"November 14, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
, opens new tab
"WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday that he was creating a National Energy Council to coordinate policies to boost U.S. energy production that will be led by his pick for interior secretary, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. The National Energy Council will represent federal departments and agencies involved in permitting and regulating all forms of energy, the statement said.
"This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation," Trump said in a statement."
How is this supposed to work? Denmark got 81% of its electricity in 2022 from renewables, predominantly wind. For Spain, the share of zero-carbon electricity in generation in October 2034 was the same, 81%, including 20% from legacy nuclear plants. These countries are ahead of the EU average for electricity, and the transport and buildings sectors are still heavily reliant on gas and oil. However Europe is moving steadily ahead towards a fossil-free energy supply. It has not escaped policymakers that in addition to slashing emissions, the policy will also emancipate Europe from dependence on unreliable partners like Russia, the USA, and petrostates. Trump's policy leads not to dominance but irrelevance.
Correction. Kevin Drum reports Russian inflation is around 7%. There are >20% spikes in salient food items including eggs and butter. No general crisis, but as we have seen in the USA, these can be enough to cause widespread irritation.
Russian Railways is generally well-run and modern, one of the short list of positive legacies of the Soviet Union, like its Indian counterpart left by the Raj in 1947. Russia is the largest country on Earth, and even in peacetime the economy is unusually dependent on rail transport. War has added the large priority demands of military logistics.
Three news items reveal some of the strains it is facing.
“The Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region has prompted Russia to move soldiers from all over the country to contain the Ukrainian advance, says the Belarusian Railway Workers Association (BelZhD). The inflow of soldiers to the new front by train has overcrowded stations in the region. For that reason, Russian Railways (RZD) says it can no longer accept freight trains coming in from Belarus in the direction of the Smolensk and Kursk regions.
RZD notified its Belarusian counterparts about the infrastructure overload, according to BelZhD. Russian Railways put the measure in place on 12 August with no end date mentioned, which likely means Moscow itself does not know when it can resolve the issues.
“Russian Railways lacks about 2.5 thousand drivers: now there are more than 118 thousand people, and 120.5 thousand are needed, from the words of the company's deputy general director Dmitry Shakhanov. [..] Russian Railways previously reported that since November 2024, they have increased the salaries of machinists and their assistants by 15-20% and introduced a payment of 150,000 rubles when applying for these positions." https://www.oreanda-news.com/en/gosudarstvo/russian-railways-is-missing-about-2-5-thousand-drivers/article1535983/
The spare parts problem is the result of sanctions, and affects all industrial sectors. The shortage of drivers is self-inflcted. It results from Putin’s decision not to introduce conscription. One essential feature of a war economy under conscription is a list of exempted occupations – not just permissive but coercive. The UK introduced such a system from the start of WW2; train drivers, along with policemen, doctors, farmers, shipbuilding and dockworkers etc, were generally not allowed to volunteer. The comprehensive system drew on the experience of WW1. Conscription in Britain (not Ireland) was introduced by the Military Service Act of 1916, most of which is about the system of individual and collective exemptions. However, munitions workers had already been blocked from volunteering in 1915 by the Munitions of War Act, bringing the entire sector under tight state control.
Putin is not prepared to go as far as Asquith, or even Jefferson Davis. His war is still not admitted as such, even though there is heavy fighting on undisputed Russian soil in Kursk, and overall Russian casualties are claimed by the Ukrainian General Staff to have passed 720,000. Similarly he maintains the fiction that only volunteers are sent into combat in his “special military operation”, including many coerced young men from ethnic minorities and convicts. The aim is to reducing the impact of the war on ethnic Russians from the cities, who up to now have stayed in a cognitive cocoon, largely indifferent to the unfolding disaster.
The problems in Russian Railways are evidently serious, but not crippling - yet. But consider. The company is a strong and competent one as Russian institutions go. The situation is worse in civil aviation, and the basic services of water, sewerage and district heating have broken down in some provincial towns. Inflation is running at over 20% a year, partly from sanctions-induced supply bottlenecks, partly from the large signing bonuses paid to entice new volunteer soldiers.
Most important, Putin does not have any visible plan to reverse the gradual but inexorable decay of the Russian economy and military machine, other than praying that Trump will hand him victory for no reason whatever. The army continues to grind forward at the front, but at a staggering price in men and matériel. Some pessimistic Western pundits point to the fact that these losses are roughly balanced by new recruits and weapons, But the quality of both continues to slide. What use is an endless supply of T72 tanks, when a single Ukrainian Leopard 2 can in a few minutes take out “two Russian tanks, an armoured personnel carrier and several other vehicles”? The Leopard’s gun is accurate a whole kilometre more than the T72’s. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/11/13/a-ukrainian-leopard-2-tank-met-a-russian-armored-column-head-on-and-wrecked-it/ The same quality gap is now evident in artillery, drones and infantry tactics.
If I were Syrski, I think I would be planning long-range attacks on the Russian rail network, with drone attacks on signal boxes and electrical substations, remote laying of mines with vibration sensors on tracks, and strikes on bridges with the American and Franco-British missiles Biden is finally releasing.
Russians are heading into a difficult winter. They deserve it..
Energy machismo
"November 14, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
, opens new tab
"WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday that he was creating a National Energy Council to coordinate policies to boost U.S. energy production that will be led by his pick for interior secretary, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. The National Energy Council will represent federal departments and agencies involved in permitting and regulating all forms of energy, the statement said.
"This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation," Trump said in a statement."
