia don and makes life uncomfortable for the Russian oligarchs whom he has fostered and who in turn bolster him.

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The third economic area of concern will be the impact of this war on the entire global economy. Are we now hurtling towards a recession, as inflation rises and international demand slows, revealing the underlying fractures in the world economy, not least the huge build-up of debt in the West and China? Is Putin’s greatest weapon the very instrument that the West is hoping to use against him, namely the assumed strength of the western economy?

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This is a good read anyway, but particularly for me as the more I’ve become interested (obsessed?) with renewable energies and the electrification of transport and how they would better the world, the more I feel one of the biggest benefits could be stemming the torrents of money we send to the likes of Russia and the Middle East for oil. We wouldn’t be under Putin’s thumb now, we wouldn’t be suffering blowback from interventions in the ME over oil and the peoples of Russia/ME might have democratic governments who would allow them live more normal prosperous lives.

The economic impact of this war in Ukraine will likely run to hundreds of billions, wars in the Middle East have cost trillions. How about we get off that merry-go-round and spend that kind of money on transitioning to renewable energies in a serious way before the next war?

I confess to the same obsession!

You might find this interview interesting.

Andrew Forrest made billions mining iron ore. Now he's become an evangelist for renewable energy in a conversion that has sparked both hope and doubt.

Zenith63 said:

How about we get off that merry-go-round and spend that kind of money on transitioning to renewable energies in a serious way before the next war?

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Because we are ideologically opposed to Nuclear, the only viable renewable green energy. As long as we continue to thing that wind and solar are the solution there'll be no solution.

Purple said:

Because we are ideologically opposed to Nuclear, the only viable renewable green energy. As long as we continue to thing that wind and solar are the solution there'll be no solution.

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I'm a big fan of nuclear, but do you not think this argument is similar to the one that we should all change to cycling to solve the world's problems? Same for mass public transport in Ireland - yes it would be great, but we're decades away even if we poured billions into it and did away with all the planning stuff tomorrow. These might factually accurate solutions, but realistically they're not going to happen in Ireland so discussing them is academic and distracting.

Personally I think what is realistic for Ireland is to significantly scale up the connectors to France and the UK (so we can import nuclear power without the crazies noticing it) while rolling out solar and wind on a massive scale (so we can cover our needs most of the time and be an energy exporter to help balance the books when we need to import nuclear). Overhaul planning and throw money at these and they could actually begin tomorrow and begin having an impact within months.

Zenith63 said:

I'm a big fan of nuclear, but do you not think this argument is similar to the one that we should all change to cycling to solve the world's problems? Same for mass public transport in Ireland - yes it would be great, but we're decades away even if we poured billions into it and did away with all the planning stuff tomorrow. These might factually accurate solutions, but realistically they're not going to happen in Ireland so discussing them is academic and distracting.

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Modern Nuclear is absolutely a solution in Ireland, just as it is everywhere else. It's intrinsically safe and used existing nuclear waste as a fuel source. We can build all the wind and solar we want but globally we'll be resource constrained and we'll lose way too much through the transmission network before we come close to fixing the problem.

Zenith63 said:

Personally I think what is realistic for Ireland is to significantly scale up the connectors to France and the UK (so we can import nuclear power without the crazies noticing it) while rolling out solar and wind on a massive scale (so we can cover our needs most of the time and be an energy exporter to help balance the books when we need to import nuclear). Overhaul planning and throw money at these and they could actually begin tomorrow and begin having an impact within months.

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I agree completely in relation to the interconnectors. We've been using Nuclear power for decades, our power plants are in Wales.

Purple said:

Modern Nuclear is absolutely a solution in Ireland, just as it is everywhere else. It's intrinsically safe and used existing nuclear waste as a fuel source.

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Sorry when I said ‘in Ireland’ what I meant (cryptically I see now) was that while nuclear is technically feasible for Ireland (the chunk of land floating in the Atlantic), I don’t believe it is feasible with Irish planning, Irish people objecting, the Irish government running the project or the reality of Ireland’s funding situation. Just as everybody switching to bikes or us having a world-class public transport system are technically feasible, but will never ever happen and we distract ourselves talking about them. Go all in on something that is actually feasible for us I say and start yesterday.