By P Gosselin on 22. March 2022
Germany is saying “auf Wiedersehen” to plentiful and cheap energies and welcoming tight supplies and rationing.
Unless they radically change course, German policymakers will soon be closing the remaining nuclear power plants by the end of the year and coal-fired power plants will be phased out over the coming 15 years.
To make matters worse, European policymakers are moving to phase out fossil fuel powered cars and to replace them with e-vehicles, thus leading to skyrocketing electricity demand precisely when supply is being choked off. Experts warn of blackouts and hyperinflationary energy prices.
Moreover, Europe is moving to profoundly restrict its supply of natural gas from Russia. All these measures taken together are certain to lead to unprecedented energy shortages over the coming years. Therefore, it’s little wonder the government is now scrambling to make plans to ration natural gas when the disastrous shortages arrive.
Government contingency plans now being drawn up
“The government is having a contingency plan drawn up to determine which companies should first stop receiving gas when Russian natural gas fails to arrive,” reports Blackout News.de here. “A corresponding emergency plan is being prepared under the auspices of the Federal Network Agency.”
The plan envisions “consumption caps” on companies, “depending on their size and consumption”.
According to Blackout News: “This would mean that industrial companies with high consumption would be the first to be cut off from gas supplies.”
Eastern and Southern Germany would be hardest hit
Although Germany could import gas from Norway and the Netherlands, it would be would be difficult to transport the gas to the east and south of Germany. “Therefore, industrial plants in these regions would likely be the first to run out of natural gas in the event of a shortage,” writes Blackout News.
The plan is reported to involve classifying companies in order to determine their system relevance. “For example, companies in the food industry should be ranked differently from companies that manufacture products such as tires or glass,” reports Blackout News.
Downgrading to an organic-agrarian country of peasants
Should Germany continue on with their draconian energy throttling policies, companies are soon going to realize (if they haven’t already) that doing industrial business in the country will be far too risky and expensive. It is increasingly likely they will move their operations elsewhere.
In the meantime, Germany will rapidly move down the world economic rankings until it becomes a marginal organic-agrarian nation where even hot water and red meat will be luxuries.
Undiagnosed and untreated insanity in leaders leads to this kind of thinking and planning. Where the easier option is to simply stop mothballing nuclear and coal power plants, the criminally insane leaders double down on killing their economy, citizens, and prestige in the world. The funny thing is, I don’t think the Germans care. Or they don’t understand what their criminally insane leaders are doing.
I know John Deere has more than a few factories in Germany. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just said “f*ck it, we’re out.” Deere also has a large tech base there which would disappear with the factories.
No wonder elephant Germany is reluctant to cut Russian gas supplies at $7/ million Btu under long term contracts, while buying now at about $50/ million Btu on the spot market.
German exporters will be sooooo f…d
It took twice as long and twice the money for Musk to build a 500,000 car/y plant in Germany than it did in China.
Musk likely learned a very expensive lesson; he will not be making as much money on each EV.
No wonder China is a low-cost producer; willful procrastination is a punishable economic crime
China has been adding many unit trains per week to Europe. Maybe Tesla Germany will amount to one less unit train per week in the tally, maybe.
I thought at first you were talking about the US.
It applies to the US as well. But it’s hitting Germany first, so the rest of the world will get to see what “going back to the stone age” looks like just before it hits us.
In the UK our politicians are so stupid they will still follow, even though there are real world examples of problems Energiewende/E10 fuel etc
UK also has potentially massive shale gas deposits. Frackng will most likely be required so…….???
I read the last fracking company closed down. Too many protests, too much trouble getting a permit.
I wouldn’t buy into UK fracking without guaranteed permits and leases. People and government are too fickle.
Well apparently at least a plurality of German citizens are voting for exactly that. Sure doesn’t seem to be the same country I spent 3 years in.
I spent many years of time living and doing business (pharma filling/packaging equipment) in Germany. The intelligent engineering folks I worked with, including the General Manager of a large equipment company, saw through this bullshit years ago, but I guess feel helpless to stop it.
