By P Gosselin
German energy channel Energie & Outdoor Chiemgau looks at the heating gas supply in Germany, which is steadily approaching a tense phase as storage levels dwindle.
If Germany’s cold January continues as forecasts suggest, natural gas rationing will be likely. Image cropped here.
This January is described as one of the coldest in the last 15 years. During such cold phases, German gas consumption spikes drastically (up to a 1.3% loss in capacity per day). Currently (as of January 19) the gas storage level is at 41.8%, much lower than at this time last year (near 64%).
Nearing critical levels
As the current storage levels in Germany continue fall, a critical point approaches: Once storage drops below 20%, it becomes technically difficult to maintain enough pressure for standard withdrawal. According to Stefan Spiegelsperger of Energie & Outdoor Chiemgau, this marks the beginning of a gas shortage situation.
A significant portion of Germany’s stored gas is being used to generate electricity, especially during periods of low wind (which we currently have) or solar output (“Dunkelflaute”). And although LNG terminals are available, many remain underutilized due to a shortage of tanker ships. Moreover, Germany still continues to transit gas to neighboring countries.
In his video, Spiegelsperger criticizes the forecasts from INES (Initiative Energien Speichern) as being too optimistic. He points out that actual storage levels are already falling below their predicted curves, which is worrisome. If the cold wave lasts until mid-February, a reference calculation (based on the year 2010) suggests that storage facilities could be completely emptied.
Potential consequences of a gas shortage
So what happens if the gas storage levels continue on their worrisome path and a real shortage develops? Answer: Rationing begins and the supply of homes will have priority. To secure the supply for private households, the industry would have to drastically curtail its consumption. This would lead to harsh economic consequences.
Also public facilities like swimming pools could be closed, and there might be appeals to lower heating temperatures in homes.
Moreover, based on supply and demand, gas prices are expected to rise.
Stefan Spiegelsperger of Energie & Outdoor Chiemgau believes a gas shortage is hardly avoidable at this point, unless the remainder of the winter surprises and turns out to be extremely mild. At the moment, weather models aren’t seeing that scenario.
Spiegelsperger advises viewers to prepare for potential bottlenecks. A small piece of positive news mentioned is the start of gas deliveries from Azerbaijan, though these only cover a small fraction of the total demand.
This dire situation is in large part thanks to Germany’s reckless foray into green energy fantasies.
Another merchant of fear predicting germany’s fall. Yawn. Reality will disprove this one too.
Looks like he’s predicting that blackout for at least 4 years now. Any day now Stefan, any day now. Don’t lose hope.
Although they have to get away from gas. It’s just not (politically) reliable enough.
“…. they have to get away from gas.”
So what do you propose instead?
Coal?
Of course you can make gas from coal.
“Coal-fired power plants are profitable again in Germany after a cold snap pushed electricity demand higher and EU carbon prices fell roughly 8% this week. With solar output weak in winter, lignite plants are now cheaper to run than gas—highlighting how energy security still overrides policy ambitions.” Oilprice.com
1) Why do they have to get away from gas?
2 ) They got ” away ” from gas when North Stream was bombed (to quote the Tweet from
Polish Minister Sikorski back then ” Thank you, USA”)
3) They got away from Nuclear , is what is causing these problems.
But I’m pretty sure they ” had to get away from nuclear” as
“Energy is too cheap ” ( Merkel )
It’s expensive and imported from politically unstable countries. That’s more than enough reason to produce more renewables at home.
That’s laughable.
Say that in public and you will be laughed at.
That’s the speech where he got laughed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiFwD5ugYS0
Boasting with fairy tales works for his red-caps, not at the UN
Funny how everything Trump predicted in that speech has come true. Who’s laughing now?
That’s an argument for being self sufficient in gas and increasing storage facilities, not replacing it with something expensive ALL the time (all true costs considered), and inferior and more unreliable in different ways.
It wouldn’t have to be imported if Europe could grasp the meaning of drill baby drill.
Where will the US take the billions needed to clean up the abandoned wells?
