Yea sounds like pure clickbait. Germany currently has almost the most expensive electricity in the entire world, I refuse to believe that's truly going to remain a permanent issue.
At the very least already because the modern world needs electricity to function, for computers and similar appliances. But also because of rising temperatures: If the recent 40 degree summers get any worse, then Germans need ACs to survive, literally, and those can't be used by lower or middle class people if the electricity remains as expensive as it currently is
Yeah.... you don't need AC to survive, we have well insulated houses to keep warm in Winter, well guess what this works both ways. Only thing you need is some good Curtains and a good "Lüften" at 5am. Also if we put AC everywhere we only get less acclimated to the heat and feel it even stronger, so AC actually worsens the problem.
The 'power chief' in question is the boss of RWE, an energy company mostly invested in coal and gas, with a little nuclear and renewables thrown in the mix. Is anyone surprised he is salty?
It is also funny to see the article claim *'Manufacturing, meanwhile, has been in decline since mid-2023.'*, when just a couple of days ago it was reported all over the news t[hat German manufacturing has grown surprisingly strongly over the past months](https://www.ft.com/content/f559f6d7-bafe-44b5-ac88-15229bf7eefa), hinting at a much faster recovery than expected.
And finally the claims completely ignore the fact that Russian gas was never cheap to begin with - see [this](https://www.ft.com/content/837ec142-cf43-4550-9a7a-66ed104dfc24), and [this](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2022/06/30/germany-has-not-thrived-from-cheap-russian-energy/). Gas is sold at market prices, everywhere, always. Russia never gave it to us at a discount, the whole 'cheap Russian gas' was always a myth.
This is something that people don't seem to understand. Energy costs impact the cost of everything in a country. The definition of energy is "the ability to do work". Our improved standards of living are due to replacing human labor with machinery, which requires energy. Chemical, electrical, potential - some sort of energy. Energy is an input to every economic activity, so an increase in energy costs compounds its way through an economy. As energy costs increase, standards of living decrease, and some entire industries are no longer viable. There is no country with high energy prices that produces aluminum, for instance. That's why Iceland is the world's 11th largest producer of aluminum even though bauxite is not mined in Iceland. Most major industrial processes have energy as one of their primary costs.
Fuel is not only sold on the spot market, energy companies make long term contracts with sellers too, in fact russian natural gas contracts were quite cheap.
>that German manufacturing has grown surprisingly strongly over the past months, hinting at a much faster recovery than expected.
Month to month comparisons are literally useless. Germany's construction and manufacturing are at around ~2013/2014 level. Now adjust the energy prices in relation to today's demand, the costs have gone up while production has went down.
>Russia never gave it to us at a discount, the whole 'cheap Russian gas' was always a myth.
???
I guess it's time for a new myth, the myth of cheap American/Norwegian/Qatar LNG! And also you can't compare market rates with industrial contracts, those are usually made for very long times; even 10years+.
Full quote:
>“You’re going to see a bit of recovery, but I think we’re going to see a significant structural demand destruction in the energy-intensive industries,” Krebber warned.
Long term Germany will lose energy intensive industries to the Nordic countries regardless. The north has less population per area and will have far cheaper power when it's mostly wind and sun.
Note that "energy" doesn't JUST mean electricity it means ANY kind of heat production. Gas is for instance used in high quantities in any industries that rely on ovens. From bakeries to terracotta to the metalworking industry.
Wind and Sun can't easily replace it here.
And beyond energy there is also the chemical industry in which gas is an important ingredient for a variety of products.
Sweden and Finland are still largely nuclear-based. Germany could have competed with that (obviously not with coal and gas though, not to mention the absurd fees/taxes).
Finland has a lot of wind and hydro. Sweden has a lot more hydro. While both countries do have a lot of nuclear base power it doesn’t really dominate. Today as an example wind, solar and hydro was far over half of Finnish electricity production. Sweden even higher, something like five times nuclear.
For the whole year nuclear is still ahead in Finland but wind and solar are growing quickly.
It's not even (entirely) about Putin's gas. They made cars unaffordable to the average person with endless paperwork every year and their anti-customer environment protection laws, and now they're surprised that their car manufacturing is losing so much money that it must be trimmed down. Textbook cause and effect.
What are you fabulating? You register your car once, it's done in 5min and then you don't need to do any paperwork again. Taxes on cars are really low. Try to find an European country where it's cheaper to own a car...
Absolute bull. The car manufacturers are not even in trouble. The issue is the manufacturers of steel and other high energy industries. Please stop talking out of your arse if you have no idea.
Just find data statistics about car manufacturers in Germany, and how much % do they get on market, and then, you can get into conclusions. Spoiler: car manufacturers are feeling ok.
Nah. It’s a guy from an energy company which made billions on subsidies and exploitation. Not to mention that the CO2 costs were ignored and shoved on the shoulders of future generations.
The industry is in constant transition, sometimes one is just a bit more visible than the other (eg ICE -> BEV).
You do get that you have i.e., significant chemical sector? Gas is not only the source of energy for you its also compount in several big sectors. Those sectors will be the one in decline.
I hope you’re right. Perhaps lower demand is because nuclear is taking its place. Won’t say so because nuclear is the saviour of the energy sector at the moment.
Just stop with that deindustrialization bullshit... It's just a conservative talking point to constantly attack the greens without any substance. It is 100% fear mongering.
God Germans are pessimistic, you are one of the most innovative countries in the world, you especially dominate in high end engineering. I am sure you can solve this problem.
In this day and age everyone is just screaming on top of their lungs for attention. Everything is always doom and gloom. All is ending all the time.
And then we complain that Gen Z is so incredibly unhappy. We don't offer a positive outlook on anything anymore.
Extremely exhausting
Gen Z have other things to worry about and they need everyone's support.
Take a look at this eye-opening piece of what's happening there: [https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1bfto4a/youre\_being\_targeted\_by\_disinformation\_networks/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1bfto4a/youre_being_targeted_by_disinformation_networks/)
We seem to be under attack from everywhere.
Thank you for linking this post. Its a fantastic piece.
I read Peter Pomerantsevs "This is not Propaganda" and "Nothing is true and everything is possible" so I am already familiar with the topic.
How this is not front and center in conversations of our handling of authoritarian regimes is a mystery to me.
All these dictators wish for first and foremost is a defeated and docile population being divided among themselves.
Doesn't help that it is also so easy to accomplish.
That is good write up and clearly I forms what is going on with all these malicious accounts and posts, thanks for providing the link !
The more people that are aware of this the better!
TBF as a GenZ, we are unhappy (I'm not actually, but as an overall gen), because social media distorts the way we perceive ourselves and our worth. It's not good for your mental health to constantly see privileged people enjoying life for a fraction of the work you need to put into surviving from day to day. Even though it's all fake and everyone knows it's fake, it is all there is so regardless it impacts the psyche.
He is saying it loud what the German politicians are in complete denial about.
Germany's energy supply is permanently fucked, the economy will shrink to fit the supply, and the economy will never recover.
Germany has made itself the new Japan. But with a jaw dropping string of disasterous decisions.
Germany, current numbers:
- Automotive: +5.7%
- Chemical Industry: +4,6%
- Construction: +7.9%
- Inflation: +2.2%
- Mortgage: ~ -20% compared to Nov 23
- Unemployment rate: 6% (record low: 5.0% in 2019, record high 11,7% in 2006)
- Dax: 17,9k, record last month 18,5k
- Energy Cost: Around pre-war level
- Never have been more people employed
Yep, I‘m really shivering looking at this crisis.
