As Germany’s electricity and natural gas prices soar, a wave of com... prices have multiplied since early this year.
Blackout News here reports toilet paper maker Hakle has filed for insolvency, citing “increased energy costs”.
“Tenfold increase in gas and electricity prices”
Others include shoe retailer Görtz, who cite low sales as consumers cut back on their discretionary spending, and automobile supplier Dr. Schneider. Steel producer ArcelorMittal in Hamburg und Bremen are also following.
“With a tenfold increase in gas and electricity prices, which we had to accept within a few months, we are no longer competitive in a market that is 25% supplied by imports. We see an urgent need for political action to get energy prices under control immediately,” said Reiner Blaschek, CEO of ArcelorMittal Germany (Financial Market World).
Another industry sector facing extreme hardship is the bakery industry, which relies heavily of affordable energy. According to Blackout News: “For bakeries, the energy crisis is now worse than the Corona pandemic, according to industry sources. ‘We have the problem as a micro baker that we have to adjust our prices to the raw material and energy prices, of course, which also burdens the customer, if he is also a bit tighter on cash,’ says an affected baker from Heilbronn.”
One baker in our local area has seen his monthly gas bills go from 3000 euros earlier this year to 11,000 euros!
“Severe and long-lasting recession”
The wave of insolvencies has just begun, and is “picking up speed”, writes Blackout News. “What we are seeing now is just the tip of an iceberg. Increased energy prices are affecting all industries, whether directly, as in the case of steel mills and bakeries, or indirectly, as in the case of shoe retailer Görtz. If politicians do not take countermeasures here, Germany will fall into a severe and long-lasting recession, with mass unemployment and a massive loss of prosperity.”
Germany’s Spiraling Green Energy Catastrophe: “6 Million Jobs At Ri...
Prof. of Chemistry and energy expert Fritz Vahrenholt interviewed Milena Preradovic in her Punkt.PRERADOVIC podcast.
Currently Germany’s energy supply is crashing to pieces as costs skyrocket. Companies are closing and consumers are reeling from double digit inflation. Mass unrest threatens this winter. Those responsible for the mess are trying to blame Russia for all the woes.
But Fritz Vahrenholt makes it clear in the interview who is to blame: government incompetence.
Preradovic: “Is Putin’s war really to blame for Germany’s energy disaster?”
No, says chemist, politician, manager, author and energy expert Prof. Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt:
The failed transition to green energies is responsible.”
Vahrenholt warns:
If it continues like this, energy prices will never again fall to normal levels.”
Vahrenholt fears the decline of Germany as an industrial nation. The former environmental senator of Hamburg of the SPD socialists, calls for keeping nuclear power plants running and also getting back to coal.
There is already a technology for green coal, but nobody wants to know about it.”
In the interview, Vahrenholt also says the government could very well take steps to bring down the country’s spiraling energy costs, but it refuses to do so, and so Germany is quickly losing its competitiveness and businesses are throwing in the towel.
Vahrenholt said that the dirty secret behind green energies was reliance on Russian gas to meet demand whenever wind and sun failed to show up. That model was put into place with the support of almost every German political party over the past decades.
“Everyone knows that for every additional wind turbine needs back-up by a conventional energy source as long as there is no energy storage available,” says Vahrenholt, and reminds listeners that hydrogen currently is three to four times more expensive due to energy loss in the many conversion stages involved in using the energy. “We lose about 75% of the energy.” Not an option.
6 million jobs on the brink
On Germany’s rising electricity and gas prices, Vahrenholt issues a dire warming. “If we continue to push up electricity costs, then we are not going to be competitive any longer. We’re going to lose the raw materials industry if we continue on this path.”…”We are playing with 6 million jobs.”
“I fear, in any case, that the pressure will have to be much higher, the damage much greater, before there’s an awakening in Germany,” says Vahrenholt.”
Willful destruction
When asked if the destruction of the industry is willful, Vahrenholt says: “Yes, I believe this is being bought cheaply as acceptable. the loss of industry.” He adds, that it is unbelievable how Germany’s Minister of Economics, Robert Habeck (Green Party), is accepting the dire consequences of this misguided and destructive energy policy. “Olaf Scholz has to bring his Economics Minister back in line!”
The spiraling energy costs situation is so dramatic that Vahrenholt calls it “a national emergency”.
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