Low by a couple of orders. One modern, high angle, multilateral, can take 7 $ figures, especially if downhole tractors need to be deployed (often). We have tens of thousands of them. Not to mention decades old legacy fields with hundreds of thousands of antique wells, often left to fester because a few % of the wells are still “producing”. Offshore, many more billions, which is why the biz is pimping “rigs to reefs” instead of platform removals they agreed to at the onset. NORM, seabed obstruction, 2 good reasons to do what you promised. All of these currently funded at pennies on the $.
This is why they want to limit the discussion to the parts/ten thousand of $’s required to button up “orphan” wells. They are a minute part of the problem. The goal is to shirk lockboxing $’s for these freely assumed obligations and then to disappear when the time comes, a la coal, gold, copper.
Do the work to total it all up worldwide? I’ll short circuit it for you. Just multiply by 5-10….
Debbie Downers with NO fact based rebuts. Predictable, hysterical blindness….
https://giphy.com/gifs/summerbreak-summer-break-3o6gE7Kd9IrBxVysms
From the same place the Europeans will find all the landfill requirements for the wind turbine blades which cannot be recycled. PS some of these have asbestos fillers.
No asbestos in the blades. Mostly silica. Any /GWH produced comparison of haz waste from wind gen v fossil fuel gen ends up with orders of magnitude more from the latter. Just the naturally occurring radioactive material from the latter tips the balance…
Already been taken care of. Bonds for cleanup are a requirement for a drilling permit.
Unlike WTGs and WVs which have not bonds for retirement, disassembly, recycling/landfilling.
They should have these, but the market will take care of that in any case. Since the value is not in the ground, but in the wind, the renewablers will buy/rent the land and it’s upkeep will be in their economic self interest. These sites are, by definition, the most valuable, and will be used and modernized, into perpetuity. OTOH, there is no economic reason for extractors not to trash out their works and beat feet later – which is why they do so.
They are both grossly inadequate, and mostly avoided. Much of the US obligations are in YUGE legacy fields, with Too Big To Fail operators who have been given bye’s on them for decades. Much of the rest is for the tens of thousands of long high angle multilaterals. Those are disproportionately the responsibility of those Too Big To Fail majors, who don’t have to bond at all. The rest are underbonded by approaching an order of magnitude.
The rent seekers have succeeded in suppressing any state and/or federal legislation requiring modern, periodically updated, distributed, asset retirement obligation assessments. They are happy with the decades old numbers for differently constructed, shallower more vertical, single wellbores that still get used for bond assessments and SEC reserve runs.
The Germans coined the term Dunkelflaute for a reason.
Haha, unstable countries and “renewables” in 1 statement. Sometimes I think these greenies are just the circus clowns..
Wind and solar are much more expensive. The sources for both are inherently unstable and always will be.
What, like Norway?
Solar doesn’t work covered in snow.
Wind doesn’t work covered in ice.
FAIL !!!
My understanding is that Germany has plenty of natural gas underground. They could drill for it domestically, but they refuse to do so.
The 2 chief Nord Stream suspects currently fighting extraditions are Ukrainian.
Someone can’t handle the truth!
And they have no argument to articulate.
A drive-by downvote.
Yes – one of the suspects is Santa Clause.
Oh, btw – the whole story and the suspects originate from the USA.
Remember when Scholz visited Biden right after the attack and when Scholz was busy to tell the world how sharp Biden is(= admissionBiden was totally demented)
– that’s where he was given this story(to counter Seymour Hershs relevation)
and then it took them 2.5 years to fabricate something.)
It was very very telling that Germany(and everyone else) was so silent after the biggest attack on Europes energy infrastructure..
They didn’t even really tried to blame Putin or trigger Nato article 5
because everyone knew instantly the Boss did it – and the lapdogs remained silent, including the USAID/Soros environmental activists.
As I assume that you are way too smart to believe the hilarious crap that, after a night of booze(NYT)some Ukrainians smuggled a ton of TNT over several borders , used a small boat completely not built for such a purpose,
dived 300 feet down to the pipeline (the same Ukrainians who don’t even know where their own USSR built pipelines are located = those used by Russians to get behind enemy lines to inflict heavy losses,)
and blew it up,
I guess lack of integrity or selective critical thinking is the reason.
That’s why I like Trump- he is straight forward and is either not using slimey methods or he is so blunt that everyone knows when the USA are doing their usual terror and regime change stuff.
Imagine Putin would have said ” I’ll blow up Enbridge line 5 if you attack Venezuela ” – and it would be destroyed.