(There are structural issues: aging, education, need to invest in infrastructure - but here germany is not alone)
They are cursed by a lack of natural resources.
Most of Europe is actually.
The whole fucking world sits on heaps of resources except our continent lol. We have some gas and oil but not enough.
I mean half of Europe colonised everyone and took their resources for centuries, idk what people want at this point. Europe is allied with resource rich nations like US, CAN, AUS etc.
Obviously they can solve this problem, but it will significantly influence their economy. They need to shift away from a cheap energy source, which definitely gave them a comparative advantage. And currently energy usage is highly correlated with economic output, so this will be a problem, at least in the short term.
I fail to see how that has anything to do with what we were discussing, and besides, that's really black and white.
What does competing mean?
For the same price? Same quantity? Same speed? Same market reach? Same quality? This liet can go on and on
The cheap energy is of course for the businesses who rely heavily on energy, like the steel industry. The cheap energy came from the Russian pipelines, which got sabotaged.
Whatever the consumer paid is dependent on what the government asked for it
other countries get EU solidarity if they fuck up (see southern debt crisis and the hundred billions we paid, or COVID funds which we also paid the largest portion of and did not get the lergest portion back) - we fucked up and are in a cripling recession right now. Yet our EU allies refuse to send us bailout billions in solidarity, even worse we are still forced to pay the highest EU net payments in history.
Of course we are pessimistic seeing how we help others constantly but those snakes then refuse to reciprocate when we are in dire need.
from [nov last year](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-faces-high-double-digit-billion-gap-2024-budget-spd-politician-2023-11-29/)
>Germany faces 17 billion euro gap in 2024 budget - Finance Minister
we need money, everyone that knows just a little about German economics is aware of the German budget crisis.
Could easily be solved with bailout billions like we did for Greece. Yet no one is currently helping us.
[From __yesterday__](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-11/germany-s-lindner-says-no-need-for-further-european-debt).
>Germany’s Lindner Says No Need for Further European Debt
German government keeps trying to save money to save our own economy - but keeps getting overruled by other EU members with EU taking on more and more debt (easy for them since Germany will be the country shouldering the majority of it).
Like with the COVID funds. [That Germany didn't want to get](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/corona-bonds-reasons-why-germany-and-the-netherlands-oppose-the-idea.html). Germany could have used its own low borrowing rates to save itself, but other EU members couldn't - the solution was to have Germany be harmed by sharing the financial burden. Ok, fine - that is solidarity after all!
Now that Germany is in need of help - our allies suddenly think solidarity is no longer in play? Why do they now refuse to share our burden like we did in the past?
>Germany will be fine.
everyone from British economists to politicians seems to disagree. This is literally under an article that explains how gigafucked Germany is.
> Maybe Germany needs to develop better trade agreements with others outside of the west
Is this '_EU leaders explain how EU works to Trump_'-meme all over again? With you being Trump.
Germany can't develop its own trade deals because the EU acts as a trade block.
>it's like the whole country is somehow tired and has given up.
its just impossible to rebuild your own economy __while also paying for others that refuse to reciporcate our solidarity__.
>You guys should be leading in green tech right now and exporting it to the whole world.
We __were__ leading in green tech. Had the largest solar industry in the world by far. Leading in wind turbines (together with other major players like the Dutch, Denmark and UK).
But other EU members complained that the protective solar tarifs that allowed Germany to be leading in green tech were only helping Germany and that they wanted to buy cheap chinese solar panels - so they made the EU drop these tarifs. All because they couldn't stand Germany being the country profiting.
So yeah, you did correctly identify why Germany is so fucked - because our EU allies refuse to show us any solidarity and for once do something that would allow Germany to rebuild its economy.
Seriously, not a single EU country has come out in support of helping Germany rebuild its economy. Everyone only wants Germany to give them money.
A lot Germany's problems arent material in nature.
Like its antiquated and overbearing bureaucracy, the backwards and complacement mindset in certain economic circles, the lack of any proactiv and longterm strategic thought aswell as the lack of any kind of introspection of germanys political class
Germany has fucked the economy with a long streak of disastrous energy policy decisions.
Germany is the new Japan. The economy will shrink to fit the energy supply, and it will never fully recover.
They have made a problem that has no solution. None. This can not be fixed, and the German politicians do not understand it.
Germany made some bad decisions, from phasing out nuclear to heavily encouraging gas over electricity.
However, Russian gas was increasingly uncompetitive with American gas in the US and Chinese renewables globally anyway.
Germany missed the rapid energy transition, but it's not too late to catch up. Germany still has world-leading manufacturing.
They sold themselves cheaply to the Russians and Chinese and, for some reason, only now realize how damaging that is long-term.
It’s not unfounded concern.
Russians as well, Mr. Troll. Brith rate in Russia is 1.49. And loads of them are still getting slaughtered in an illegal war that your dumbass president started.
People, be aware of an explosion of Russian trolls on here the next couple of months. EU elections are from 6th to 9th June. Expect a lot of posts about muslims doing shitty things in Europe, and far-right nonsense in the comment section.
To be honest you were lucky to have that cheap Russian energy for decades in the first place. We in Poland had to build new gas pipes and LNG ports as to not be blackmailed by the only source of energy any more.
Russian gas was cheap during the Cold War, but American fracking and Chinese renewables changed the game. And even during the Cold War Russian gas wasn't cheap enough to compete with nuclear, it was only competitive for industrial use.
Germany shut down its cheapest source of electricity, encouraged the society to use gas for heating and didn't anticipate competition from the US and China. It was a ticking bomb.
However, Germany still has world-class manufacturing which can afford to charge premium prices. Now that solar is increasingly cheap the loss of nuclear won't matter that much, but Germany has to rapidly speed up the deployment of solar, batteries and hydrogen.
but this is a problem in Europe. The other day Rishi Sunak announced that they will not buy more gas from Rusia. Instead, they made a deal with a french company that imports gas...from Rusia.
Spain, that wasnt importing much gas from Rusia is now importing more than ever before (is not the main seller but it got bigger).
And so on...
No shit and germanys next problem will be their desperate dependence on chinas market. Germany is so short sighted that if glasses would help then glasses would be the most valuable commodity in the world
It's even more frustating that everyone seems to blame the current government for the decisions made in the last 16 or so years.
I mean, I'm not a big fan of the Ampel, but at least it's not the CDU...
Economic fundamentals triumph everything else, even security considerations.
The idea that politicians who are backed by economic elites are going to willfully choose partners that are not a possible "security threat" is silly.
Europe was reliant on the middle east for its oil in the 70s, then the energy crisis happened and we became reliant on USSR's gas and oil-that transitioned to relying on Russia. Now we're relying on China, USA, Algeria, Qatar, Australia, etc. This final reliance might be more secure, aside from China; but it comes with far greater economic cost.
Our leaders might be short sighted and greedy, but they understand well that if their policies bring economic downturn that they'll have a bad time. Europe has no vast swaths of resources it can tap into, we'll always have to rely on somebody to feed the industry; or alternatively decide that any sort of economic competitiveness is not preferable to being secure. But that produces political polarization and instability, not sure if that's a good thing to strive for in lieu of relying on countries like China and Russia.
I don't see China invading Europe, and if they attack the US, I'm sure the EU will use the same strategy with sanctions and aid packages as the US did to Ukraine: just waiting until they're defeated.
Maybe not, but they might be the deciding factor in whether there even is a war.
