By P Gosselin
In an interview published by Apollo News titled “Energiekrise: Wir werden es schon in diesem Winter spüren”, German chemist, manager, and energy expert Prof. Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt presents a critical assessment of Germany’s energy policy…
Warns of severe economic and social consequences.
Screenshot Apollo News.
Loss of competitiveness
Vahrenholt warns of deindustrialization and a potential destabilizing loss of competitiveness. High energy costs and policy-driven phase-outs of reliable baseload power (such as nuclear and coal) are pricing German industry out of global markets.
Key industrial sectors (chemicals, manufacturing, steel) are relocating capital and production abroad, leading to structural economic decline.
Vahrenholt points out that energy supply risks, particularly gas storage levels and grid stability, remain precarious entering the upcoming winter period. “We will soon feel it this winter,” Vahrenholt warns.
Relying heavily on volatile renewable sources (wind and solar) without sufficient backup storage or baseload generation creates grid vulnerability and potential supply bottlenecks.
Global divergence in energy strategy
While Germany has phased out nuclear energy, major industrial powers like China, the United States, and several European neighbors are expanding nuclear energy and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to power future technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and heavy manufacturing.
Germany’s unilateral approach places it at a competitive and technological disadvantage relative to global rivals. “The energy transition is not a transition, but a retreat. Anyone who shuts down progress shuts down the future,” Vahrenholt told Apollo News.
Advocactes nuclear energy re-entry
Vahrenholt argues that returning to nuclear energy is essential for securing cheap, low-emission, and continuous energy supplies necessary to preserve prosperity and tech leadership. “Germany has not only shut down reactors, but destroyed the promise of the future for coming generations—while China and America compete over AI leadership and industrial power.”
play stupid games, win stupid prizes
The good ol’ annual “Germany will die this winter” article. Try making videos like the russians – makes it even funnier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUDRazkUDxY
Also nobody is building nuclear or expanding traditional nuclear in any meaningful way. Make it at least believable.
China is currently building 28 nuclear power stations.
https://oggardenonline.com/how-many-nuclear-power-plants-does-china-currently.html
Stop trying to confuse him with facts.
Here is a more recent update; China has 53 nuclear reactors under development.
https://cnbizinsight.com/chinas-nuclear-construction-boom-tracking-53-reactors-under-development/
35 under construction.
Anyways:
Share of electricity production 2005 – 2025 in percent, China:
Solar: 0.01 – 11.10
Wind: 0.08 – 10.73
Nuclear: 2.12 – 4.61
Source
China decided what will be the major contributor to their electricity grid and it’s not nuclear.
As I said, nuclear in in now way playing a meaningful role in the forseeable future.
Even your article states how far ahead china is in terms of new construction – and nuclear contribution is close to flatlining there.
Because of their intermittency, wind and solar power will top out in China at a certain percentage. However, no such constraint applies to nuclear power which will eventually overtake wind and solar power.
Cute but not new.
The image shows a german ad from 1993 declaring that wind, sun and water can never cover more than 4% of germanys electricity demand.
The marvels of engineering.
Share of electricity production by source Germany
And he was probably right, as long as Germany wants to be an industrial nation. Solar and Wind are medieval forms of energy production. Yeah you can make them work with enough expenditures and sacrifices, but that’s a Pyrrhic Victory. And why waste so many resources on it-Earth needs the atmospheric CO2 in order to keep life going for the next 50 million years. We are bouncing along the bottom of acceptable CO2 and need to get back up somewhere in the middle of what was in the atmosphere over the last 500 million years.
Global cleantech investment fell in first half on slowing China momentum
In the first half of 2026, global clean investment was 17% below the same period in 2025 and roughly in line with levels recorded in the first half of 2024.
China’s transition toward market-based pricing for new renewable generation in 2025 drove a rush of installations ahead of the deadline, followed by an uneven pullback. Beijing also phased out consumer EV purchase-tax exemptions starting January 2026. As a result, clean investment in China fell by $133 billion, or 49%, between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, following a Q4 surge in solar, wind, and EV deployment ahead of the changes to government support. As a result, China’s investment accounted for 88% of the global decline in Q1.
Source
Coarr tirr the corrs come home.
Why I Believe China’s Solar Buildout Could Fall to 25 GW Per Year
Most analysts assume that because China dominates solar manufacturing and has installed record amounts of solar capacity, it will continue adding hundreds of gigawatts annually. I am not convinced. In short, the next phase of China’s energy transition may be defined less by adding ever larger quantities of solar panels and more by balancing the grid, expanding nuclear power, and making more efficient use of the vast renewable capacity it has already built.
