Russian Pipeline Is Germany's Greatest Foreign Policy Embarrassment | Hacker News Reader

Russian Pipeline Is Germany's Greatest Foreign Policy Embarrassment

spiegel.de

79 pointsTomte94 comments

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Hmm. But...

Russia has nat gas.

Germany wants nat gas.

Russia wants to sell it.

Germany is willing to buy it.

All sounds rather simple and commercial to me. If there’s a concern about Russian influence then the only real solution is to invest further in more diversified sources - eg via The Mediterranean so that multiple supplies exist in the event of geo-political strains.

Economically it is very simple and beneficial to Germany.

There are two foreign-policy angles:

The Eastern-European states (mostly Poland and the Ukraine, but also the Baltics) are constantly afraid of Russia. Especially to the Poles it looks a bit like Germany and Russia diving Poland between themselves in WW II.

That's the good foreign policy opposition.

Then there's the bad one: America. America wants to sell liquid gas from fracking.

That gas is more expensive, so Germany builds ports for those LNG ships, but also the pipeline.

America warns that Germany makes itself dependent on Russian gas, but that's bullshit. Germany can switch over to American LNG at any time. The infrastructure is there. As soon as Russian gas stops, gets too expensive, or strings are attached, Germany can almost instantly get American gas.

The only problem is: America wants to sell their expensive gas right now.

And so the impose sanctions, not against Germany, but against everyone remotely connected to that project. It sounds like an exaggeration, but they literally impose sanctions on some janitor working for a port that let a ship enter which was working on that pipeline. And the mayor of the town the port is in. And everyone else.

The terms of alliance are you do not enrich the guy we are protecting you from.

It is that simple!

The US is not protecting Germany against Russia militarily. The US is opposing Russia because it is in the US's interests to oppose Russia

Germany is more than able to protect itself against Russia.

> Germany is more than able to protect itself against Russia.

Germany only have ~300 tanks.

It is not by any stretch of imagination.

Germany isn't going to fight Russia alone, it's going to fight Russia with the entire EU per article 42 section 7 of the TEU.

France has 530 MBTs, Spain 550, and Italy 480. This compares favourably with the 2600 Russian tanks, and with proper logistical backbone, advanced air support, infantry support, and competent missile defence systems, is way more than necessary to stall a Russian offensive.

Of course, once the Russian offensive is stalled, Germany alone can vastly outproduce Russia, and that's the worst case scenario.

The US is not necessary for Germany to defend against Russia.

Western countries traded with the Russians during the Cold War so this seems like a weak argument. Where does the NATO treaty stipulate a trade embargo against the Russians?

Trade seems fine, it is being dependent which is potentially dangerous.

In the cold war, it was the USSR which was more dependent. Without food grown in North America, they were (IIRC) looking at WWII levels of rationing, in the 80s, which would have made people pretty unhappy. They sold oil to buy this food, but most of the west could have got by without this trade. (Not sure how dependent W.Germany was, at that point.)

Western Germany got gas from the Sowjets since the 70s. It is more the eastern eurpean countries that risk being in trouble. Using "German energy dependency" is just a straw man. Oh, I have the impression the real reason a commercial conflict between the US and Russia.

You can also say "we lose money and influence if you trade with that guy, so we'll pretend you need to be protected from him".

Honestly, the free falling B61 you let us 'participate' in storing and delivering aren't protecting us, they make us a target. So Fuck OFF, will ya?

> As soon as Russian gas stops, ... Germany can almost instantly get American gas.

Is it really so simple? Even if the domestic infrastructure is identical, you need the port facilities (at both ends, with spare capacity), and you need ships.

Anyone know what sort of percentage of the world LNG shipping market today this would be? (To replace the whole Russian supply to Europe, say.) That would influence how easy it is to rent the ships you need.

Edit -- quick googling, Nord Stream 1 & 2 each 55 billion m^3/year max, the whole world's LNG fleet about 90 million m^3, liquid is 615 times the density, thus 55 billion m^3 total capacity of gas. So if every single LNG ship made one trip US-DE, that would replace a year of Nord Stream 1 alone. The trip is about 12 days, one way, at 20 knots.

Maybe I should google more but I thought lead times were also a constraint -- that gas pipelines are close to real-time, unlike oil, while renting some ships to sail across the atlantic would take a while. Anyone know the details?

America is building those ports right now, because they have LNG to sell. Germany is building those ports right now, in order to placate the Americans.