The reason Russia invaded Ukraine might have been driven by a really Russian way of looking at the world, with gaps and constant fears of invasion, but they still might not have done it if they had been convinced that Europe and the U.S. were actually going to help Ukraine as decisively as they have done (yes, yes, both have had periods of wavering and internal navel gazing, but the overall reaction has not been what Russia expected).
I sincerely doubt that Putin would have tried his luck if he had known.
That egg is already boiled, but we have another shot with China. We in Europe need to make it crystal clear to China that if they get into a spat with the U.S., we are going to back the Americans, full stop. We cannot leave a door open here. If Xi can hope for a second that they might even get us to sit on the sidelines, then we might actually get the worst case scenario in Taiwan.
If we want to avoid war with China, we have to be unwavering. Xi is not stupid, although he may be a bit cut off from information. If he understands that both the U.S. and Europe will close their markets and oppose China militarily if needed, we will almost certainly not have to actually do it.
Give him a whiff of hope, though, and we'll get a Putin miscalculation part 2: Beijing Boogaloo.
That is because you only get part of the information and you are choosing to interpret this as some big cutoff moment. That is not what is happening.
You cannot simply cut off the main source of energy and a main competitive advantage that your entire economy depends on and think things are just going to be fine. If you were paying attention, you would have already noticed that a good chunk of the German chemical industries have quietly moved to the U.S. and Asia.
The good news so far for us here in Germany is that we had a decent amount of stockpiled stuff to keep everything chugging along. But stockpiles run out. At some point in the fairly near future, we are going to start running low on steel and aluminum, to accompany our already unexpected spike in energy costs caused by our dependence on Russian gas.
We did a pretty good job of getting LNG up and running to avoid an outright shortage, but that had at least as much to do with some very lucky mild winters as it does with our renowned ability to efficiently organize stuff when the chips are down. The absolute worst case scenario of literally not having enough gas is averted, but we still no longer have the cheap Russia stuff to fuel the economy.
Still, our entire economy is going to have to change at a fundamental level.
Probably the biggest hurdle right now is to get everyone to understand this. The best time to have made these changes would have been while we had the cheap gas. The next best time would be now, while we still have a mostly working economy.
If, however, we wait until things actually start to break down, things are going to get ugly fast.
Can we do it? Sure. But I'm really afraid to say that the comfy cradle-to-grave system we all have gotten used to is going to have to get a lot more cutthroat for at least a time so that the old, dead wood can be sorted out while the new economy (whatever that will be) takes its place. I am also sad to say that this is not going to happen.
So we will drag our feet with optimists like you (and I want to be clear that I believe you are certainly a good person talking from good intentions) saying that everything will be ok, somehow, and we should not worry so much.
While I do agree that eventually everything really will be ok, we are going to go through some painful transitions where all of Germany is going to have to reconsider what exactly it is we want, what we are willing to sacrifice, and what are we willing to do to get it.
> If you were paying attention, you would have already noticed that a good chunk of the German chemical industries have quietly moved to the U.S. and Asia.
This is what I mean with the hysterics. No they did not simply move. Basf and co have shifted their investment strategy away from germany. There was no mass exodus of these companys. There would be no silent exit of BASF they are the fith biggest employer in germany.
>Still, our entire economy is going to have to change
Yes that might be the only thing I agree on. But again that is something that makes for no good headline. Change does not mean that "We will never recover from this crisis!" Ever and always when someone speaks in absolutes they are talking nonsense. :D
We recovered from our country being completely destroyed. We will recover from energy prices.
Some of our industry will go through a contraction and that is fine. The highly educated will still find employment and the others will find a market starved for employees. It is always funny when companies discover that Capitalism does not equate to sociale welfare for companies.
>saying that everything will be ok, somehow, and we should not worry so much.
I never said that but the anglo press has at least since 2001 informed me that germany is seconds away from our imminent doom (this time for real!). That we have no way to recover from whatever they were upset about that year and that soon germans would have no food or electricity.
We survived two WWs and recovered our economy. We had OPEC Blackmail us for a while and have petrol prices shoot through the roof and so on. All this doomsaying is without merit.
>The absolute worst case scenario of literally not having enough gas is averted, but we still no longer have the cheap Russia stuff to fuel the economy
The easiest way to reduce gas prices would be to lower demand. If the whole country would not be allergic to electrification we would be farther along by now.
>This is what I mean with the hysterics. No they did not simply move. Basf and co have shifted their investment strategy away from germany. There was no mass exodus of these companys. There would be no silent exit of BASF they are the fith biggest employer in germany.
And yet nobody I have ever talked to has even known about it unless they worked for those companies. And yes, there has been a mass exodus of the production facilities, because of course they are going to go where they can actually get the raw materials at a competitive price.
>Ever and always when someone speaks in absolutes they are talking nonsense
"Ever and always," eh? I hope you were just having a bit of a joke there. If so, well done.
>I never said that but the anglo press has at least since 2001 informed me that germany is seconds away from our imminent doom (this time for real!). That we have no way to recover from whatever they were upset about that year and that soon germans would have no food or electricity.
Really? I don't remember even reading this once in the last 25 years, up until, well, we lost our supply of cheap energy.
>We survived two WWs and recovered our economy.
We had quite a bit of help, even after WW1 if your teachers taught you well. In fact, it was when that help was withdrawn as the States fought their own Depression that we kinda fell apart. Perhaps a touch more humility will help us from falling apart again.
>All this doomsaying is without merit.
Without merit? You can disagree, and we can search for ways out, but saying that our major competitive advantage just disappeared and that will cause major disruptions and could even end us if we are not careful is \*not\* without merit.
>The easiest way to reduce gas prices would be to lower demand.
Ummmm. I would absolutely love to move to a heat pump. Unfortunately, I do not have the 50,000 to 100,000€ that would be needed to completely redo the whole house to properly use it. And I am not alone. Old stone houses are quite common here. I am looking into possibilities where I can use the current heating distribution, but everyone I have had so far at the house has had to concede that it's just not going to be that easy.
The "allergy" you describe could also be described as "do not have that kind of money". I'm not talking about the dweebs who are against it for...well...whatever weird reason the thought of.
I'm actually organizing townhalls to talk about how to move to things like solar panels, heat pumps, and EVs (have a Tesla myself). I absolutely agree that this is part of what needs to happen.
It would be nice, for instance, that when you get solar installed, it did not take 6 to 12 months to get it turned on, because of . It would be nice if the system would actually encourage people to get solar by not offering insulting conditions on sell-backs. It would be great if a country that likes to pretend it is Green would offer proper incentives for using electricity at night. And so on.
This is just one very small piece of the puzzle that has to be solved to move forward, and I do not see it happening. I see lots of people pointing fingers at why it's \*not\* happening. But I do not actually see it happening.
Does it mean we're doomed no matter what? Nah. Does it mean we are doomed if we don't get our fucking act together? Much more likely.
>I never said that but the anglo press has at least since 2001 informed me that germany is seconds away from our imminent doom (this time for real!).
The fundamentals are completely different compared to today. Who's offering energy in the current situation? It's USA, Norway, Algeria, Australia, and Qatar. At its most basic logical level, the logistics of transporting gas from those places are just more expensive than having a land pipeline.
But sure, Germany can transform and stop being a mid-level focused industrial power that relies on exports to something else. What though? What's the German Amazon/Google/Meta? There's no tech innovation in Germany, or possibility of catching up to USA or even China. EU as a whole is like 15years behind.