You wouldn’t buy the Andromeda nonsense even if you You’d been a member of the Andromeda crew.
Why the down votes? Biden or his autopen assisted or at a minimum “looked the other way”. With our level of satellite spy sophistication the sabotage was observed/recorded or the coverage intentionally missed IMHO.(No, I’m not a champion of conspiracy theories),
It was an undersea pipe in a piece of water that is heavily trafficked.
Don’t thank the USA, thank Putler. The USA is trying to keep Europe from facing a reborn Soviet bear.
North Stream wasn’t even being used when it was bombed.
There is no evidence that the US was responsible, just baseless charges from those who reflexively blame the US for everything they don’t like in the world.
Given the fact that the pipe was not being used and had no prospect of being used in the near future. Given the fact that the pipeline was not blown up, a small hole was blown into it. A hole that can easily and cheaply be fixed, if the Russians wanted to.
It’s more likely that the Russians blew it up so that they can hire some useful idiots to blame it on the US.
I.m no pipeline expert and maybe remember the facts incorrectly but I think you’re way off base. First, it may not have been in use but it had gas in it and was pressurized. Hence, all of the fizzy bubbling videos. Second, I claim BS on the “small hole”. And whatever the size of the hole, once it lost pressure it filled up with sea water, which can cause a lot of damage to the inside of the pipe. Most likely, it was the Ukrainians with assistance.
Phil yes, MarkW is wrong on every point, you are correct on every point but it wasn’t just one hole, three as I remember. This was a very carefully designed and implemented attack .No amateurs involved.
Yes, there were (are?) four pipelines total. Three were blown up, though I don’t recall offhand which one survived. Blowing up three pipelines is definitely not “a small hole.”
MarkW, that’s the most misinformed report I’ve ever seen on the subject. Wrong on every point. BTW I had 35 years of pipeline integrity work experience prior to my retirement 15 years ago (Foreign and domestic, on and offshore).
“reflexively blame the US for everything they don’t like in the world.”
When they are not blaming CO2 and all industrial nations for producing CO2.
Germany moved much faster than anyone expected in building LNG terminals. That tended to wreck predictions of doom but it does not mean it repeats with the same effect.
It may not fall but it will stumble.
What is it about climate alarmists and their inability to argue honestly.?
He hasn’t predicted black outs, he’s been pointing out how little reserve their is and that the level of reserve has been falling. That’s completely true.
Would you care to explain why the current gas reserves in Germany aren’t worrisome? Or do you just wish proclaiming that since nothing has gone wrong yet, there will never be anything to worry about?
Gas is reliable, when you have sufficient supplies and store sufficient amounts ahead of time. What isn’t reliable is wind and solar, which often disappear for months at a time and can’t be stored up.
MarkW, nice to see you understand about alarmists, gas storage, and unreliable wind. Unless they’ve been scrubbed there were excellent reports on-line describing the attack.
Yes, the pipeline was not flowing gas but it was pressurized and ready to deliver. Deliveries were held up by internal German politics preventing an operating license being issued for the fully authorized and permitted project. The pipeline financing included about 1/3rd from non-Russian investment institutions. I’m curious about their efforts to reclaim their investment. Insurance policies typically exclude payments for terrorist events.
These firms provided significant loans and guarantees to Nord Stream 2 AG (the Swiss-based project company):
Each of these companies financed about 10% of the €9.5 billion project cost, with Gazprom covering the remaining majority stake.
If wind and solar actually worked, Germany wouldn’t need natural gas in the first place.
God forbid changing things takes time.
Mr. Lamegaslighter: God grants that folks who try to change things for the worse are impeded by those of us who have have bs meters. Your instrument has evidently gone dead.
That is contrary to the overuse and abuse of the term “tipping point.”
If sun and wind worked for power generation, they wouldn’t have to be mandated and subsidized. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, wind and solar will always be unreliable and expensive.
If it takes so much time, why are you in such a hurry?
Nope, wind and solar can NEVER work at a grid scale…. so the time is INFINITE
… attempting to change to wind and solar is STUPIDITY !!
Only in your dreams does the Sun shine 24 hours a day and the wind blow at the right speed all the time.