I have no idea whether it can substitute for the whole of Russian gas, probably not. But for Nord Stream 2, yes.

Total capacity of the completed Nord Stream 1 (~55 bcma, billion cubic metres per year) and Yamal-Europe (~33 bcma) is barely sufficient to cover the German demand (~88.7 bcma in 2019), assuming no sales to Poland or Austria and other countries on the route of the latter - but one of the swan songs for Germany was the prospect of being the transit country for the remainder of the capacity that Nord Stream 2 was to bring (another 55 bcma!). It would also allow Germany and Russia to exert more political pressure on some of its neighbours, in particular on other central European countries (Poland, Slovakia, Austria) - it is not unreasonable these countries not exactly thrilled about the prospect. Not to mention, it helps in those times when Germany needs to give the finger to the US, of course.

Plus there is the little thing that most existing terminals can't accept Q-class ships (i.e. vessels with capacity 200 thousand cubic metres), so it is not exactly possible to replace total demand with LNG - it's actually doubtful if you could even replace the ~9 bcma of Nord Stream 2 gas that was actually earmarked for Germany. We are talking different orders of magnitude here.

Where exactly do we build them? War schon irgendwo "Spatenstich"?

I am not an expert, so be kind, but I think you got a thing or two wrong:

- Germany imported close to 110bn m^3 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/332218/gas-trade-imports...)

- a typical big LNG tanker has a capacity of 266,000 m^3 ( https://www.wartsila.com/encyclopedia/term/lng-tanker)

- 110.000.000.000 / 266.000 = 413,533 trips or 1133 tankers unloading every day.

Against the 90m m^3 "whole world fleet capacity" that's still a factor of 1222, so every single LNG tanker would have to do the USA <-> 4 times every day for this to work.

I have literally never looked up these numbers before, so it's entirely possible I messed it up. But I think you might be missing a conversion factor, as it appears that tankers quote liquid volume, while pipelines quote gas (at 1 atm I presume). With that it becomes 2 ships/day, which could be in the ballpark.

You could be right, but I was under the impression that pipeline gas was liquified as well, but maybe I am wrong.

Nord Stream and Yamal both transport pressurized natural gas (at 100 to 120 atm). LNG is not really suitable for long pipelines.

You could look at https://www.gie.eu/index.php/gie-publications/maps-data/lng-... which shows the already existing infrastructure and capacities. Also existing LNG-terminals in for instance Rotterdam, and the pipeline networks from there to Wilhelmshavn, Hamburg and Brunsbüttel. We don't even need that. It's non-sense. Uncle Sam is just angry about us giving our money to Russia instead of him. That's all.

/me shrugs.

Thanks, that's a useful map.

Using "the Ukraine" is heavily discouraged, please use Ukraine instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine#Etymology_and_orthogra...

Interesting, I had no idea.

I think I heard the variant without article in German, as well, but I'm not aware of a similar discouragement.

The German Wikipedia seems not to have anything on it, as well.

Roughly 4% of the money Germany will give Russia will be used to kill Ukrainians and stage wars like in Georgia.

Russia spends around 4% GDP on their army.

Otherwise, why shouldn't we buy oil e.g. from Islamic State if it manages to reappear?

Germany has purchased gas from the Soviet Union throughout the cold war. If it wasn't a problem then, why should it be a problem now? Also companies like Gazprom aren't 100% state-owned and only pay a fraction of their revenue to the Russian state. Your 4% calculation is way off.

Yes. And the part that is not paid to the Russian state goes to fill the pockets of Putin and his cronies directly. And then is being spent on things like fancy estates in Russia and abroad, as well as mercenaries taking part in conflicts in which the Putin's regime wants to have plausible deniability.

Of course Germany purchased gas from the USSR throughout the Cold War. Half of Germany was part of the Eastern Bloc. What kind of argument is that?

But Nord Stream didn't exist back then. And I think that's the really problematic issue for Germany. It's one thing to buy fossil fuels on the open market, and another entirely to lay out tons of infrastructure spending to solidify your dependency on an adversary.

Western Germany purchased gas and oil from the USSR. It's actually a very good argument, because it points out something that most people aren't aware of.

Generally speaking, Germany's foreign policy is deeply tied to its energy policy. It's one of the reasons for its interest in renewables.

I will also note that, say, Thatcher's UK purchased coal from Warsaw Pact Poland in order to crush strikes by domestic coal miners.

I think it's a poor argument. "Germany, which was halfway a Soviet satellite state, bought fuel from the USSR forty years ago, therefore all German purchases of Russian fossil fuels are perpetually justifiable."