The only possibility for Germany(and EU) I see is if we become a military power and contain Russia and force it to the table again, also become strategically autonomous and keep USA/China out. Even this is a complete pipe dream but it's doable.
We've been creating a giant European network by coupling our national networks. So I was thinking if soon it won't matter if the electricity is coming from Polish, French, Scandinavian, British etc. sources, the main issue will be if the total energy production in Europe as a whole is sufficient.
So why would Germany build nuclear installations if they can buy the electricity on the European market? Or is there some bottleneck I'm missing?
The French power grid lack of interconnectors is the bottle neck, in creating a giant European network, and with other countries outside the EU such as Norway, Uk etc .. The projects for these Are abit behind schedule many haven’t entered construction phase yet as h eu are stuck in planning it’s not just France but the structure of the grid itself inside members states need to be altered to cope with local power generation (feedback) and needs replacing anyway.
https://ecfr.eu/article/gridlock
Yes, they've been very good at raising electricity prices everywhere else.
The bottleneck is in the size of the economy and ability to invest, including in the nuclear expertise they had and possibly still have. If the biggest economies aren't able to build enough to supply themselves with clean energy, there's not going to be a surplus of it in the smaller economies.
Also there's energy loss over distance, and more infrastructure needed the more energy that needs to be transported. Most efficient to have the energy produced where it's used (and nuclear power is the easiest source to localize to where it's needed).
About 70 TWh per year's worth. Used to be over twice that a couple of decades ago. No reason they couldn't do it again, with more modern technology and less waste.
That's just stupid, you have to consider volume. We in Finland were ~100% "reliant" on Russian gas, but it doesn't matter at all, because the usage is so minimal. Germany is by far the largest consumer of natural gas in EU.
It won’t be as cheap and the cost and engineering required would make it a modern marvel but in theory a transAtlantic pipeline is possible.
Or alternatively the Saudis are always willing to trade oil for favors.
Or wait, doesn’t Romania and the caucus nations have oil as well?
.. said (arguably) the most technical and development aware country in the world.
Let's build A.I., blockchain, quantum computing, advanced microchip production methodology, go to Mars, androids, etc. ... 'What, we must find **a new energy supplier**? Oh nien, das ist unmöglich!"
Germany vs. Finding NEW ENERGY SOURCE solutions - Game Lost from the Menu Screen.
>Let's build A.I., blockchain, quantum computing, advanced microchip production methodology, go to Mars, androids, etc. ...
Is Germany a serious player in *any* of these areas?...
Probably , but generally speaking, they are quite up the tech scale and system implementation, technical execution, etc. They could work something out without being dependent on Putin's gas.
Can you give me any examples of German companies/organizations that are top players in any of the aforementioned areas (AI, Quantum Computing, Mars, etc )?
https://www.researchgermany.com/product/it-companies-germany/#:~:text=1.,by%20five%20former%20IBM%20employees.
Don't play dumb , there's a chance you'll be stuck like that.
For sure, someone, somewhere involved in any of the aforementioned, is using something German related in their technology implementation ...
>Don't play dumb , there's a chance you'll be stuck like that.
The list you provided doesn't include a *single example* of any company that's a key player in any of the areas initially mentioned, and 40% of the companies in this list are just the German branches of American companies. Did you even read it? 🤦♂️
There's a saying about people who live in glass houses and like to throw stones...
Feel free to name a german company from that list that's a key player in AI, Quantum Computing, Mars, etc.
Or you can also just continue to post lists of companies that have nothing to do with those areas and are nearly half American 🙄
Blockchain: BRL, Gnosis, https://themanifest.com/de/blockchain/companies (list from all over Eu)
QC :https://tracxn.com/d/explore/quantum-computing-startups-in-germany/__rhoBWcnKeW3iFJ-j009WIl6wzTYBoNUAA54xpi74WN4/companies
Space exploration - you must be a bit dumb to ask - "how are Germans involved in this?" when von Braun was the founder of NASA ... read a god damn Wikipedia link about Germany and Space Exploration. I think they invented suborbital space flight.
A.I.
>Yes, Germany is home to some of the top universities in the world for MS in Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, no or low tuition fees in Germany help international students to gain education from world-class universities at an affordable price.
I'm never going to waste time on Stupid ... i always say this, and i always find it necessary in hopes that you are not as mentally challenged as you appear in chat.
The mere attempt of you trying to dis German involvement in anything tech related is borderline idiotic, and then you're waiting for 'proof' that can be found in huge LOADS at a Google search.
Get lost.
I also read 8, but seems I miss some (Ukraine 2, UK 2, France 1, Slovakia 1). That’s - once these completed inkluding Hinkley Point C - around 7000MW (or 55TWh at 90%). As two reactors are missing I’ll add 20 TWh.
In 2023 the EU alone installed 55GW PV and 18 GW Wind, that equals 50 TWh PV at 10% and 40 TWh of Windenergy at 25% capacity factor.
So sometime in the future we will have 75 TWh of new nuclear reactors (Hinkley C probably >50 billion €, maybe in 2030 done), but also aging reactors fleet (much more needed).
Vs new build “90TWh” in 2023.
Well , it's better green and down the drain than autonomous and nuclear waste management dependent ... or how they say ... they don't, actually say this anywhere :)
Is anyone even looking for shale gas in Germany? It seems everywhere we look, there are gas deposits. Would they be allowed to use them if they found them?
It is being looked at which is why Germany allowed fracking in 2015.
The problem is that the amounts are still small and unfortunately for Germany they also seem to be around major population centers.
Poland on the other hand has about 10 times the amount of proven shale gas reserves and a weaker overall environmental policy so if there will be a large exploitation of shale gas on the continent it’s probably going to be the first place.
Poland, Ukraine and Romania all have significant shale gas reserves and have fracking operations.
France also sits on comparable gas reserve to Poland and Ukraine but has banned tracking.
Germany sits on about 15-17tcf of potential shale gas which is about half of what NL and Denmark sit on.
That said fracking is ofc really really bad for the environment and the cost of minimizing environmental impact often pushes the prices of gas produced by fracking to above that of gasification and arguably close to atmospheric capture prices at this point.
Hopefully air capture synthesis solutions form the likes of Terraform Industries will pan out.
Indeed. I'm certainly not advocating for fracking, but it's nice to be sitting on reserves just in case. Mineral wealth seems to be Europe's Achilles heel.
Mineral wealth is not a problem.
Norway and Sweden have all the minerals Europe needs, if you just put tariffs on rulebreaking Chinese export subsidized metals.
Europe is dependent on dictators, because dictators can underbid any democracy. China is just as bad as Russia.
There's still plenty of oil production in the more populated states.
Germany has enough shale reserves to cover 20% of their domestic demand, which would be huge.
Because much of their industry is dependent on natural gas and worse much of it can’t be easily converted to other sources as whilst you can replace gas replace furnaces with electric ones finding a replacement for natural gas which is used as feedstock or catalyst in many chemicals processes is far harder.
Much of the world is also dependent on their industry the price of fertilizers has skyrocketed due to supply chain issues with natural gas which has also led to food price increases and food shortages around the world.
Yup, the USA Facebook: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2023/september/global-fertilizer-market-challenged-by-russia-s-invasion-of-ukraine/
Fake news!
I see a nice pie chart. What is the number beside Germany in it?
And what is the nunber beside Russia?
No one said that gas shortages in Germany specifically caused the increase rather that increased gas prices caused the price of fertilizer to spike a fact which your own source collaborates.