How is this supposed to work? Denmark got 81% of its electricity in 2022 from renewables, predominantly wind. For Spain, the share of zero-carbon electricity in generation in October 2034 was the same, 81%, including 20% from legacy nuclear plants. These countries are ahead of the EU average for electricity, and the transport and buildings sectors are still heavily reliant on gas and oil. However Europe is moving steadily ahead towards a fossil-free energy supply. It has not escaped policymakers that in addition to slashing emissions, the policy will also emancipate Europe from dependence on unreliable partners like Russia, the USA, and petrostates. Trump's policy leads not to dominance but irrelevance.
Correction. Kevin Drum reports Russian inflation is around 7%. There are >20% spikes in salient food items including eggs and butter. No general crisis, but as we have seen in the USA, these can be enough to cause widespread irritation.
Russian railways under strain
Russian Railways is generally well-run and modern, one of the short list of positive legacies of the Soviet Union, like its Indian counterpart left by the Raj in 1947. Russia is the largest country on Earth, and even in peacetime the economy is unusually dependent on rail transport. War has added the large priority demands of military logistics.
Three news items reveal some of the strains it is facing.
From March 2024: “Russian rail maintenance companies are struggling to acquire enough spare parts to service locomotives. They also face a shortage of highly educated staff. As a result, Russian Railways (RZD) has had to suspend or delay almost 50,000 trains throughout 2023.”. https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2024/03/19/shortages-delay-and-suspend-nearly-50000-trains-in-russia/
From November 2024;
“The Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region has prompted Russia to move soldiers from all over the country to contain the Ukrainian advance, says the Belarusian Railway Workers Association (BelZhD). The inflow of soldiers to the new front by train has overcrowded stations in the region. For that reason, Russian Railways (RZD) says it can no longer accept freight trains coming in from Belarus in the direction of the Smolensk and Kursk regions.
RZD notified its Belarusian counterparts about the infrastructure overload, according to BelZhD. Russian Railways put the measure in place on 12 August with no end date mentioned, which likely means Moscow itself does not know when it can resolve the issues.
BelZhD says that Russia used a significant part of the Moscow Railway locomotive fleet to move its military to Kursk, as soldiers are even taken from the country’s most remote regions. However, there are now many abandoned trains waiting to be taken elsewhere. A shortage of locomotives and drivers hampers RZD’s ability to do so.” https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2024/08/15/russian-rail-faces-collapse-after-ukraines-kursk-invasion/?gdpr=accept
“Russian Railways lacks about 2.5 thousand drivers: now there are more than 118 thousand people, and 120.5 thousand are needed, from the words of the company's deputy general director Dmitry Shakhanov. [..] Russian Railways previously reported that since November 2024, they have increased the salaries of machinists and their assistants by 15-20% and introduced a payment of 150,000 rubles when applying for these positions." https://www.oreanda-news.com/en/gosudarstvo/russian-railways-is-missing-about-2-5-thousand-drivers/article1535983/
The spare parts problem is the result of sanctions, and affects all industrial sectors. The shortage of drivers is self-inflcted. It results from Putin’s decision not to introduce conscription. One essential feature of a war economy under conscription is a list of exempted occupations – not just permissive but coercive. The UK introduced such a system from the start of WW2; train drivers, along with policemen, doctors, farmers, shipbuilding and dockworkers etc, were generally not allowed to volunteer. The comprehensive system drew on the experience of WW1. Conscription in Britain (not Ireland) was introduced by the Military Service Act of 1916, most of which is about the system of individual and collective exemptions. However, munitions workers had already been blocked from volunteering in 1915 by the Munitions of War Act, bringing the entire sector under tight state control.
Putin is not prepared to go as far as Asquith, or even Jefferson Davis. His war is still not admitted as such, even though there is heavy fighting on undisputed Russian soil in Kursk, and overall Russian casualties are claimed by the Ukrainian General Staff to have passed 720,000. Similarly he maintains the fiction that only volunteers are sent into combat in his “special military operation”, including many coerced young men from ethnic minorities and convicts. The aim is to reducing the impact of the war on ethnic Russians from the cities, who up to now have stayed in a cognitive cocoon, largely indifferent to the unfolding disaster.
The problems in Russian Railways are evidently serious, but not crippling - yet. But consider. The company is a strong and competent one as Russian institutions go. The situation is worse in civil aviation, and the basic services of water, sewerage and district heating have broken down in some provincial towns. Inflation is running at over 20% a year, partly from sanctions-induced supply bottlenecks, partly from the large signing bonuses paid to entice new volunteer soldiers.
Most important, Putin does not have any visible plan to reverse the gradual but inexorable decay of the Russian economy and military machine, other than praying that Trump will hand him victory for no reason whatever. The army continues to grind forward at the front, but at a staggering price in men and matériel. Some pessimistic Western pundits point to the fact that these losses are roughly balanced by new recruits and weapons, But the quality of both continues to slide. What use is an endless supply of T72 tanks, when a single Ukrainian Leopard 2 can in a few minutes take out “two Russian tanks, an armoured personnel carrier and several other vehicles”? The Leopard’s gun is accurate a whole kilometre more than the T72’s. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/11/13/a-ukrainian-leopard-2-tank-met-a-russian-armored-column-head-on-and-wrecked-it/ The same quality gap is now evident in artillery, drones and infantry tactics.
If I were Syrski, I think I would be planning long-range attacks on the Russian rail network, with drone attacks on signal boxes and electrical substations, remote laying of mines with vibration sensors on tracks, and strikes on bridges with the American and Franco-British missiles Biden is finally releasing.
Russians are heading into a difficult winter. They deserve it..