普京已经用能源炸弹拿捏住我们了 - 纽约时报中文网

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As the Russian Army continues to falter in Ukraine, the world is worrying that Vladimir Putin could use a tactical nuclear weapon . Maybe — but for now, I think Putin is assembling a different weapon. It’s an oil and gas bomb that he’s fusing right before our eyes and with our inadvertent help — and he could easily detonate it this winter.

随着俄军在乌克兰的行动继续受挫，全世界都在担心弗拉基米尔·普京可能会使用战术核武器 。也许吧，但就目前而言，我认为普京正在组装另一种武器。这是一枚石油和天然气炸弹，他就在我们眼前，在我们不经意地帮助下，给炸弹安装引信——今年冬天，他可以轻而易举地引爆它。

If he does, it could send prices of home heating oil and gasoline into the stratosphere. The political fallout, Putin surely hopes, will divide the Western alliance and prompt many countries — including ours, where both MAGA Republicans and progressives are expressing concerns about the spiraling cost of the Ukraine conflict — to seek a dirty deal with the man in the Kremlin, pronto.

如果他这么做了，那么家庭取暖用油和汽油的价格可能会飙升。普京当然希望，这样的政治后果将分裂西方联盟，并促使许多国家——包括我们的国家，主张“恢复美国伟大荣光”的共和党人 和进步派人士 都对乌克兰冲突不断上升的成本表示担忧——立即寻求与克里姆林宫的人达成肮脏的交易。

In short: Putin is now fighting a ground war to break through Ukraine’s lines and a two-front energy war to break Ukraine’s will and that of its allies. He’s trying to smash Ukraine’s electricity system to ensure a long, cold winter there while putting himself in position (in ways that I’ll explain) to drive up energy costs for all of Ukraine’s allies. And because we — America and the West — do not have an energy strategy in place to dampen the impact of Putin’s energy bomb, this is a frightening prospect.

简而言之，普京现在正在打一场突破乌克兰防线的地面战争，以及一场摧毁乌克兰及其盟友意志的双线能源战争。他试图摧毁乌克兰的电力系统，令那里度过一个漫长而寒冷的冬天，同时让自己可以抬高乌克兰所有盟友的能源成本（我会在后面解释他会怎么做）。由于我们——美国和西方国家——没有一个适当的能源战略来抑制普京能源炸弹的影响，这是一个可怕的前景。

When it comes to energy, we want five things at once that are incompatible — and Putin is onto us:

说到能源，我们想同时拥有五种互不兼容的东西，而普京已经拿捏住了我们：

1. We want to decarbonize our economy as fast as we can to mitigate the very real dangers of climate change.

1. 我们希望经济尽快去碳化，以减轻气候变化带来的非常现实的危险。

2. We want the cheapest possible gasoline and heating oil prices so we can drive our cars as fast and as much as we want — and never have to put on a sweater indoors or do anything to conserve energy.

2. 我们希望得到尽可能便宜的汽油和取暖用油，这样我们就可以随心所欲地开快车、多开车，也不必在室内穿毛衣，或者做任何节约能源的事情。

3. We want to tell the petrodictators in Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to take a hike.

3. 我们想告诉伊朗、委内瑞拉和沙特阿拉伯的石油独裁者们，别碍我们的事。

4. We want to be able to treat U.S. oil and gas companies as pariahs and dinosaurs that should pump us out of this current oil crisis and then go off in the woods and die and let solar and wind take over.

4. 我们希望孤立美国的石油和天然气公司，让它们成为过时的恐龙，他们应该把我们从当前的石油危机中拯救出来，然后在森林中死去，让太阳能和风能取而代之。

5. Oh, and we don’t want any new oil and gas pipelines or wind and solar transmission lines to spoil our backyards.

5. 哦还有，我们不希望任何新的石油和天然气管道或风能和太阳能输电线路破坏我们的后院。

I understand why people want all five — now. I want all five! But they involve trade-offs, which too few of us want to acknowledge or debate. In an energy war like the one we’re in now, you need to be clear about your goals and priorities. As a country, and as a Western alliance, we have no ladder of priorities on energy, just competing aspirations and magical thinking that we can have it all.