No Griff promised us cheap abundant energy for such advanced countries like Germany clearly they just need to use more electricity to build inter-connectors to an energy rich country … say Russia 🙂
Poor Griff. I just looked at the UK grid status and they are getting more power from coal than wind right now. He must find this distressing.
The Green Death
Europe’s New Plague.
Good one, I’ve added it to my file of quotes, factoids & smart remarks.
So, germans themselves are making Morgenthau Plan reality?!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan
Thanks. I wrongly commented above that it was a French politician, but I knew someone floated the idea.
Beat me to it by a couple hours, but I swear I thought it independantly.
I don’t think people in the first world will put up with this punishment. They’re asking people living with first world standards and quality of life to return to 3rd world living standards. It’s frightening to watch but in the end, this may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back as voters begin to abandon the globalists/marxist/progressive/green/democrat parties.
Not until they realize that they themselves will be paying the price, which, of course, will be too late.
Under modern Progressivism, it’s always expected that someone else will be making the real sacrifices.
Yes they think those “billionaires” are going to pay for it all. In other words, they aren’t very good at basic arithmetic.
Well I wish they would hurry up. Currently paying £2.04 a litre for petrol. There is a cap on electric at £0.50 kw/h, but I paid £0.86 a litre for kerosene a couple of weeks ago, this for heating and hot water..
Gasoline is currently about a third of the price in Colorado. I thought we had it bad. I usually don’t even consider the price of natural gas or electricity in any kind of budgeting.
With the idiots now in charge, it’s going to get worse.
German law already grants supply priority to domestic gas customers in the event of gas shortages. The problem comes when that results in electricity shortages in Dunkelflaute. Whether they will understand that rising unemployment and deteriorating living standards are due to energy policy is moot.
I think that is one of the major problems. As the greenshirts drive us into penury, not enough people make the connection that energy prices affect absolutely everything, not just electricity bills and prices at the pump.
I suspect a lot of the Domestic Gas Customers get first dibs is because the dangers of pilot lights going out, and then the gas returns after some interval.
Have you noticed that its not enough for the green zealots to close down fossil fuel infrastructure? Instead of mothballing closed coal power stations they have to be demolished, instead of capping off gas well heads, they have to be filled with concrete to prevent their future use.
They are determined to make sure there is no easy way back from their hellish vision that they are forcing upon us all.
Lucky for the Belgians, the Greens weren’t able to do what you say
as they decided not to shut down their nuclear plants for at least
another 10 yrs.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/03/21/belgium-delays-killing-nuclear-over-chaotic-geopolitical-environment/
Many people in the West have been trained to respond like Pavlov’s dog-
applauding actions of the globalist & hating their enemy- those evil people
with bad ideas. They don’t think- they react. As such, they will only revert to
thing if the situation gets very severe. Even then, they can be made to believe there’s a certain nobleness to enduring hardship for the cause. As much as
I’m hoping you’re right & they pull out of this “death wish”, I think they have
been sufficiently trained to listen to their cult leaders.
Back in ’83, there were Greens in Germany & the UK protesting the
introduction of cruise missiles into Europe, which would have defeated any
Soviets attack, as Gen Powell said they would have targeted tank refueling
depots at the West German border which would have turned Soviet tanks into
immobile artillery pieces. So the threat of attack was over long before the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the Greens, as usual. had their people trained to fear
resisting aggressors, as it would only invite an attack, just the opposite of
“peace through strength”. (I maybe could have caused an international
incident as I almost kicked over a “candle in a bag” while walking through a
dark, crowded sidewalk full of protestors to get from a brightly lit cafe to the
street, enroute to catching a train to take me back to Rhein Main AB in
Frankfurt.)
OOPS- Paragraph 1- “thing” = thinking
I don’t think people in the first world will put up with this punishment.
I think that too many are too deluded, and they won’t have a choice because it will be a done deal before they realize how bad it will be.
They will, because the Marxists control the information flow. Too many people lack the ability to find and understand sites like WUWT and determine what is and isn’t misinformation. They just listen to the news and believe what they hear.
Correct you only have to look at the war reporting in Russia right now … oh sorry special operations and the brave 500 Russian troops that have died on the way to the glorious victory.