What kind of world do you live in where you resist a clear need for self-preserving adaptation to the new reality, simply based on past behavior during a time of upheaval and fragmentation?

Western Germany was not halfway a Soviet satellite but firmly in NATO - coincidentally the nation where the IRBMs to take out Moscow would have been launched. And yet it bought gas from the USSR which had been super correct and never tried using it for leverage against Western Germany.

Eastern Germany was an own nation and they got preferencial prices for gas from the USSR as part of their block.

I should have paid better attention in history class, because I have never before heard of Western Germany being described as 'halfway a Soviet Satellite state'. Should I run this theory by my German friends, to see what their take on the subject is?

I have, however, lived in both East and West, and I have to say, the new reality of Russia's imperial ambitions are... A bit more tempered than the USSR's imperial ambitions over most of its existence.

Now, if my historical and political education only came from modern political pundits, I might see the events of the past decade as something entirely unexpected, unprecedented, and existential.

They aren't, though. They rarely are. The pundits see every crisis as unexpected, unprecedented, and existential. We wouldn't have much use for them if they didn't.

Actually West Germany purchased gas from USSR from 1973 onwards:

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/energieabhaengigk...

Well if it goes so, USA bought USSR's oil!

And that was used as the biggest red flag pointing on hollowness of its international policies.

Did you forget that Germany was split east and west and east was totally owned by the Russians? Of course they bought from them.

Gazprom is 50% owned by the Russian state. Overall, gas and oil account for roughly 50% of Russia budget.

Well, we were buying goods from other world powers that were waging wars that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the middle east...

Without getting too bogged down in the very complicated ethical questions of nation states killing people, a key difference between trading with ISIS and trading with belligerents in other wars, is that the entirety of the world was at war with ISIS. [1]

[1] Peruse the "Opponents" section of the table on the right hand side. As far as I can tell, combining the State Opponents and "Many Others" sections gets you a list of just about every country in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_...

To paraphrase the top comment:

Hmm. But...

ISIS has oil.

Germany wants oil.

ISIS wants to sell it.

Germany is willing to buy it.

All sounds rather simple and commercial to me. If there’s a concern about ISIS influence then the only real solution is to invest further in more diversified sources - eg via The Mediterranean so that multiple supplies exist in the event of geo-political strains.

That's just silly. If you want ISIS to not wage wars then you do not buy oil from them. If you want Russia to not kill Ukrainians and annex parts of countries in Europe then you do not buy oil or gas from them.

Considering we all are buying oil from Mohammed "bonesaw" Salman's Saudi Arabia which likely financed a lot of islamist terror, I am not sure the difference is that big.

Yes, and the world should not be buying oil from Saudis either.

The biggest grey zone here is USA. Europe should have certainly not participated in USA wars in the Middle East.

Of course the murder of Khashoggi was wrong, but I tire of hearing it used as an example when Saudi Arabia is responsible for legions of humans of rights violations and war crimes against millions of people. A well-heeled, very well-connected ex-Saudi intelligence officer and nephew of an Iran-Contra arms dealer was assassinated by a dictator after founding an anti-regime organization overseas and being funded by unknown sources. When you say it like that, it sounds a little different than the usual narrative of the Washington Post columnist murdered for his column - if anything, I would like to know why western media is hiring foreign intelligence officers.

Isn't this comparison a bit over the top in hysteria ? Will you also be calculating the money the world gives to China to carry out genocide in Xinjiang next ?

"It's just business" (or as you phrase it, "rather simple and commercial") is how US manufacturing outsourced itself, and it's also how Germany became dependent upon the largest foreign threat to its region's security.

"It's just business" is also how the USA got interested in protecting Germany's energy independence against German political decisions right when the USA started to have an abundance of fracking gas.

The pipe is still a huge problem as it allows Putin to rule over a rich Russia, but the way the last USA hamfistedly tried to strong-arm German politics didn't do any good to US/German relations.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." That is, in this case it's so convenient that high goals of protecting democracy align with economical goals of improving exports, it's hard to resist. Pity this "after everything else" keeps painting Americans in a way which limits those same American's goals.

It's hard to see behind immediate benefits. Those of us who can and do resist silly temptations, should be supported.

>It's hard to see behind immediate benefits. Those of us who can and do resist silly temptations, should be supported.

Very true, and this is why I am equally skeptical about the German determination to get this through, come hell or high water.