我明白为什么人们想要这五样东西——五个我都要，现在就要！但它们涉及到权衡，很少有人愿意承认或者去讨论这一点。在像我们现在这样的能源战争中，需要搞清目标和优先事项。作为一个国家，作为一个西方联盟，我们在能源问题上没有优先顺序，只有相互竞争的愿望和认为我们可以拥有一切的神奇想法。

If we persist in that, we are going to be in for a world of hurt if Putin drops the energy bomb that I think he’s assembling for Christmas. Here’s what I think is his strategy: It starts with getting the United States to draw down its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is a huge stock of crude oil stored in giant caverns that we can draw on in an emergency to offset any cutoff in our domestic production or imports. Last Wednesday, President Biden announced the release of 15 million more barrels from the reserve in December, completing a plan he laid out earlier to release a total of 180 million barrels in an effort to keep gasoline prices at the pump as low as possible — in advance of the midterm elections. (He didn’t say the last part. He didn’t need to.)

假设我们坚持认为，一旦普京丢下那个我认为他在为圣诞节组装的能源炸弹，我们将进入一个充满痛苦的世界。我认为他的策略是这样的：首先让美国动用其战略石油储备。大量原油库存储藏在巨大洞穴中，我们可以在紧急情况下使用这些原油，以抵消我们国内生产或进口受到的任何中断。上周三，拜登总统宣布 在12月从储备中再释放1500万桶，完成了他早些时候制定的总共释放1.8亿桶的计划，以努力将汽油价格保持在尽可能低的水平——在中期选举之前。（他没有说最后这句。他不需要说。）

According to a report in The Washington Post, the reserve contained “405.1 million barrels as of Oct. 14. That’s about 57 percent of its maximum authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels.”

根据《华盛顿邮报》的一篇报道，该储量“截至10月14日含 4.051亿桶。这大约是其最大授权存储容量7.14亿桶的57%。”

I sympathize with the president. People were really hurting from $5- and $6-a-gallon gasoline. But using the reserve — which was designed to cushion us in the face of a sudden shut-off in domestic or global production — to shave a dime or a quarter off a gallon of gasoline before elections is a dicey business, even if the president has a plan for refilling it in the coming months.

我理解总统的处境。因为五、六美元一加仑的汽油正在对人们造成不小的痛苦。但使用旨在为我们在国内或全球生产突然停产时提供缓冲的储备石油，在选举前让每加仑汽油的价格减少10或25美分是个冒险的做法，即使总统已经计划在未来几个月内对储备进行补充。

Putin wants America to use up as much of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve cushion now — just like the way the Germans gave up on nuclear energy and he got them addicted to Russia’s cheap natural gas. Then, when Russian gas was cut off because of the Ukraine war, German homes and factories had to frantically cut back and scramble for more expensive alternatives.

普京希望美国现在就把战略石油储备缓冲尽可能用光——就像德国人放弃核能并让他们依赖于俄罗斯的廉价天然气一样。然后，当俄罗斯的天然气因乌克兰战争而被切断时，德国的家庭和工厂不得不疯狂地削减开支，奋力寻找昂贵的替代品。

Next, Putin is watching the European Union gear up for a ban on seaborne imports of crude oil from Russia, starting Dec. 5. This embargo — along with Germany and Poland’s move to stop pipeline imports — should cover roughly 90 percent of the European Union’s current oil imports from Russia.

接下来，普京将看着欧盟准备禁止通过海运从俄罗斯进口原油，从12月5日开始。这一禁运——连同德国和波兰停止管道进口的举措——应涵盖欧盟目前从俄罗斯进口的石油的90%左右。

As a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., noted , “Crucially, the sanctions also ban E.U. companies from providing shipping insurance, brokering services or financing for oil exports from Russia to third countries.”