The whole “green new deal” and green movement strategy in Germany was obviously bankrolled by countries that have most to gain.
Follow the finance of it all, it leads to Moscow and Bejing.
Were Merckel & Schroeder actually there as stasi like stooges all along?
It looks suspiciously like it all along.
The DDR won, who would have thought some insignificant colonel of the KGB in Dresden could have managed it?
It’s now looking like they take back a unified Germany to be a vassal state of a revived USSR.
Egon Krenz no doubt is watching the unravelling of the main EU financier and loving it.
The lack of energy will destroy their society. The western world is committing suicide and trying to to destroy its future.
Covid response may have swayed them to think that, in the words of our SAGE behaviouralists “They can get away with it”.
Typical! First government FUBARs everything with an irrational and unscientific push to green energy. Now it swoops in to ration energy that works—anything but renounce its wind/solar pipe dreams. The “cost” of being a leftist f-up is additional job opportunities for masterminds. Too bad tarring and feathering is no longer an option, because we need to disincentivize control freaks.
What else can they do short term? Germany painted itself into a corner and Putin timed his war for when Russian natural gas is most needed for heating.
To me the issue is “the looming problem” was obvious to blind Freddy and none of the decision makers in Government and Civil Service are being held accountable. On WUWT we have been discussing that problem for years so those decision makers could hardly claim they didn’t see it coming they are either corrupt or incompetent.
LdB: “[…] they are either corrupt or incompetent.”
–
–
C. Both
Need fossil fuels to get the tar?
Should Germany continue on with their draconian energy throttling policies, companies are soon going to realize (if they haven’t already) that doing industrial business in the country will be far too risky and expensive. It is increasingly likely they will move their operations elsewhere.
Bad timing Elon-
Tesla officially opens Berlin Gigafactory (msn.com)
Better get rolling with coal in Shanghai-
Tesla’s workforce expansion at Giga Shanghai will grow ‘new model’ line by 50% (teslarati.com)
Given China’s track record with quality, does anyone really want a Tesla ‘Made in China’?
Well people seem to have no problems with Iphones made in China.
China can produce high quality when it wants to.
Where does China get the chips that make iPhones run?
This flip phone user really doesn’t know much about smart-(dumbass) phones, but I do know about their forgings and machining and… I am absolutely underwhelmed.
I’ve seen spot on machining that turns into “What $#@! were they thinking” from one shipment to the next.
I really have seen it… been there, done that, got OUR customer’s lashes under my t-shirt. (No excuses. Find better suppliers.)
So, no problems with made-in-China phones? a) provide data on failure rates and b) even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then.
–
–
But I said I don’t know jack about phones, however you did get me wondering, UK John (thanks!). Maybe the phones are fine but how do they stack up against say, Nokia? I dunno, but it would be interesting to know.
We have long thought of Australia and New Zealand as the leading crash test dummies for Green Energy.
Out of nowhere, Germany jumps into the lead with some astonishing moves. We have a real horse race on our hands now. If other countries do not respond to Germany, the Germans could win this one going away. They are already up to speed, moving faster than we had imagined. And they are aimed straight at the Wall. One great shot and they walk away with it all.
What a race! What a show!
(Please, do not blame me. I did not do this.)
Germany is a Gold winner in such races.
I will not call this one yet. Stiff competition.
So far, the only country which has blown up it’s electric supply is South Africa.
Here is the story. (This time it is not about the Greens).
I saw a video of a bunch of students confront a professor at a major SA university.
(This was the “Woke” mob.)
The students were telling the prof that science, engineering, and math were “White Privilege” and a tool of racism.
The students wanted equal footing for what they called “Other Ways of Knowing”.
In other words, traditional tribal knowledge passed down in the oral tradition common to stone age cultures without a written language.
So they actually seemed to be fully against actual education in every meaningful sense of the word. At a university.
How ot is working out:
Several power plants are out of service from breakdowns due to critical mismanagement, lack of qualified engineers and skilled operators and maintenance people. (more on the way.)
The Green jump in:
Now the Greens, surveying the wreckage of constant blackouts and permanent load shedding have the solution. Their one and only solution is wind and solar.