Well, Germany never had fossil fuel since coal wasn't feasible anymore. And even if, German deposits were too expensive to exploit.

It became quite political due too, IMHO:

- the US wants to sell fracking gas

- the previous US admin wanted to show strength against Russia

- it somehow became a controversial topic in Germany

- Eastern European countries are afraid, maybe rightly so, that now it would be easier for Russia to cut them off (as they did with Ukraine in the past) as soon as Germany and Western Europe wouldn't be affected anymore

Russia, and the USSR before that, pretty much respected contracts. The exception being former Sowjet countries not being part of the EU and NATO. And the conflict between the west and Russia affects Ukraine the worst. These diplomatic aspects, intermingled with economic interests, have been badly handled by Germany.

That being said, it wouldn't be the first pipeline through the Baltic Sea. There is already a Nordtream 1.

Could you explain what you mean by that?

..and it's also how Germany became dependent upon the largest foreign threat to its region's security.

The "Berliner Zeitung" (local newspaper in Berlin) says that the US has conflicting interests: Trump was pushing a market for liquid gas produced in the US by means of fracking; now Biden wants to get rid of fracking. The newspaper says that this change in priorities is an opportunity for Merkel to push for the project (which she regards as being in the interest of Germany). Still they are quite ambivalent because of the many conflicting interests around it. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/wirtschaft-verantwortung/nor...

fracking is just a nasty process and destroys water reservoirs. Really isn't worth it just to make the rich richer. But they don't live there and they like nestle, so they want people to buy bottled water.

I would guess that Merkel is regarding energy prices as a factor that is driving prices for all dependent products. I guess she is probably trying to optimize this expenditure for the economy of her country.

It’s the greens’ fault. We should have invested in nuclear. We wouldn’t depend on Russian gas if we had nuclear.

> All sounds rather simple and commercial to me

That seems to be because you haven't economic studied history. The Soviet Union used its natural resources, and gas in particular, to exert control over its satellites whenever diplomatic methods failed to achieve desired results. Central European countries have not forgotten this, and it behoves us to understand their experience. Moreover, through the person of Schroeder in particular, Germany already has a lite version of that history. Whatever Putin needed done, he had and used an important lever in the form of gas to make Schroeder dance.

The USSR also has not used gas deliveries as a lever against Western Germany at all.

They tried to invest in diversified sources. There was a plan to build a pipeline from the gulf states to Europe. Russia turned that idea into a war in Syria and a humanitarian refugee crisis.

It’s not as simple as buying it from someone else when Russia views countries that are beholden to them for energy as a geopolitical asset.

I am sure I read a while ago that there were pipeline projects both via Israel and Turkey?

If that were the case then I'd imagine, the combo of Russia, Turkey and Israel as gas suppliers to Europe would be about as diversified as possible to mitigate geo-political risks.

IIRC, neither Israel nor Turkey were going to be suppliers, but they were needed as part of proposed routes for the pipeline. The natural gas rich areas are in southern Iran and Qatar. Syria stopped the plan, and they said no to protect Russia's interests. And Assad is only still in power because he has Russian protection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar%E2%80%93Turkey_pipeline

Yeah, you better provide proof on that claim. It was definitely not Russia who funded “rebels”. And it was SA who funded ISIS.

A country doesn't need to be liked or respected on the world stage to have power. Germany needing Russian natural gas is the perfect example of this.

It was rather a project by then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to make sure he had a nice retirement fund and was indeed hired by Russian Gazprom right after he left office. Now the question is whether Germany honors these arrangements or not.

In case anyone is wondering about sources re. this, cf.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream#Nord_Stream_2

Vorsitzender des Verwaltungsrats der Projektgesellschaft ist Gerhard Schröder.[75] Wie auch schon bei der ersten Pipeline wirkte Schröder als Wirtschaftslobbyist und organisierte wiederholt Treffen zwischen dem Geschäftsleiter von Nord Stream Matthias Warnig und Schröders SPD-Kollegen und Außenminister Sigmar Gabriel sowie zwischen Gazprom-Chef Alexej Miller und Wirtschaftsministerin Brigitte Zypries (SPD).[76][77]

[75] http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/nord-stream-2-neuer-job-f... [76] https://www1.wdr.de/daserste/monitor/sendungen/nordstream-10... [77] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/themen/agenda/pipeline-nord-stre...

Können Sie bitte auf Englisch übersetzen?

I thought about adding a "y'all know how to use Google Translate" joke at the end of my post, and decided against it.