Yeah, the Greens antinuclear power effort was meatheaded. Or did you mean something else?
Always amusing how you indoctrinated “woke again” cult of government worshippers post the gospel you have been sermonized as if it is somehow factual, original and profound.
It’s actually the German operator expressing these concerns.
https://www.mnimarkets.com/articles/germanys-ines-warns-gas-demand-cuts-needed-before-winter-platts
No, it’s not an operator. It’s a lobby organization for gas and hydrogen storage operators.
Of course they want to make it look like Germany needs more gas storage.
“Of course they want to make it look like Germany needs more gas storage.”
possible.
Since you consistently fail to do any kind of analysis of alternatives, allow me to throw one out.
Germany actually does need more gas storage.
The facts make it look like Germany needs not just more storage, but more gas in that storage.
You are free to move and live in Germany, if you’re so convinced…
Nah, their language sounds far too harsh to me.
Clearly not a Rammstein fan then.
Chicken
The green dream in Deutschland can be summed up in the phrase…
Zerstörung durch Fortschritte der Technologie (ZFT)
Destruction through Advances in Technology, or Destruction through Technological Progress
It’s okay here in Western Australia we are paying a coal power station $300M to stay open with the government saying it’s for only 2 years 🙂
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-21/roger-cook-extends-griffin-coal-financial-lifeline/106250998
Although the government may be one of the one true believers
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-11/wa-2030-coal-phase-out-target-in-doubt/104918106
Retardables are 100% to blame for this situation. That, and magical thinking on the part of people who should know better.
OK, how about rationing politician’s salaries along with the gas rationing?
I always advocated that when the US Government shutdown due to the legislature not getting their act together, Representatives and Senators should not be paid until the crisis is resolved.
absolutely!
Representatives and Senators should not be paid
I think someone put forward a bill to do exactly that during the last one, but of course it didn’t get anywhere.
It needs to be a Constitutional Amendment to make it stick.
And I think we both know an Amendment to do that is unlikely, just like one for term limits.
‘…Representatives and Senators should not be paid until the crisis [shutdown] is resolved.’
Hmmm. So let’s say you had a minority of limited government types standing in the way of a majority that wanted to bring on the entire Marxist truckload. Would you really want to incentivize the former to go along / get along with the Marxists by withholding their pay until they knuckled under?
Frank:
(a) the Marxists also suffer the same pressures
and, more importantly
(b) I want those who supposedly “represent” us to suffer the same consequences they visit on others. They don’t even get a suspension in their paychecks.
‘(a) the Marxists also suffer the same pressures…’
Do they? My recollection is that the Left has absolutely no qualms or impediments to legally funneling serious money to those willing to do their bidding – – think of all the book ‘deals’, speaking ‘fees’, documentary ‘rights’, ‘art’ work, and other similarly shady / non-economic payments made to the likes of the Clintons, Obamas and Bidens, etc.
Story Tip.
Reality hits the turbofans.
“A leading Labour donor has pulled the plug on plans to launch the world’s first all-electric airline. Dale Vince’s Ecojet is being wound up after the net zero tycoon withdrew all investment from the project, which had promised to become the “flag carrier for green Britain”.
https://x.com/NetZeroWatch/status/2014667738409525414
https://www.flightglobal.com/air-transport/liquidation-looms-for-ecojet-as-green-airline-fails-to-get-off-the-ground/166038.article
I wouldn’t want to ride on an ecojet. The whine from the motors would be disturbing.
You would only have to put up with it for ten minutes.
They fit right in with 15 minute cities.
chuckle !! 🙂
Well to be fair to the brains trust it looked like a goer until the price of copper killed the extension cord.
🤣
Extension cord.
Spewed my coffee.
Well done!
Oh if only the japanese would have had the brilliant idea of powering their kamikaze planes with batteries…sarc
Well, when the batteries flamed on impact, the damage to the ships would have increased. There is that, but that assumes the ships were close enough the planes could reach them.
It’s heartening to know that utter tw@t Dale Vince has lost money on this fatuous venture.
AI tells me that this is not new …
Northern Ohio really did experience winters—especially in the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s—when coal piles and rail‑delivered coal froze solid, forcing utilities to curtail electricity and warn of rolling blackouts. These events hit hardest along the Lake Erie shore, including the Cleveland–Toledo corridor, where coal‑fired plants depended on both rail and lake shipments.
