Pipelines are meant to be safe, reliable and deadly boring. Yet the 9.5 billion euros ($11 billion) Nord Stream 2 (NS2) pipeline, which will double the natural-gas carrying capacity from Russia to Germany when it is completed this year, is as controversial as energy projects come. For years it has caused rifts between Europe and America, and within Europe. Germany vigorously supports it, a point Angela Merkel, the chancellor, is sure to make in her meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington, DC, this week. Poland says it is anti-competitive. Ukraine sees it as a potential Russian noose around its neck. America opposes the pipeline, arguing that it hands too much market (and therefore geopolitical) power to Vladimir Putin, Russia’s autocratic ruler. Yet, for all that, the massive pipes have been laid across the Baltic sea and, barring last-minute snags, gas will start flowing through them soon. Why is it such a geopolitical problem? And why is it going ahead regardless?
Ukraine's Energy Challenge
The Economist: Why Nord Stream 2 is the world’s most controversial energy project
(FILES) In this file photo taken on March 26, 2019 a pipe is seen at the construction site of the so-called Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Lubmin, northeastern Germany.
