Poised to split the EU and poison the climate for generations, the controversial Nord Stream 2 fossil gas pipeline is almost complete. With Russian Premier Vladimir Putin its nominal chief, the €10 billion project to transport Siberian gas to western European markets is headed by a former German Chancellor and a former spy in the East German Secret Police. To understand how such a project could come this far, despite tightening environmental regulations and ever more alarming scientific evidence, one must look at the personalities behind the pipeline. In the second in a series of posts, lead blogger L. Michael Buchsbaum reviews the strange bedfellows created by Nord Stream 2’s climate killing politics. Russian Gas Attack As you read this, Russian state-owned Gazprom and its western oil and gas partners are about to finish construction of the Nord Stream 2 (NS2) fossil gas pipeline. Once in operation, NS2 will transport some 55 billion cubic­ meters (bcm) of gas from newly devel­oped deposits in the remote Siberian Yamal Peninsula bypassing Ukraine via a new route under … Continue reading Nord Stream 2: Putin’s Fossil Money Pipeline into Germany