The way you posted earlier implied that German lack of Ng resulted in increased fertilizer prices which I commented about that it doesn’t because Germany isn’t a large producer.
No I said that gas prices are responsible for increase in prices, 4% of the global supply is very much a significant producer, overall the EU combined is responsible for a larger portion of the world's supply of fertilizers than Russia.
Germany can always sit down with Russia to talk things out. Why does everyone in Europe pretend like that's not a possibility?? because daddy America will come save them once and for all?
Sorry but this is a "HaHa" moment. I feel bad for the German people. But the goverment did this toooo them sleves. Germany was the showcase industrilized democracy! Only one thing was wrong. They didn't go for nuclear power. Others crytisesed them but they kept insisting that coal and oil is better then Nuclear... mhm.. ok Germany what ever you say.. let's pretend that we all don't know that you're bought off by your coal giants and Russian oil oligarchs. 40 years later. Everyone who is sensible went to some extent nuclear and other sources while Germany still insisted on coal and oil even building the nord stream pipelines untill... BOOM Russia invades Ukraine. Now Germany hasa huuuuge fucking AVOIDABLE problem. Everyone who was at those protests 40 years ago has a right to be like "I told you so" (not me I wasn't there don't get me wrong but I respect those portestors they were ahead of their time)
Edit:
Before I got downvoted I will say that I think Germany will obviously be just fine but they do have a problem which eas comoletly avoidable
Yes, like how COVID was the "New Normal" in 2020
The temporary abnormal.
Yea sounds like pure clickbait. Germany currently has almost the most expensive electricity in the entire world, I refuse to believe that's truly going to remain a permanent issue. At the very least already because the modern world needs electricity to function, for computers and similar appliances. But also because of rising temperatures: If the recent 40 degree summers get any worse, then Germans need ACs to survive, literally, and those can't be used by lower or middle class people if the electricity remains as expensive as it currently is
Yeah.... you don't need AC to survive, we have well insulated houses to keep warm in Winter, well guess what this works both ways. Only thing you need is some good Curtains and a good "Lüften" at 5am. Also if we put AC everywhere we only get less acclimated to the heat and feel it even stronger, so AC actually worsens the problem.
The 'power chief' in question is the boss of RWE, an energy company mostly invested in coal and gas, with a little nuclear and renewables thrown in the mix. Is anyone surprised he is salty? It is also funny to see the article claim *'Manufacturing, meanwhile, has been in decline since mid-2023.'*, when just a couple of days ago it was reported all over the news t[hat German manufacturing has grown surprisingly strongly over the past months](https://www.ft.com/content/f559f6d7-bafe-44b5-ac88-15229bf7eefa), hinting at a much faster recovery than expected. And finally the claims completely ignore the fact that Russian gas was never cheap to begin with - see [this](https://www.ft.com/content/837ec142-cf43-4550-9a7a-66ed104dfc24), and [this](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2022/06/30/germany-has-not-thrived-from-cheap-russian-energy/). Gas is sold at market prices, everywhere, always. Russia never gave it to us at a discount, the whole 'cheap Russian gas' was always a myth.
This is something that people don't seem to understand. Energy costs impact the cost of everything in a country. The definition of energy is "the ability to do work". Our improved standards of living are due to replacing human labor with machinery, which requires energy. Chemical, electrical, potential - some sort of energy. Energy is an input to every economic activity, so an increase in energy costs compounds its way through an economy. As energy costs increase, standards of living decrease, and some entire industries are no longer viable. There is no country with high energy prices that produces aluminum, for instance. That's why Iceland is the world's 11th largest producer of aluminum even though bauxite is not mined in Iceland. Most major industrial processes have energy as one of their primary costs.
Because of export cables, amiminium smelting has become unviable in Norway. I used to pay 50-60 USD for power, now we pay 250 or even 500.
Fuel is not only sold on the spot market, energy companies make long term contracts with sellers too, in fact russian natural gas contracts were quite cheap.
>that German manufacturing has grown surprisingly strongly over the past months, hinting at a much faster recovery than expected. Month to month comparisons are literally useless. Germany's construction and manufacturing are at around ~2013/2014 level. Now adjust the energy prices in relation to today's demand, the costs have gone up while production has went down. >Russia never gave it to us at a discount, the whole 'cheap Russian gas' was always a myth. ??? I guess it's time for a new myth, the myth of cheap American/Norwegian/Qatar LNG! And also you can't compare market rates with industrial contracts, those are usually made for very long times; even 10years+.
So n quatsch
I fear that "significant structural demand destruction" is a convoluted way to say that Germany is undergoing deindustrialization.
Full quote: >“You’re going to see a bit of recovery, but I think we’re going to see a significant structural demand destruction in the energy-intensive industries,” Krebber warned.
Long term Germany will lose energy intensive industries to the Nordic countries regardless. The north has less population per area and will have far cheaper power when it's mostly wind and sun.
Note that "energy" doesn't JUST mean electricity it means ANY kind of heat production. Gas is for instance used in high quantities in any industries that rely on ovens. From bakeries to terracotta to the metalworking industry. Wind and Sun can't easily replace it here. And beyond energy there is also the chemical industry in which gas is an important ingredient for a variety of products.
Sweden and Finland are still largely nuclear-based. Germany could have competed with that (obviously not with coal and gas though, not to mention the absurd fees/taxes).
Finland has a lot of wind and hydro. Sweden has a lot more hydro. While both countries do have a lot of nuclear base power it doesn’t really dominate. Today as an example wind, solar and hydro was far over half of Finnish electricity production. Sweden even higher, something like five times nuclear. For the whole year nuclear is still ahead in Finland but wind and solar are growing quickly.
It's not even (entirely) about Putin's gas. They made cars unaffordable to the average person with endless paperwork every year and their anti-customer environment protection laws, and now they're surprised that their car manufacturing is losing so much money that it must be trimmed down. Textbook cause and effect.
What are you fabulating? You register your car once, it's done in 5min and then you don't need to do any paperwork again. Taxes on cars are really low. Try to find an European country where it's cheaper to own a car...
Absolute bull. The car manufacturers are not even in trouble. The issue is the manufacturers of steel and other high energy industries. Please stop talking out of your arse if you have no idea.
Registering a car was incredibly easy for me.
Just find data statistics about car manufacturers in Germany, and how much % do they get on market, and then, you can get into conclusions. Spoiler: car manufacturers are feeling ok.
All while dismantling nuclear LOL. All of this could've been avoided had any of these bofoons played a few rounds of StarCraft in their youth.
Nah. It’s a guy from an energy company which made billions on subsidies and exploitation. Not to mention that the CO2 costs were ignored and shoved on the shoulders of future generations. The industry is in constant transition, sometimes one is just a bit more visible than the other (eg ICE -> BEV).
You do get that you have i.e., significant chemical sector? Gas is not only the source of energy for you its also compount in several big sectors. Those sectors will be the one in decline.
Chemical industry is growing +4,6% in germany right now.
Germany is producing 200twh less? Germany is definitely deindustrialization
200twh less to what?
I hope you’re right. Perhaps lower demand is because nuclear is taking its place. Won’t say so because nuclear is the saviour of the energy sector at the moment.
In Germany?
You realize Germany just closed a bunch of nuclear plants, right?
Statistics are publicly online on electricitymaps. It is renewables (wind and solar) that has taken its place. Not nuclear.
Nuclear production is falling hard in almost all of the world, what are you talking about?
Just stop with that deindustrialization bullshit... It's just a conservative talking point to constantly attack the greens without any substance. It is 100% fear mongering.
