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Gone with the wind?

While contradicting the energy turnaround, the German “power generation safeguarding bill” may benefit EU nuclear power suppliers.


There are few projects that have thrilled the self-baptized “progress coalition” in the Federal Republic of Germany more than the energy revolution. Not only the Green party, but also Social Democrats and Free Democrats predicted, while signing their coalition contract late in 2021, that the third-largest industrial power in the world would soon become independent of energy production based on fossil fuels. Thus, not only the exit from nuclear but also, latest in 2038, from coal were part of the deal. To compensate, barriers against the extensive build-up of wind farms and solar panels were to be abolished largely, in combination with the exploration of hydrogen technology.


Three years (and, admittedly, two wars…) into the coalition, the outlook has turned rather grim. While there can be no (or only little) doubt about the sustainability of wind and solar power generation, the debate is heating up in Germany about the two other corners of the magical energy policy triangle: affordability and disposability. Energy prices are significantly higher than in other European, and not only European, countries, where taxes and levies on energy consumption are lower. At the same time, as data centres, thermal heat pumps and “green steel” boost energy demand to unexpected new levels, it becomes all too obvious that it will be difficult to serve these demands even if more than two percent of German soil will be sacrificed to the implementation of wind mills and solar panels. To complicate things further, the expansion of the power grid runs into an increasing degree of local protests. Especially Green voters, in their stately homes, are suddenly waking up to find out that the (techno-)logical consequence of their beloved energy turnaround literally runs through their own backyard…


As an answer, representatives of the coalition point at hydrogen as the key energy source of tomorrow. As secular a society as Germany may be, hydrogen, especially in its green version, has reached the status of an “energy of providence”. Thus, the Federal Government pumps billions of Euros in subsidies into the transformation of, say, steel production from coal-fired to h2. The only trouble is that green, e.g. climate-neutral hydrogen is by definition based on renewable energies which, as shown above, are not being produced to the extent needed at home in Germany. Therefore, in complete contrast to the objective of gaining “energy sovereignty”, Economics and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck as well as his Green party colleague Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, rush around the globe in search of partner countries where the sun shines (or the wind blows) all year long. So desperate their thirst for renewables is that the Greens, of all political parties, pay little to no attention to whether their new partners are either autocratic regimes, such as Qatar, or former German colonies, such as Namibia. On top of that, it apparently has not come to some German minds that the exporters in question might need their precious energy resources for their own purposes.


Given the dilemmas described here, leading business associations as well as the Christian Democratic opposition emphasize that it was a fatal mistake to close down the last German nuclear power plants in the spring of 2023. Simultaneously, the EU has recently categorized nuclear power as sustainable. The Greens, however, categorically refuse any debate about a nuclear renaissance. Instead, the ministry in charge recently submitted a “power generation safeguarding bill” whose core idea is to build entirely new power plants which, for the time being, will be fuelled by: gas. This is peak political irony if you bear in mind that the key narrative of the energy turnaround has always been to exit from fossils. “Wait a minute”, the defenders of the bill say, “in five or six years the new plants will be run on the basis of green hydrogene, replacing fossil gas”. Word! But once again, neither has anyone presented a scheme on how to scale energy generation based on h2 – nor does green h2 exist to the degree needed.


The consequence? To sustain Germany as a global top three industrial location, more and more energy will need to be imported, especially from EU neighbour states. However, in an increasing number of EU partner countries, an important pillar of their power portfolio is nuclear – a hard nut to crack for Green parties all over Europe. But, when it comes to sober industrial reality, some of your bold transformative dreams may simply go with the wind.

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