How about that.
You left out many of the educated ones seeing the slow moving train wreck emigrated and so are not available to fix the mess.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, our Red leader is permitting those closing down our only oil refinery to fill the pipes with concrete so they cannot be re-used. Complete madness from an acknowledged communist!
I hear that the fisherman is now out of prison after being jailed for cocaine distribution. New Zealand’s worst kept secret.
Quite a number of us predicted this mess and we aren’t experts so no the decision makers should be blamed.
Reading this , I keep hearing Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf.
More industry and jobs outsourced to China. Almost like it was the plan all along.
Not a problem, John. For a mere seven figures, or so, the MBAs at our most prestigious consulting firms will be happy to share their PPT presentations with senior management on how all of this can be profitably achieved.
It was the plan all along, which is why China poured money into buying ports and infrastructure to capture the supply chain, and finance the greenies to do the talking.
The other partner could then start or continue wars unhindered and slowly reduce Germany to the living standards of the old DDR, or the current state of poverty in Russia today where pensioners live on 75 EURO a month.
Ukraine and Belarus were already basket cases, now despite the fertile ground it’s heading for starvation again, like the 1930s Holodomor.
The Gilets jaunes illustrates what it’s like when food and fuel take up 90%+ of a family budget.
There’s a lot more people living below the poverty line in Europe than most middle class would like to admit.
It’s well known in the UK, lots of them are raiding the bins of the supermarkets already for more than a decade.
In France it’s forbidden by law.
Told you so 20 years ago.
In 2002 we published that there was no real global warming crisis and green energy was not green and produced little useful (dispatchable) energy. We also correctly predicted in 2002 that solar-driven global cooling would start about now, and that does appear to be happening. We further predicted in detail in 2013 the current green energy crisis in Britain, Germany etc. These are, to my knowledge, the best (earliest and most accurate) predictions of our current climate-and-energy disaster.
We should finally recognize just how incredibly stupid and corrupt our political (and industry) leaders truly are – Like the average fool-in-the-street, they have negative technical competence and believe any improbable falsehoods, provided these are repeated often over time. It does not matter how improbable these falsehoods are – they are swallowed whole and regurgitated for public consumption, to our great detriment.
Anyone who promotes human-made global warming, climate change, grid-connected green energy, carbon taxes, etc is spreading falsehoods that will cause you and your family great harm. They have already cost humanity trillions of wasted dollars and millions of wasted lives due to energy starvation. They should be held responsible for their crimes against humanity.
My colleagues and I are not only concerned about energy shortages, which we predicted decades ago. We are concerned about inflation and possible food shortages, and are watching that situation closely.
Yes that is the funniest the predictions were made by many on here because it was obvious what was going to happen.
I am guessing that the surrounding countries are happy to provide the missing energy, for a price that is.
So I do not think there will be a shortage of energy in the longer run, just a reduction in wealth for the average German, but politics does not care about that.
At least they still have walls on their houses and apartments in Germany. Ukraine no longer has that, and the Russian attack plan is based on energy policy fail in western Europe.
I read that the Greens in Belgium have been persuaded to allow 10 year extensions to the lives of the nuclear plants at Tihange and Doel that were previously scheduled for imminent closure. Reality bites quite quickly.
Last year the Belgian Council of Ministers confirmed 2025 as the final date date for phase-out of all nuclear power and authorized construction of 2,300 MW of new natural gas generation to replace it. Oops, as they say. The two reactors just extended have a combined rating of 2085 MW.
According to the press release (the google translation of it), reactor 3 in Tihange and reactor 4 at Doel will be extended for 10 years to 2035. These are the two newest and largest of the 7 operating Belgian reactors. Belgian regulations require nuclear reactors be recertified to current safety standards every 10 years. Of the other 5 operational reactors:
I don’t know why Doel 3 and Tihange 2 were not also extended as they should be operable out to 50 years at least, but they are a different reactor type than the two retained. As those two were originally set to close in 2025, I have to assume that all the reactors needing earlier recertification have been considered and did not make the cut. I have no details on why. I suspect the two smallest and oldest ones just weren’t worth to cost to refurbish.