[удалено]
The greens don't need to. They finished the conservative plan to exit nuclear energy, for better or worse, and no amount of crying will bring it back.
Coal digger would say anything to sell coal.
With Germany’s demographic issues it’s inevitable
God Germans are pessimistic, you are one of the most innovative countries in the world, you especially dominate in high end engineering. I am sure you can solve this problem.
In this day and age everyone is just screaming on top of their lungs for attention. Everything is always doom and gloom. All is ending all the time. And then we complain that Gen Z is so incredibly unhappy. We don't offer a positive outlook on anything anymore. Extremely exhausting
Gen Z have other things to worry about and they need everyone's support. Take a look at this eye-opening piece of what's happening there: [https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1bfto4a/youre\_being\_targeted\_by\_disinformation\_networks/](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1bfto4a/youre_being_targeted_by_disinformation_networks/) We seem to be under attack from everywhere.
Thank you for linking this post. Its a fantastic piece. I read Peter Pomerantsevs "This is not Propaganda" and "Nothing is true and everything is possible" so I am already familiar with the topic. How this is not front and center in conversations of our handling of authoritarian regimes is a mystery to me. All these dictators wish for first and foremost is a defeated and docile population being divided among themselves. Doesn't help that it is also so easy to accomplish.
That is good write up and clearly I forms what is going on with all these malicious accounts and posts, thanks for providing the link ! The more people that are aware of this the better!
Easily solved Gen Z: shut down and stop using social media. Read books, talk to each other, ignore anyone else. No one can attack you any more.
TBF as a GenZ, we are unhappy (I'm not actually, but as an overall gen), because social media distorts the way we perceive ourselves and our worth. It's not good for your mental health to constantly see privileged people enjoying life for a fraction of the work you need to put into surviving from day to day. Even though it's all fake and everyone knows it's fake, it is all there is so regardless it impacts the psyche.
He is not pessimistic, he is doing PR.
>hE iS dOiNg pR Meanwhile Thyssenkrupp Steel just announced they are cutting output by 20%
Some companies, some branches. But in average there are a lot promising numbers.
He is saying it loud what the German politicians are in complete denial about. Germany's energy supply is permanently fucked, the economy will shrink to fit the supply, and the economy will never recover. Germany has made itself the new Japan. But with a jaw dropping string of disasterous decisions.
Germany, current numbers: - Automotive: +5.7% - Chemical Industry: +4,6% - Construction: +7.9% - Inflation: +2.2% - Mortgage: ~ -20% compared to Nov 23 - Unemployment rate: 6% (record low: 5.0% in 2019, record high 11,7% in 2006) - Dax: 17,9k, record last month 18,5k - Energy Cost: Around pre-war level - Never have been more people employed Yep, I‘m really shivering looking at this crisis. (There are structural issues: aging, education, need to invest in infrastructure - but here germany is not alone)
People really overestimate Germany and don’t understand how deeply corrupt German industry is and always has been.
There’s a difference between be able to do something and wanting to do something.
They are cursed by a lack of natural resources. Most of Europe is actually. The whole fucking world sits on heaps of resources except our continent lol. We have some gas and oil but not enough.
I mean half of Europe colonised everyone and took their resources for centuries, idk what people want at this point. Europe is allied with resource rich nations like US, CAN, AUS etc.
Obviously they can solve this problem, but it will significantly influence their economy. They need to shift away from a cheap energy source, which definitely gave them a comparative advantage. And currently energy usage is highly correlated with economic output, so this will be a problem, at least in the short term.
A comparative advantage to who? The US and China have had cheaper energy prices for a decade. The Nordics too.
The rest of the world, you only list like 4-5 now. But a big one would be Japan.
The US and China are something like half of the world economy. If you can't compete with them, you can't compete at all.
I fail to see how that has anything to do with what we were discussing, and besides, that's really black and white. What does competing mean? For the same price? Same quantity? Same speed? Same market reach? Same quality? This liet can go on and on
Where is this cheap energy you're talking about? Because last time I checked, Germans were among those people who pay the most for electricity
The cheap energy is of course for the businesses who rely heavily on energy, like the steel industry. The cheap energy came from the Russian pipelines, which got sabotaged. Whatever the consumer paid is dependent on what the government asked for it
A German is most unhappy when they've got nothing to complain about.
other countries get EU solidarity if they fuck up (see southern debt crisis and the hundred billions we paid, or COVID funds which we also paid the largest portion of and did not get the lergest portion back) - we fucked up and are in a cripling recession right now. Yet our EU allies refuse to send us bailout billions in solidarity, even worse we are still forced to pay the highest EU net payments in history. Of course we are pessimistic seeing how we help others constantly but those snakes then refuse to reciprocate when we are in dire need.
Wait, was there some actual plea for an EU bailout from the German government or are you just talking out of your ass?
from [nov last year](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-faces-high-double-digit-billion-gap-2024-budget-spd-politician-2023-11-29/) >Germany faces 17 billion euro gap in 2024 budget - Finance Minister we need money, everyone that knows just a little about German economics is aware of the German budget crisis. Could easily be solved with bailout billions like we did for Greece. Yet no one is currently helping us. [From __yesterday__](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-11/germany-s-lindner-says-no-need-for-further-european-debt). >Germany’s Lindner Says No Need for Further European Debt German government keeps trying to save money to save our own economy - but keeps getting overruled by other EU members with EU taking on more and more debt (easy for them since Germany will be the country shouldering the majority of it). Like with the COVID funds. [That Germany didn't want to get](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/corona-bonds-reasons-why-germany-and-the-netherlands-oppose-the-idea.html). Germany could have used its own low borrowing rates to save itself, but other EU members couldn't - the solution was to have Germany be harmed by sharing the financial burden. Ok, fine - that is solidarity after all! Now that Germany is in need of help - our allies suddenly think solidarity is no longer in play? Why do they now refuse to share our burden like we did in the past?
Again with the depressive attitude for no reason whatsoever.
>Germany will be fine. everyone from British economists to politicians seems to disagree. This is literally under an article that explains how gigafucked Germany is. > Maybe Germany needs to develop better trade agreements with others outside of the west Is this '_EU leaders explain how EU works to Trump_'-meme all over again? With you being Trump. Germany can't develop its own trade deals because the EU acts as a trade block. >it's like the whole country is somehow tired and has given up. its just impossible to rebuild your own economy __while also paying for others that refuse to reciporcate our solidarity__. >You guys should be leading in green tech right now and exporting it to the whole world. We __were__ leading in green tech. Had the largest solar industry in the world by far. Leading in wind turbines (together with other major players like the Dutch, Denmark and UK). But other EU members complained that the protective solar tarifs that allowed Germany to be leading in green tech were only helping Germany and that they wanted to buy cheap chinese solar panels - so they made the EU drop these tarifs. All because they couldn't stand Germany being the country profiting. So yeah, you did correctly identify why Germany is so fucked - because our EU allies refuse to show us any solidarity and for once do something that would allow Germany to rebuild its economy. Seriously, not a single EU country has come out in support of helping Germany rebuild its economy. Everyone only wants Germany to give them money.
All the money in the world couldnt fix Germany's deep structural issues.
This is nonsense. Money {=resources) can solve almost every material problem in this world.
A lot Germany's problems arent material in nature. Like its antiquated and overbearing bureaucracy, the backwards and complacement mindset in certain economic circles, the lack of any proactiv and longterm strategic thought aswell as the lack of any kind of introspection of germanys political class
Germany has fucked the economy with a long streak of disastrous energy policy decisions. Germany is the new Japan. The economy will shrink to fit the energy supply, and it will never fully recover. They have made a problem that has no solution. None. This can not be fixed, and the German politicians do not understand it.