Because,
China has already exceeded its original solar deployment targets years ahead of schedule. At the same time, the country is rapidly expanding nuclear power. Within a few years, China could be commissioning roughly 5 GW of new nuclear capacity annually (37+GW currently under construction). With nuclear plants operating near 90% capacity factors, that amount of nuclear generation can produce roughly the same annual electricity as 23-28 GW of new solar capacity operating at China’s typical utility-scale capacity factors..
I understand that your solar and wind numbers are capacity, not production.
The post says it’s productiom
The link tells you it’s production
It’s production
From your source – ” This data is
thoroughly quality assured and represents gross generation”. GROSS generation, not used generation.
https://files.ember-energy.org/public-downloads/ember_electricity_data_methodology.pdf
China’s wind and solar capacity factors (2024 fleet averages):
These are actual generation divided by nameplate capacity. Wind utilization hours were roughly 2,100–2,200; solar was lower.
For comparison, China’s coal plants typically run at ~50%. That’s why wind and solar installed capacity still generates far less electricity.
Google says this:
China 38
India 8
Russia 7
Egypt 4
Turkey 4
South Korea 3
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Make it at least believable.
Something you have yet to achieve…
“Also nobody is building nuclear or expanding traditional nuclear in any meaningful way.”
Well, perhaps not as much as we could or should, particularly in the West. But that’s because of constant legal and procedural stonewalling by green leftists. Why are they hostile to a proven power source that’s essentially zero carbon? Isn’t that the point?
China has no such problems and can’t get the share of nuclear above 5%. Stop blaming others for the failings of an industry that exists for military reasons in the first place and would have never made it if it wasn’t for massive government backing. Even then the only country that made it their main energy source is France. Which is also investing massivly in renewable energy nowadays.
When did China become part of the West, which is the theme of the post to which you reply with your nonsense?
Laughing and dangling catnip.
The Germans shut down eight already built and operating nuclear plants after Fukushima.
That is just pure wealth destruction in terms of both future capital costs AND future marginal electricity costs after the loss of existing baseload power.
It takes a special kind of politician to be THAT stupid.
A special kind of politician — a GREEN politician, perhaps?
The left uses lawfare to make nuclear expensive.
Then the left uses the fact that nuclear is expensive as proof that it doesn’t work.
Good. I needed a dose of humor.
We are laughing at you and your idiocies.
The World Nuclear Association say 80 reactors are under construction world wide with a further 120 plants planned.
There are currently 440 reactors in operation in 31 countries worldwide and 80 under construction in 15 countries.
You never get anything right do you?
Except China with their 37 reactors each rated 1000 MW currently under construction.
As usual you miss the point! The article is about Germany committing economic suicide with expensive intermittent renewables.
He did not miss. He deliberately misdirected by employing a red herring.
Deflections are all they can manage because the empirical facts can’t be refuted by ideology.
It’s a mirror image of Labour’s Britain. The only real difference is language.
deindustrialization Is Net Zero. Next up breathing masks to absorb Carbon dioxide exhalation – mandatory, of course.
“Meet your German Boss
Same as the English Boss.”
The Who
“Won’t Get Fooled Again”
The Who.
duck://player/SHhrZgojY1Q
I know, I know – it doesn’t work.
Sorry.
I got it at Wikipedia.
Should know better by now 🙁
Industrial suicide is treated as an unintended consequence of NetZero when it has been the plan all along. Kill industry, kill Capitalism. You don’t see China, Russia, or India doing anything but virtue signaling NetZero compliance and that’s just to keep the West down the path so they can benefit from it.
Spot on.
“Key industrial sectors (chemicals, manufacturing, steel) are relocating capital and production abroad, …”
A summary would be nice. Who has moved what to where?
Likewise: Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)? Where? How many?
I can recall days when German engineering was top tier and German industries were highly competitive.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end.
Back then when Germany was German.
I was going to comment that this post was so obvious that only a complete idiot could disagree with it, but I see I was too late! The advocate(s) for Retarded Energy systems are just like ants at the picnic of Life; incapable of independent thought, hive mind only!
Germany is like a man with two left feet. After Charlemagne, they couldn’t get reorganized for 1000 years, then Hitler, then the DDR, then DDR look alike-Merkel with Middle Eastern refugees and green energy. Yet after that they are afraid of the AfD. Might make them a real nation again? Pretty scary.