Winter of 1977–78 (the “Great Blizzard” era)This is the most famous and severe episode.
This winter is the one most people remember as “the time the coal froze.”
Where’s that global warming when we need it?
Still waiting for nuclear to replace carbon fires.
How can coal freeze solid?
Ice on outdoor coal piles
Can’t they be covered?
Mr. Z: You had to be there. Two consecutive winter seasons in 77 and 78, spent in N. Ohio and Milwaukee, are frozen in my memory. Makes it easy to be skeptical when ecoactivists tell us how to control long-term weather.
some coals have a high moisture content >10%.(lignite 30%). Back in the day some railcar shipped coal was lightly oiled to prevent freezing during shipment and exposed storage.
And that is why lignite power stations should be as close to the mine as possible.
Lignite also has self igniting properties, so you have to store it for as short a time as possible.
“Winter of 1977–78 (the “Great Blizzard” era)This is the most famous and severe episode.”
That was the year the US west was very, very dry with resulting low water flows in the Columbia and Snake rivers and with much reduced hydropower generation capacity in the region.
It got bad enough in the summer of 1977 that N Reactor, the dual-use 800 MW plutonium production reactor on the Hanford Reservation, was kept operating past its normal refueling cycle in order to cover power shortfalls in the US Northwest, thus keeping the lights on in Seattle. Something which the Seattlites didn’t appreciate either then or now.
No comment?
Rare ice ridges appear along Baltic Sea coast, drawing scientists’ attention | Watch
More proof of global warming – amplified at the Arctic over 4X /sarc
Dunno where they get their information from. The Baltic almost always has ice ridges somewhere at this time of year.
But, but, but the oceans are boiling! 😉
“This dire situation is in large part thanks to Germany’s reckless foray into green energy fantasies.”
Reading the article, I conclude that it is not yet a dire situation but may be so presently. Also, lazy accusation. I’m very sure there is evidence, but none is presented.
But thanks for the update.
Well, the trap of hyperbole is difficult to avoid when one is faced with it 24/7/365 from the major media publications.
Re “Not yet dire” — One Fortnight, according to this Arithmetic:
From 42% (on the 19th*) to 20% (pressure fail) => – 22%
Divide by depletion rate (-1.3% per day*) => 17 days until critically depleted / rationing.
Minus three (3) days since 19th-January => 14 days (2 weeks or one fortnite) remain.
Proverbially, ‘February is the cruelest month’ [ cf. Texas, Febuary of ’21]
Presumably, industrial & commercial would be the first sectors restricted.
Alas, such suffering is a prerequisite to wisdom – regained.
Source: https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2014266315998183583
Just for the record. Russia does not have any natural gas left to supply Europe. Western Siberia is practically depleted and Gazprom’s only other source was Turkmeistan which has been taken over by China. The only other source they had was the Karasevey Field at the tip of the Yamal that was eliminated as supply when the Nordstream 2 pipeline was blown up.
Surely Russia has huge reserves of natural gas.
Probably does, but if not developed it will be a near term problem.
And don’t call me Shirley. 😉
Yes, of course, the natural gas intended for Nordstream 2 is flowing to China through the Siberian pipeline which is currently being hugely expanded. Once again China wins, Europe losses. Europe is in drier straights and it’s going to get worse and stay that way until they get back to nuclear. Don’t doubt it.
I did a reserve study of the Yamberg Field in Western Siberia which is 30 miles wide and 150 miles long, that was 90% depleted. If this field is that depleted why would other fields in Western Siberia not be depleted? The Eastern Siberian gas fields go to China. I also evaluated the Karasevey field in 2002 when it was stranded gas as no pipeline existed and after the Turkemistan takeover by China they built the Nordstream 2 to connect to markets.
And we all know this is due to Nordstream II terrorism.
And we all know who ordered the hit……
Sept. 26, 2022, so we all know we can blame DJT, right?
Carry on.
Didn’t order it, but may have assisted or at least looked away, and absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, is not being aggressive in helping bring justice and compensation for the investors and or insurers (including >$3 billion by non-Russian investors)..
Losing is an ugly thing and sometimes it can hurt.
but will they blame those truly at fault?