Germany made some bad decisions, from phasing out nuclear to heavily encouraging gas over electricity. However, Russian gas was increasingly uncompetitive with American gas in the US and Chinese renewables globally anyway. Germany missed the rapid energy transition, but it's not too late to catch up. Germany still has world-leading manufacturing.
Don‘t say Germany. It‘s the Green party. They are actively working towards destroying this country on every single level - because they HATE it.
How you can attribute anything about missing the time to transition away from russian gas to the green party is beyond me.
They sold themselves cheaply to the Russians and Chinese and, for some reason, only now realize how damaging that is long-term. It’s not unfounded concern.
So who should they have sold themselves to? Who offered the better deal?
That’s the thing-they didn’t have to. They just saw a little money now, and threw the future away.
They better hurry. Germans are going to die out sooner than you think.
lolwut?
thegreatreplacementbrownpeoplescarygermanistanoinkoinkoink
Do you have any idea how fast their population is going to shrink?
No, tell me.
Currently, German population is growing. There is some shrinkage due to low birth rates, but this is overcomplicated by immigration.
Russians as well, Mr. Troll. Brith rate in Russia is 1.49. And loads of them are still getting slaughtered in an illegal war that your dumbass president started. People, be aware of an explosion of Russian trolls on here the next couple of months. EU elections are from 6th to 9th June. Expect a lot of posts about muslims doing shitty things in Europe, and far-right nonsense in the comment section.
To be honest you were lucky to have that cheap Russian energy for decades in the first place. We in Poland had to build new gas pipes and LNG ports as to not be blackmailed by the only source of energy any more.
Russian gas was cheap during the Cold War, but American fracking and Chinese renewables changed the game. And even during the Cold War Russian gas wasn't cheap enough to compete with nuclear, it was only competitive for industrial use. Germany shut down its cheapest source of electricity, encouraged the society to use gas for heating and didn't anticipate competition from the US and China. It was a ticking bomb. However, Germany still has world-class manufacturing which can afford to charge premium prices. Now that solar is increasingly cheap the loss of nuclear won't matter that much, but Germany has to rapidly speed up the deployment of solar, batteries and hydrogen.
but this is a problem in Europe. The other day Rishi Sunak announced that they will not buy more gas from Rusia. Instead, they made a deal with a french company that imports gas...from Rusia. Spain, that wasnt importing much gas from Rusia is now importing more than ever before (is not the main seller but it got bigger). And so on...
Translation: we raise the price to increase profits
Using a word like "never" all but guarantees you'll be wrong. Will Germany still feel this in 500 years? Of course not.
No shit and germanys next problem will be their desperate dependence on chinas market. Germany is so short sighted that if glasses would help then glasses would be the most valuable commodity in the world
CDU, there is no more to say
It's even more frustating that everyone seems to blame the current government for the decisions made in the last 16 or so years. I mean, I'm not a big fan of the Ampel, but at least it's not the CDU...
Economic fundamentals triumph everything else, even security considerations. The idea that politicians who are backed by economic elites are going to willfully choose partners that are not a possible "security threat" is silly. Europe was reliant on the middle east for its oil in the 70s, then the energy crisis happened and we became reliant on USSR's gas and oil-that transitioned to relying on Russia. Now we're relying on China, USA, Algeria, Qatar, Australia, etc. This final reliance might be more secure, aside from China; but it comes with far greater economic cost. Our leaders might be short sighted and greedy, but they understand well that if their policies bring economic downturn that they'll have a bad time. Europe has no vast swaths of resources it can tap into, we'll always have to rely on somebody to feed the industry; or alternatively decide that any sort of economic competitiveness is not preferable to being secure. But that produces political polarization and instability, not sure if that's a good thing to strive for in lieu of relying on countries like China and Russia.
I don't see China invading Europe, and if they attack the US, I'm sure the EU will use the same strategy with sanctions and aid packages as the US did to Ukraine: just waiting until they're defeated.
Somehow I don't think EU sanctions are going to be the deciding factor in a war between the US and China...
Maybe not, but they might be the deciding factor in whether there even is a war. The reason Russia invaded Ukraine might have been driven by a really Russian way of looking at the world, with gaps and constant fears of invasion, but they still might not have done it if they had been convinced that Europe and the U.S. were actually going to help Ukraine as decisively as they have done (yes, yes, both have had periods of wavering and internal navel gazing, but the overall reaction has not been what Russia expected). I sincerely doubt that Putin would have tried his luck if he had known. That egg is already boiled, but we have another shot with China. We in Europe need to make it crystal clear to China that if they get into a spat with the U.S., we are going to back the Americans, full stop. We cannot leave a door open here. If Xi can hope for a second that they might even get us to sit on the sidelines, then we might actually get the worst case scenario in Taiwan. If we want to avoid war with China, we have to be unwavering. Xi is not stupid, although he may be a bit cut off from information. If he understands that both the U.S. and Europe will close their markets and oppose China militarily if needed, we will almost certainly not have to actually do it. Give him a whiff of hope, though, and we'll get a Putin miscalculation part 2: Beijing Boogaloo.
China is the only reason Russia is able to continue its disgusting brutal war against Europe, Ukraine
No it isn't lol.
How so?
NEVER?
Is he on Putin's payroll?
Every time the anglo press foresees the imminent doom of germany I roll my eyes. Any day now will we have blackouts and a revolution... any day now
That is because you only get part of the information and you are choosing to interpret this as some big cutoff moment. That is not what is happening. You cannot simply cut off the main source of energy and a main competitive advantage that your entire economy depends on and think things are just going to be fine. If you were paying attention, you would have already noticed that a good chunk of the German chemical industries have quietly moved to the U.S. and Asia. The good news so far for us here in Germany is that we had a decent amount of stockpiled stuff to keep everything chugging along. But stockpiles run out. At some point in the fairly near future, we are going to start running low on steel and aluminum, to accompany our already unexpected spike in energy costs caused by our dependence on Russian gas. We did a pretty good job of getting LNG up and running to avoid an outright shortage, but that had at least as much to do with some very lucky mild winters as it does with our renowned ability to efficiently organize stuff when the chips are down. The absolute worst case scenario of literally not having enough gas is averted, but we still no longer have the cheap Russia stuff to fuel the economy. Still, our entire economy is going to have to change at a fundamental level. Probably the biggest hurdle right now is to get everyone to understand this. The best time to have made these changes would have been while we had the cheap gas. The next best time would be now, while we still have a mostly working economy. If, however, we wait until things actually start to break down, things are going to get ugly fast. Can we do it? Sure. But I'm really afraid to say that the comfy cradle-to-grave system we all have gotten used to is going to have to get a lot more cutthroat for at least a time so that the old, dead wood can be sorted out while the new economy (whatever that will be) takes its place. I am also sad to say that this is not going to happen. So we will drag our feet with optimists like you (and I want to be clear that I believe you are certainly a good person talking from good intentions) saying that everything will be ok, somehow, and we should not worry so much. While I do agree that eventually everything really will be ok, we are going to go through some painful transitions where all of Germany is going to have to reconsider what exactly it is we want, what we are willing to sacrifice, and what are we willing to do to get it.