I guess you made the joke for me...

Sure: The chairman of the project company's board of directors is Gerhard Schröder.[75] As with the first pipeline, Schröder acted as a business lobbyist, repeatedly organizing meetings between Nord Stream's managing director Matthias Warnig and Schröder's SPD colleague and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, as well as between Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Economics Minister Brigitte Zypries (SPD).[76][77]

Thank you for adding substance to my post!

Schröder is an embarrassment. Usually high-level German politicians retire and stay out of things. I am very afraid that more will follow his example making tons of money with borderline corrupt activities.

> Usually high-level German politicians retire and stay out of things.

Not really, at least not in the last 15 or so years. It has become pretty common for senators to later end up in similar (through less powerful) positions then him.

Let's be honest Germans goverment is supper screwed over currently by laws which allow forms of lobism which should be treated as corruption and handled with multi year prison sentence.

There is a reason why Germany is on some corruption indices pretty high in the top (of most corrupt countries).

https://portaleco.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/bundesdruckerei-u...

“Not really, at least not in the last 15 or so years.l

I guess I have been out of the for longer than that :(.

Getting oil or gas is far from geo-politically ideal, let alone Schröder mixing up politics and business. On the other hand it's okay in comparison to what the US did to obtain and secure oil from the middle-east. That said, I don't think this has anything to do with being respected or liked. Having a good redundant energy supply is a core need, both governments and businesses before that failed to secure it by going for renewables earlier on. At the same time the US has always been respected in the past despite geo-polical acting that was more than questionable. If people have to freeze in the winter because of political fallout, this doesn't have to do much with being likeable.

One of author's big points was that they didn't believe that Germany actually needed the extra natural gas in the first place

It's long known that Europe can decouple itself from Russian gas - not only issues of climate, but also economy (long-term) and politics point there. It's the usual short-term business interest which is driving the project.

Then finish it and just keep it as a backup? Sure that will cost some more money but redundancy always costs money. Maybe especially if most of the money has already been spend - if you abandon it now, you get nothing for all the money, if you spent a bit more, you get some redundancy. And if more gas is not needed to begin with, then it should not really matter whether it gets finished or not. On the other hand I have no idea what value such redundancy would have, maybe it is not worth it. And that is probably all a bit naive, I did not follow this issue.

I doubt Germany is known for doing senseless things for no good reasons, so here I believe the author is missing some crucial piece of information:

- Germany is currently mainly depending on Russia, The Netherlands, and Norway for gas (https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/DEU).

- The Netherlands will phase out gas production (in decline since 2013: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sac...) and since an earth quake caused by gas production, faster than anticipated: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Sac...

- the 20 billion cm^3 the Dutch export to Germany make up roughly 20% of German demand (~88b cm^3: https://www.statista.com/statistics/703657/natural-gas-consu...) so that's a demand that must be filled.

So, there is a 20% shortfall over the next 10y and till decarbonization reduces demand. Germany is getting gas from Azerbaijan via AP (https://www.oedigital.com/news/484249-azerbaijan-starts-gas-..., but TAP is only able to deliver 20b cm^3 (https://www.dw.com/en/southern-gas-corridor-project-about-to...), and not all of that goes to Europe. And Turkey has a choke hold on the gas transports, much like Ukraine has on the Yamal pipeline.

I am not an expert in natural gas markets, but it seems obvious that Germany needs to replace the Dutch shortfall either:

- From Russia

- From Norway, but they might want to get out of fossil fuels (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2196024-norway-is-start...) and their gas is also needed to replace coal consumption in Germany

- From the UK, but reserves are dwindling

- From the USA, but fracking gas is expensive, has a bad reputation in Germany and carrier transports might be less reliable than pipelines

- From Azerbaijan which is an autocratic country with a lot of potential for violence, which also just started a war.

=> None of the options are pretty.

- From SouthEast europe, but Germany is also in bed with Turkey so they don't want to touch that side of EU either.

It is painfully apparent how strategically inadequate Germany is in leading anything except its exports.

> extra natural gas

But who says it's about extra natural gas? It's actually more about more reliable, easier and cheaper natural gas supply. Germany has been depending on Russian gas since probably well before I was born...

The US should stop interfering in foreign countries sovereignty. Germany doesn't tell the US if they should build keystone 2 or not.

Badly written article - had to wade through a lot of ad hominem and ad populum to find out what the basic criticism was.

Could you do us a favor then and give us what you believe the key criticism to be?

