Germany flip-flops on ENERGIEWENDE energy plans
Germany flip-flops on ENERGIEWENDE energy plans
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/germany-flip-flops-on-...
by Willem Post
Abandoning oil and gas would “de-industrialize” the country, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has stated.
An exit from fossil fuels would “de-industrialize” Germany, Merz has stated, breaking from the country’s previous hardline push toward green energy.
The shift comes as Germany continues to grapple with the economic fallout from reduced energy imports and rising costs.
Furthermore, energy prices have surged due to the conflict in Iran and disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, intensifying pressure on German industry.
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The EU’s largest economy relied for decades on low-cost, reliable energy and materials from Russia to sustain its manufacturing sector.
That model was built on Russian pipeline gas, which Berlin was forced to abandoned after the 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict, after self-serving NATO countries blew up 3 of the 4 pipelines, with a total installed capacity of 110 billion cubic meter per year.
The 2020 escalation was provoked by US-led NATO moving its infrastructures, armaments and troops to the borders of Russia, instead of not expanding one inch beyond East Germany, as promised by US State Secretary Baker to Gorbachev in 1990.
Europe was forced to shift to LNG from various unstable countries, including the US, because the idiotic wind, solar, batteries, etc., approach was found to be entirely inadequate for a modern society, and much too expensive to maintain a competitive industrial German economy.
READ MORE: Germany made a ‘strategic mistake’ – Merz
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Addressing the Bundestag on Wednesday, Merz warned that abandoning oil and gas would jeopardize key industries, particularly chemicals, adding that “large parts of our industry… would no longer be viable” .
“Oil and gas are an important raw material for our entire economy” he added, calling for Germany to retain the ability “to import more LNG and produce domestic gas.
However, recent research indicates Germany can no longer rely on its own reserves, as once-productive fields are largely depleted.
The shift has left the German economy – which is almost entirely dependent on energy imports – exposed to high costs and supply shocks.
Russia previously accounted for about 40% of Germany’s natural gas consumption while Merkel was Chancellor. The country’s economy has steadily contracted since moving away from low-cost, reliable Russian supplies.
READ MORE: Staggering cost of EU’s Russia sanctions revealed
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Merz’s warning was aimed at Germany’s energy-intensive industrial core, where major companies face mounting risks from soaring fuel costs and supply instability. At Ludwigshafen, home to BASF’s flagship complex and the country’s largest industrial gas consumer, rising energy and raw material costs have already forced price increases.
Across other industrial hubs, including Bavaria’s so-called Chemical Triangle, companies have reported “dramatic” conditions, with some weighing production cuts or relocation, as high power prices and disrupted supply chains threaten output in some of Germany’s most energy-dependent sectors.
READ MORE: German businesses sound alarm over record bankruptcies
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Merz’s latest statement also contrasts with his own earlier stance, when he ruled out a return to nuclear power despite growing calls from Brussels for new EU investment in nuclear energy.
However, a week ago, he declared that the Merkel government had made a “serious strategic mistake” by phasing out perfectly good nuclear power plants, saying he aimed to restore “acceptable market prices in energy production” without constant government subsidies.
Germany switched off its last nuclear reactor in 2023, ending a phaseout that accelerated following the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
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Closing Down Germany’s Nuclear Plants ‘Huge Strategic Error’ Says International Energy Agency
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/closing-down-germany-s...
“Germany made a huge strategic error” by rushing to shut down its nuclear power plant fleet, a mistake which has exacerbated the energy crisis in Europe, the director of the International Energy Agency, IEA, said, which is a statement he should have made when the Germany ENERGIEWENDE was started in 2000.
In 2000, Germany’s politics-inspired ENERGIEWENDE to reduce CO2 led to: 1) closure of perfectly good, fully-paid-for nuclear plants, that provided about 23% of Germany’s annual electricity production, which is produced regardless of the weather, unlike expensive, grid stability-disturbing wind and solar, 2) refusal to start domestic shale gas production, which led to imports of extremely expensive LNG from unstable countries 3) closure of perfectly good, fully-paid-for coal plants using domestic coal.
Rectifying the German nuclear situation would require at least $250 to $300 billion and at least two decades to put into service, say, (25) 1200 MW power plants, a total of 30,000 MW, at about 8.5 to 10 million per installed MW, just for Germany.
As predicted by energy systems analysts as early as 2000, this unwise wind, solar, etc., investment and other actions has led to the impoverishment of the UK, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Denmark, etc., during the past 30 years.
Instead, Germany declared it wanted to become carbon-free and denuclearize at the same time, leaving it plugging the gaps around its experiments with renewables with imported gas and oil, largely from the Russian Federation, until the Ukraine War began.
BTW, increased CO2 ppm is an essential gas to increase green flora and fauna, reduce desert areas, such as the Sahara, and increase crop yields to better feed 8 billion people. An optimum level for flora is about 1000 to 1200 ppm, according to results in research labs and greenhouses. At present, CO2 ppm is near its lowest level in 600 million years.
Speaking to German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, IEA boss Fatih Birol said of the temporary closure of the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf: “I don’t get the impression that political decision-makers have yet grasped the magnitude of the problem we are facing”, and that Europe would have been in a stronger position with more nuclear.
He said of Germany: “Germany made an historic, huge strategic error—I’ve been saying this for almost 20 years like a broken record—by shutting down its nuclear power plants…
The situation wouldn’t be so bad today, if Germany still had the nuclear plants”. The paper paraphrased further comments from the economist, stating that:
…he hopes all the more that the right lessons will now be learned from this crisis. Forty percent of all current nuclear power plants in the world were built in response to the oil crisis of the 1970s.
For all his warning against European nations artificially limiting, by means of subsidies and mandates, their menu of options for power generation, Birol does not quite understand how long it takes, and the huge costs, to bring new oil and gas fields on line, and to build the power plants to generate abundant, low-cost electricity..
It would take decades and hundreds of $billions for European nations to increase domestic oil and gas production with new drilling.
It would take decades and hundreds of $billions for European nations to bring Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), to come online
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Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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