The news release did not say how long any necessary refurbishing is expected to take. As I understand the current plans Belgium will lose 1,006 MW of capacity this year, another 1,008 MW in 2023, and a further 1,852 in 2025, for a total of 3,866 MW by the end of 2025.
I guess the good news is it could have been worse.
The green MP’s had no other choice the alternative was get smashed at the polls for being dropkicks.
This will be amusing to watch American travelers staying at German rentals.
40,000 US traveling Army right now at German barracks…
Only until we move them further east, where the threat is.
Send them to Estonia, Poland – let them pay.
Bonbon has been so quiet recently maybe because he didn’t get invited to Putin’s Luzniki do in Moscow.
Bonbon should be put in the Russian army to fight with the invaders, then he will see how Estonia and Poland pay, as they blow his tank to smithereens.
Hey Bonbon the Pro-kremlin f..ckwit, how does it feel defending the second Holodomor, like Jolly Jo’s first effort in 1932-33.
Make you feel good shooting mothers and their children does it?
Meet Mr. Iskander
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo1OzW1S6HE&t=6s
Modern warfare….
But,but, but they built so much wind and solar! Surely that will suffice?/sarc
Griff says they just need more 🙂
I guess that Angela missed the olden days in East Germany, the GDR, so she had to recreate it. For all Germans.
Next up: the new Stasi…
Angela and Vlad are joined at the hip. Both traitors.
There’ll be no wind over Germany until mebbe midday Saturday. Check out the isobars on UK Met Office website
Griff must not be advocating/promoting fast enough…..
EU wants gas storage topped up to curb reliance on Russia – ABC News (go.com)
Meanwhile the French are doing their usual thing to ignore sanctions and make money off misery.
Total is an expert at that.
Many Businesses Are Quitting Russia. Big French Firms Are Staying Put. – WSJ
Not sure what the point of that is. They failed to fill what they have already last summer. If they offered to invest in gas production somewhere it might make rather more sense.
According to Griff it’s all fixed
What did we use for lights before candles? Electricity.
Gee, we still have that – Electra from Egyptian cat’s fur and a comb.
Dad, you mean they actually lit the cave with cats?
Son, then they cancelled the Russian cats.
Not sure how you can ration gas. When we had a gas shutdown a few years ago due to a malfunction in the distribution system, before we could fire up the CH boiler and the gas hob again we had to wait for a gas engineer to come and purge the system. Either it is on all the time or it is off, you can’t just shut it off for a couple of hours like you can with electricity.
This is the kind of situation that makes me wonder exactly how bad things must get before the average person decides to do something. Even though I might wonder, I really don’t want to actually see (especially in my home country the US) it ever get to that point. As some others have pointed out, companies who have their gas cut off will likely move out of Germany. But what of the average citizen, especially those who are jobless due to said companies moving out? Ostensibly, these are democratic countries we are talking about (the UK, Germany, the US, Australia) so it would seem that after an election or two this green stranglehold would be finished.
But then again, it appears that there are some people who, no matter how bad their own suffering (and that of those around them) becomes, will hold out to the bitter end. An example is the Jonestown cult in the US in the late 70’s. Once they relocated outside the US and things really began to go south, there were some cult members who couldn’t take it anymore and sought to escape. But, OTOH, there were others who stayed the course and helped pass out the Koolaid on that last fateful day….
That’s what really worries me – there will be those people who will hold the line on their green religion even if it means watching their friends and family suffer and die for the sake of the planet. We can only hope that there are more of us than there are of them.
The first and second amendments at least give one a fighting chance.
Energy policy death spiral is at hand. How deep will the recession be this time?
Wasn’t this the Morgenthau Plan for Germany?
So, backpedaling begins. Who will be held accountable when people start dying, society caves, and industry goes fallow from lack of energy?
The Biden
penetrationadministration is already blaming high energy prices on “greedy” CEOs and the like. That is exactly what the politicians will do– point the finger at someone else.We live in a post-accountability world now.
87% of the people are guilty of everything that happened over 100 years ago, but no one is guilty of anything that happens today.
The leaders of all Western nations have been waging war on their majority populations…..so, this is winning to them.
