Oh well!

Hoping Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov, is impressed

with these comrades at least http://youtu.be/PUoO4T_23pA

One of the more erudite of authors is our Binoy. Always with strong doses of scepticism and more than a touch of sarcasm: And further on that one Maverick, I fail to see the connection between the YMCA , the Village People and the Ukrainian Crisis. Fill me in.

With the Pommies unaware of the difference between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, it matters little to me if they land their military might in the wrong place to fight the Russians.
The Royal Navy have skin in the game on this blunder. Over a hundred years ago they managed to land the Australian Anzac troops on the wrong beach.

Dan

Doesn't matter who howls! It matters how much the UK backs those howls with action. And the EU! the EU and Its friends and allies need to find and develop new energy sources at home! Energy that is never ever dependent on Russia or any Russian pipeline And for mine that has to be, endlessly sustainable biogas, plus diesel and jet fuel alternatives made from seawater. That latter only viable, if those economies are nuclear powered via ultra safe, reliable, dispatchable, MSR thorium!
Alan B.

We live in a fool's paradise. Governed by fools on the hill, to wrapped up in domestic power struggles to see that we are sleepwalking toward a disaster we try as we might, to ignore.

Australia could be rendered practically defenceless by three or four well aimed tactical nuclear weapons! Given our failure to decentralise!

And drought proof our arid interior with job and wealth creating infrastructure that just keeps on giving years past its construction dates.

Deionization dialysis desalination and pipelines a good place to start. With rapid rail and nuclear power projects that serve those new inland communities that should already been there but for the incompetence of former governments afraid to do more than cozy up to cronies and pork barrel like there's no tomorrow when an election is due!?
Alan B.

Or Alan, more realistically, the poms could just boor a few holes & collect the gas sitting under their feet.

Hasbeen. All well and good. but what you're suggesting is hit or miss and a very finite resource! Whereas, we/they cannot run out of biogas nor alternatives derived from inexhaustable seawater!

At the moment this biogas is still made in worm farms, compost and garbage dumps and just allowed to escape. But if collected, then passed through a catalyst can be converted to methanol and used to replace petrol/Avgas for not very much! We/they need to get out from under the likes of BP and their profit at all costs imperative.

An imperative that works well for Russia but not the UK, Ukraine or Europe or us!

Besides, the remaining pockets of NG are getting smaller and smaller and ever more costly to recover, whereas we can never ever runout of far cheaper biogas! It's the economy, stupid!
Alan B.