正如华盛顿特区战略与国际研究中心最近的一份报告指出 ，“至关重要的是，制裁 还禁止欧盟公司为俄罗斯向第三国的石油出口提供航运保险、经纪服务或融资。”

The U.S. Treasury and European Union believe that without that insurance, the number of customers for Russian oil will shrink dramatically, so they are telling the Russians that they can get the insurance for their oil tankers from the few Western insurance companies that dominate the industry only if they lower the price of their crude oil exports to a level set by the Europeans and the United States.

美国财政部和欧盟认为，如果没有这种保险，俄罗斯石油的客户数量将急剧减少，因此他们告诉俄罗斯人，他们可以从几个占据该行业主导地位的西方保险公司为油轮购买保险，条件是他们必须将原油出口价格降低到欧洲和美国设定的水平。

My sources in the oil industry tell me they seriously doubt this Western price fixing will work. Russia’s OPEC Plus partner Saudi Arabia is certainly not interested in seeing such a buyers’ price-fixing precedent set. Moreover, international oil trading is full of shady characters — does the name Marc Rich ring a bell? — who thrive on market distortions. Oil tankers carry transponders that track their locations. But tankers engaged in shady activities will turn their transponders off and reappear days after they’ve made a ship-to-ship transfer or will transfer their cargo into storage tanks somewhere in Asia for re-export, in effect laundering their Russian oil. Oil in just one very large tanker can be worth roughly $250 million, so the incentives are enormous.

我在石油行业的消息人士告诉我，他们严重怀疑西方定价方式是否会奏效。俄罗斯的OPEC+合作伙伴沙特阿拉伯肯定不想看到这样的买家定价先例。此外，国际石油交易中到处都是可疑之人——还记得马克·里奇 吗？——他靠市场扭曲赚大钱。油轮携带跟踪其位置的转发器。但从事不正当活动的油轮将关闭转发器并在进行船对船 转运几天后重新出现，或者将其货物转移到亚洲某处的储油罐进行再出口，实际上是在非法销售他们的俄罗斯石油。一艘超大型油轮中的石油价值大约为2.5亿美元，因此动机是巨大的。

Now add one more dodgy player to the mix: China. It has all kinds of long-term, fixed-price contracts to import liquefied natural gas from the Middle East at roughly $100 a barrel of oil equivalent. But because President Xi Jinping’s crazy approach to containing Covid — in recent months some 300 million citizens have been under full or partial lockdown — China’s economy has slowed considerably, as has its gas consumption. As a result, an oil industry source tells me, China has been taking some of the L.N.G. sold to it on those fixed-price contracts for domestic use and reselling it to Europe and other gas-starved countries for $300 a barrel of oil equivalent.

现在再加入一个狡猾的玩家：中国。它从中东进口液化天然气，拥有各种长期、固定价格的合同，价格约为每桶油当量100美元。但由于中国国家主席习近平为遏制新冠疫情采取的疯狂做法——近几个月来，约有3亿公民 处于完全或部分封锁状态——中国经济已大幅放缓，天然气消耗也大幅放缓。一位石油行业消息人士告诉我，中国因此一直在将一部分用固定价格买入、用于国内使用的液化天然气，以每桶油当量300美元的价格转售给欧洲和其他天然气匮乏的国家。

Now that Xi has locked in his third term as general secretary of the Communist Party, many expect that he will ease up on his lockdowns. If China goes back to anything near its normal gas consumption and stops re-exporting its excess, the global gas market will become even more scarily tight.

既然习近平已经锁定了总书记的第三个任期，许多人预计他将放松封控措施。如果中国回到接近天然气正常消费量的水平，并停止用不完的天然气的再出口，全球天然气市场将变得更加紧张。

Last, as I noted, Putin is trying to destroy Ukraine’s ability to generate electricity. Today more than one million Ukrainians are without power, and as one Ukrainian lawmaker tweeted last week, “Total darkness and cold are coming.”