Endorsing countries that threaten to invade other EU countries is a bit more of an embarrassment than a pipeline.

When did Russia threaten to invade an EU country?

Are you familiar with calls "Mozhem povtorit'"? They date at least to 2014.

To curious, this means "(we) can repeat" and refers to the end of WWII, when Soviet armies went West and stormed Berlin - tanks, infantry, aviation, everything. Those using such calls conveniently forget the price which was paid during those years - the price they certainly aren't eager to repay.

Is that private citizens or Russian officials making these calls?

Both:

last May Russian authorities could not resist allowing widespread displays of "patriotic" bumper stickers reading "We can repeat it!" ("Mozhem povtorit!"), the undisguised hint for a new military campaign to come again to the heart of Europe. If those are not the threatening statement of possible intentions—what are those?

(2016) https://www.newsweek.com/why-does-putin-russia-non-existent-...

"could not resist allowing"

What does that even mean? Are you imagining there's a bumper sticker permit system in Russia?

I had the same reaction.

I'm not sure, it sounds like the government usually is against such displays, but in the fervent of the Victory Day, they simply allowed the displays to stand without interference?

Well I'm Russian and I can certify there's no such thing as bumper sticker regulation in Russia :)

People sometimes slap truly tasteless stickers on their cars. There are many variations of the "Mozhem povtorit" sticker, including obscene ones like a Soviet Union stick figure fucking the bent over Nazi Germany stick figure from behind.

No one asks for permission to put a sticker like that on their car. The only requirement is lack of taste.

Or hitting folks late to put mask on with buttons

You know? Sometimes I'm thinking Germany should offer them some land for a symbolic price of ONE EURO for 99 years(Honkong-style), and let whomever took that offer build an LNG plant there. There is enough free space in several places on, or very near the coast, also already existing petrochemical infrastructure. Of course all according to german environmental and safety laws!

The fact that this isn't discussed ever just shows which farce it is. They want to shove that dirty stuff down our throats, and have us pay for the infrastructure too! Booo!

Interestingly our greens don't give a shit about that.

Just shows their true spirit.

Something for your amusement:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=zahltag+junker+joschka

Greatest current foreign policy embarrassment. Every country, east/west and everywhere, has something in their history that is more "embarrassing" than a Russian pipeline. It's like those people who say of the riot "this is the worst thing to every happen in DC". Really? The literal worst? I think some basic wikipedia history diving will find something at least slightly worse.

https://archive.is/kM00y

This stands in stark contrast to Germany's reputation and perception that it is a leader in renewable energy.

Their energy policy as a whole should be looked at because they are held up as an example for adopting solar and wind. But looking at German's electricity production and ignoring natural gas for things other than electricity gives a skewed picture.

Would Germany need natural gas if they committed to nuclear power and shifted to electrical heating?

>Gas covered around a quarter of Germany's primary energy use in 2019,

>Currently, most of the gas is used in the industrial sector (e.g. for power and heat supply, or in chemical processes), followed by private households (mostly heating), public power and heating supply, manufacturing and trade.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-dependen....

According to the article you linked, German natural gas use barely changed between 2008 and 2018. (Chart titled "Import dependency by primary energy source 2008 and 2018 for Germany.")

The 2008-2018 deltas were:

- Natural gas +1

- Oil -15

- Hard coal -17

- Lignite -3

- Nuclear -27

- Renewables +23

Maybe you're saying that Germany could have reduced natural gas use too if they'd invested in nuclear instead of renewables? Possibly, but France started building Flamanville 3 at the end of 2007 and it's not going to enter commercial operation until after 2022 [1]. If Germany had started building new reactors 10 years ago it's possible they would still be waiting for the money invested to generate any new energy, just like France.

[1] https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/EDF-warns-of-added-c...

The German government announced its intention to phase out nuclear power 20 years ago.

What is the plan to phase out natural gas use?

As far as I know there is no explicit German gas phase-out plan the way there now is for coal [1] and the way there was for nuclear reactors. I think that it was a bad idea for Germany to shut working reactors prematurely. I also think that it was unavoidable for German leadership, given how unpopular nuclear power is with German voters. 81% of polled Germans agreed with the nuclear phase-out as of 2015 [2].

There's a gas phase-out implicit in Germany's 2050 net zero target, but that's not very strong. Other EU members are also theoretically committed to net zero by 2050. I don't know if any of them have committed to earlier dates for eliminating gas specifically.

[1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/spelling-out-coal...

[2] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

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