The inferno can even be seen beyond the Finnish border, according to photos by the Finnish broadcaster Yle. Gazprom is said to be flaring gas at Portovaya – the gas compressor station at the start of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline – that is not going to Europe. It is not only an unprecedented waste of energy, it is also very polluting because unprecedented amounts of CO2 upon release. The flaring has since been confirmed by NASA data.
That gas is wasted in this way, while people worldwide cannot pay their energy bills, is as bizarre a paradox as an empty asylum seekers center next to Ter Apel.
In the US, one in six households (20 million in total) is said to have been cut off from gas and electricity because of a payment arrears. In the Netherlands, the government must repair the purchasing power for families who are in trouble because of their energy bills. And Germany already has a rationing plan ready for next winter.
It is unknown how much ‘excess gas’ is set on fire. Gazprom says nothing about it. Russia would have been forced to do so because the storage tanks in the country are full and they can no longer get rid of the gas. But Putin could export much more gas. However, state-owned Gazprom uses only 20 percent of the available capacity of Nord Stream 1. This exerts political pressure and keeps the gas price high. Countries that do not want to pay in rubles, such as the Baltic States, Poland and Bulgaria, do not get gas at all. But Germany was also cut off from Nord Stream for ten days this summer.
Gas flaring is also a structural problem. Even without the war in Ukraine, 150 billion cubic meters of gas are lost worldwide every year – that is more than the EU imported from Russia before the war – due to flaring. At a gas price of 3.45 euros per cubic meter, this means a loss of more than 500 billion euros. A total of 350 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the annual amount of 200 million petrol cars or 60 Tata steel plants the size of IJmuiden. The emission rights alone could make gold money.
Ten countries are responsible for 75 percent of all gas flared: Venezuela, Nigeria, the US, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Mexico, Libya and China, it said. Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report 2022 from the World Bank. The gas flared in Nigeria alone would enable 320 million people to cook for free.
In 2015, many countries, including Russia, decided as part of the World Bank’s 2030 talks to end gas flaring. For this, the logistics would have to be put in order; at all locations, as much gas must be extracted as can be deposited. But halfway through the period to 2030, no progress has been made. In a number of countries (Kazakhstan, Indonesia) the figure is falling, in other countries (Iran, Mexico) it is rising again.
Even with peace in Ukraine, the inferno is not over.