最后，正如我所指出的，普京正试图破坏乌克兰的发电能力。今天，有超过100万乌克兰人用不上电，正如一位乌克兰议员上周发推 说，“全面的黑暗和寒冷即将来临。”

So add all of this up and then suppose, come December, Putin announces he is halting all Russian oil and gas exports for 30 or 60 days to countries supporting Ukraine, rather than submit to the European Union’s fixing of his oil price. He could afford that for a short while. That would be Putin’s energy bomb and Christmas present to the West. In this tight market, oil could go to $200 a barrel, with a commensurate rise in the price of natural gas. We’re talking $10 to $12 a gallon at the pump in the United States.

因此，把所有这些因素加起来，然后假设，到了12月，普京宣布，他将停止向支持乌克兰的国家出口俄罗斯石油和天然气30天或60天，而不是听从欧盟对俄罗斯油价的限定要求。他可以在短时期承受这样做的后果。这将是普京的能源炸弹，也是送给西方的圣诞礼物。在这个供应紧张的市场上，石油可能会涨到每桶200美元，而天然气的价格也会相应上涨。在美国，加油站每加仑汽油可以涨到10到12美元。

The beauty for Putin of an energy bomb is that unlike setting off a nuclear bomb — which would unite the whole world against him — setting off an oil price bomb would divide the West from Ukraine.

对普京来说，能源炸弹的美妙之处在于，与引爆核弹不同，后者将使全世界联合起来反对他，引爆油价炸弹会将西方与乌克兰分开。

Obviously, I am just guessing that this is what Putin is up to, and if the world goes into recession, it could take energy prices down with it. But we would be wise to have a real counterstrategy in place, especially because, while some in Europe have managed to stock up on natural gas for this winter , rebuilding those stocks for 2023 without Russian gas and with China returning to normal could be very costly.

显然，我只是就普京的目的做了一番猜测，如果世界陷入衰退，能源价格也会随之下跌。但我们最好还是拿出一个真正的应对策略，尤其是考虑到，虽然一些欧洲国家已经在设法为今年冬天储备天然气 ，但在没有了俄罗斯天然气供应、中国天然气用量恢复正常的情况下，2023年重建这些储备可能会变得非常昂贵。

If Biden wants America to be the arsenal of democracy to protect us and our democratic allies — and not leave us begging Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela or Iran to produce more oil and gas — we need a robust energy arsenal as much as a military one. Because we are in an energy war! Biden needs to make a major speech, making clear that for the foreseeable future, we need more of every kind of energy we have. American oil and gas investors need to know that as long as they produce in the cleanest way possible, invest in carbon capture and ensure that any new pipelines they build will be compatible with transporting hydrogen — probably the best clean fuel coming down the road in the next decade — they have a welcome place in America’s energy future, alongside the solar, wind, hydro and other clean energy producers that Biden has heroically boosted through his climate legislation.

如果拜登希望美国成为民主的军火库，以保护我们和我们的民主盟友——而不是让我们乞求沙特阿拉伯、俄罗斯、委内瑞拉或伊朗生产更多的石油和天然气——那么，我们就需要一个与军火库同样强大的能源库。因为我们目前正处于一场能源战争中！拜登需要发表一次重要讲话，明确表示在可预见的未来，我们需要更多的各种能源。美国的石油和天然气投资者需要明白，只要他们以尽可能清洁的方式生产、投资于碳捕获，并确保他们建造的所有新管道都可以运送氢气（这可能是下一个十年最好的清洁燃料），那么他们就与拜登通过气候立法大力推动的太阳能、风能、水力和其他清洁能源生产商一样，在美国的能源未来中占有一席之地。

I know. This is not ideal. This is not where I hoped we would be in 2022. But this is where we are, and anything else really is magical thinking — and the one person who will not be fooled by it is Vladimir Putin.

我知道。这不是万全之策。这不是我希望我们在2022年会出现的情况。但这就是我们所处的现实，其他的说法都是异想天开——唯一不会被它愚弄的人，就是弗拉基米尔·普京。