“Downgrading to an organic-agrarian country of peasants”
Wasn’t that the preferred option of some French politicians after the end of WWI?
I’ve always admired the German’s amazing engineering ability. Over the past century and more a lot of wonder machinery has come out of Germany. So where are all the German engineers who should be saying en masse that closing down the fossil fuel industry is going to close down German engineering businesses? Or maybe they’ve taken the wrong coloured pill.
The Germans will only be caught in the dark: if a Kiev-aligned axis sabotages the pipeline, if Germans recycle their ill conceived adoption of intermittent/renewable Green blight transition, or environmentalists/activists/lobbyists force progressive prices, availability, and affordability in order to depress the market.
Hard to believe the German government is imposing something very like the Morgenthau Plan from WW2 on itself.
Memo from D.C.
“The plan is reported to involve classifying companies in order to determine their system relevance.”
So, rationing.
The Renewable Energy Fail
a very good John Stosell video- he mentions Germany
Meanwhile 100 billion Euro for NATO arms – made in the USA, which Trump always wanted. No NordStream2 Russian gas. Now 40,000 US troops flying in to parade al round with no limit on diesel.
So it is not the Morganthau Plan, just colonialism.
Some prominent politicos campaigned on being ‘in-sync’ with D.C. – voters are seeing their country synchronized into a vassal Green Reset freezing region.
Panic as NordStream1 could be stopped, and it is simply amazing Ukraine gas infrastructure continues to function. Payment from now on in Rubles only.
Well then according to you the EU has two choices be a colony of USA or Russia … take your pick.
Colonialism is past its use-by-date, a fossil of millennia of subservience, mostly by European imperial powers.
That the US, the first colonial break-out in 1783, is attempting a parody of the British Empire, is a howler. It is a spectacle to behold!
Bonbon, last century there were two great wars. In both of them, the US learned that if it sits by and does nothing to help its allies in Europe, evil spreads unimpeded. What the US is doing is not colonialism– that word means nothing anymore since the very people accusing every corner of Western society of colonialism are themselves also colonizing. The US is protecting its allies and its interests. And that is not colonialism nor is it wrong.
Merkel will be remembered for this for a very long time .
Trump implied Putin would use energy as a weapon.
Russia did not.
Russia is sound.
Now that is funny
Germany have shelled out 3-4 billion to Russia for gas in the last month and will now have to pay in rubles.
“Downgrading to an organic-agrarian country of peasants” is what The Leader wanted to do to Eastern Europe back in the day. Oh the irony.
“As Energy System Comes Apart, Germany Now Preparing Emergency Natural Gas Rationing Plans”
This headline just kills me. As energy system comes apart! What a joke. The energy system is in trouble but is not coming apart, it is intentionally being dismantled. Then the crackpots who dismantled it act all surprised when they have no energy. These people are criminals, the only thing worse is the crackpots who put them in power.
Russia just announced it wants payment in rubles for gas and oil contracts against unfriendly countries.
https://www.rt.com/business/552554-ruble-rockets-gas-currency-switch/
Which means breach of contract.
Contracts include what type of currency must be used for payment. Most all international contracts, there are exceptions, require payment in US dollars. They can change the requirement in future contracts, but cannot do so legally in existing contracts.
If they do, they will be in breach of contract. Buyers need the fuels, so they will comply. But their next step will be to file lawsuits for damages incurred because of the breach. They would clearly win, and any Russian assets in the country of the lawsuit could be seized and sold to pay the damages.
And the long term lesson learned will be that contracts with Russia are worthless.
Interruptablè gas supply tariffs are quite normal for large business users, they pay less for their gas on the basis that if there is a gas shortage then they will be cut off.
They will have invested in equipment with dual fuel arrangements (normally oil, as it can be stored) and the business case makes economic sense.
if only they had invested more in solar
This is progress according to the Progressives. No thank you.
There is plenty of undeveloped gas resources in Lower Saxony, immediately adjacent to the Netherland’s Groningen gas field. I can’t believe they would resort to cutoffs and not encourage drilling on that acreage, much of it controlled by Exxon-Mobil,