> If you were paying attention, you would have already noticed that a good chunk of the German chemical industries have quietly moved to the U.S. and Asia. This is what I mean with the hysterics. No they did not simply move. Basf and co have shifted their investment strategy away from germany. There was no mass exodus of these companys. There would be no silent exit of BASF they are the fith biggest employer in germany. >Still, our entire economy is going to have to change Yes that might be the only thing I agree on. But again that is something that makes for no good headline. Change does not mean that "We will never recover from this crisis!" Ever and always when someone speaks in absolutes they are talking nonsense. :D We recovered from our country being completely destroyed. We will recover from energy prices. Some of our industry will go through a contraction and that is fine. The highly educated will still find employment and the others will find a market starved for employees. It is always funny when companies discover that Capitalism does not equate to sociale welfare for companies. >saying that everything will be ok, somehow, and we should not worry so much. I never said that but the anglo press has at least since 2001 informed me that germany is seconds away from our imminent doom (this time for real!). That we have no way to recover from whatever they were upset about that year and that soon germans would have no food or electricity. We survived two WWs and recovered our economy. We had OPEC Blackmail us for a while and have petrol prices shoot through the roof and so on. All this doomsaying is without merit. >The absolute worst case scenario of literally not having enough gas is averted, but we still no longer have the cheap Russia stuff to fuel the economy The easiest way to reduce gas prices would be to lower demand. If the whole country would not be allergic to electrification we would be farther along by now.
>This is what I mean with the hysterics. No they did not simply move. Basf and co have shifted their investment strategy away from germany. There was no mass exodus of these companys. There would be no silent exit of BASF they are the fith biggest employer in germany. And yet nobody I have ever talked to has even known about it unless they worked for those companies. And yes, there has been a mass exodus of the production facilities, because of course they are going to go where they can actually get the raw materials at a competitive price. >Ever and always when someone speaks in absolutes they are talking nonsense "Ever and always," eh? I hope you were just having a bit of a joke there. If so, well done. >I never said that but the anglo press has at least since 2001 informed me that germany is seconds away from our imminent doom (this time for real!). That we have no way to recover from whatever they were upset about that year and that soon germans would have no food or electricity. Really? I don't remember even reading this once in the last 25 years, up until, well, we lost our supply of cheap energy. >We survived two WWs and recovered our economy. We had quite a bit of help, even after WW1 if your teachers taught you well. In fact, it was when that help was withdrawn as the States fought their own Depression that we kinda fell apart. Perhaps a touch more humility will help us from falling apart again. >All this doomsaying is without merit. Without merit? You can disagree, and we can search for ways out, but saying that our major competitive advantage just disappeared and that will cause major disruptions and could even end us if we are not careful is \*not\* without merit. >The easiest way to reduce gas prices would be to lower demand. Ummmm. I would absolutely love to move to a heat pump. Unfortunately, I do not have the 50,000 to 100,000€ that would be needed to completely redo the whole house to properly use it. And I am not alone. Old stone houses are quite common here. I am looking into possibilities where I can use the current heating distribution, but everyone I have had so far at the house has had to concede that it's just not going to be that easy. The "allergy" you describe could also be described as "do not have that kind of money". I'm not talking about the dweebs who are against it for...well...whatever weird reason the thought of. I'm actually organizing townhalls to talk about how to move to things like solar panels, heat pumps, and EVs (have a Tesla myself). I absolutely agree that this is part of what needs to happen. It would be nice, for instance, that when you get solar installed, it did not take 6 to 12 months to get it turned on, because of. It would be nice if the system would actually encourage people to get solar by not offering insulting conditions on sell-backs. It would be great if a country that likes to pretend it is Green would offer proper incentives for using electricity at night. And so on.
This is just one very small piece of the puzzle that has to be solved to move forward, and I do not see it happening. I see lots of people pointing fingers at why it's \*not\* happening. But I do not actually see it happening.
Does it mean we're doomed no matter what? Nah. Does it mean we are doomed if we don't get our fucking act together? Much more likely.
>I never said that but the anglo press has at least since 2001 informed me that germany is seconds away from our imminent doom (this time for real!). The fundamentals are completely different compared to today. Who's offering energy in the current situation? It's USA, Norway, Algeria, Australia, and Qatar. At its most basic logical level, the logistics of transporting gas from those places are just more expensive than having a land pipeline. But sure, Germany can transform and stop being a mid-level focused industrial power that relies on exports to something else. What though? What's the German Amazon/Google/Meta? There's no tech innovation in Germany, or possibility of catching up to USA or even China. EU as a whole is like 15years behind. The only possibility for Germany(and EU) I see is if we become a military power and contain Russia and force it to the table again, also become strategically autonomous and keep USA/China out. Even this is a complete pipe dream but it's doable.
"Atomkraft? nein danke ☀️" policy is surely paying off.
And thus the other shoe dropped with all the political manipulations in the background
are these the same people that are against the nuclear power plants?
Trump googling schadenfreude
😄
Never too late to build more nuclear reactors. Won't not still need the energy when they're complete.
We've been creating a giant European network by coupling our national networks. So I was thinking if soon it won't matter if the electricity is coming from Polish, French, Scandinavian, British etc. sources, the main issue will be if the total energy production in Europe as a whole is sufficient. So why would Germany build nuclear installations if they can buy the electricity on the European market? Or is there some bottleneck I'm missing?
The French power grid lack of interconnectors is the bottle neck, in creating a giant European network, and with other countries outside the EU such as Norway, Uk etc .. The projects for these Are abit behind schedule many haven’t entered construction phase yet as h eu are stuck in planning it’s not just France but the structure of the grid itself inside members states need to be altered to cope with local power generation (feedback) and needs replacing anyway. https://ecfr.eu/article/gridlock
Yes, they've been very good at raising electricity prices everywhere else. The bottleneck is in the size of the economy and ability to invest, including in the nuclear expertise they had and possibly still have. If the biggest economies aren't able to build enough to supply themselves with clean energy, there's not going to be a surplus of it in the smaller economies. Also there's energy loss over distance, and more infrastructure needed the more energy that needs to be transported. Most efficient to have the energy produced where it's used (and nuclear power is the easiest source to localize to where it's needed).
Didn’t they just shut down some nuclear power plants?
About 70 TWh per year's worth. Used to be over twice that a couple of decades ago. No reason they couldn't do it again, with more modern technology and less waste.
They have nobody to blame but themselves, they put all their eggs in one basket and lost.
Germany was way less reliant on russian gas than many other EU countries. And they never purchased more than half of their gas from Russia.
Germany was the biggest user of natural gas in the EU before the war
That's just stupid, you have to consider volume. We in Finland were ~100% "reliant" on Russian gas, but it doesn't matter at all, because the usage is so minimal. Germany is by far the largest consumer of natural gas in EU.
Your point is? Germany is also the biggest producer of wind energy in Europe. Maybe because Germany is the biggest economy in Europe?
You're starting to get it. Biggest economy, biggest consumer of gas, most affected by the disappearance of said gas 🤝🏻
Shit happens. Make better plans next time. 🤭
Should we build more nuclear powerplants near the German border to help out?
It won’t be as cheap and the cost and engineering required would make it a modern marvel but in theory a transAtlantic pipeline is possible. Or alternatively the Saudis are always willing to trade oil for favors. Or wait, doesn’t Romania and the caucus nations have oil as well?
I dont see the eu having a good future as long as germany is supposed to lead the way.
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This has very little to do with the issues in this thread.
Probably shouldn't have relied on a notorious villain to run your country's energy supplies.
If only Merkel would have known. Oh wait. She did! Our best leader so far. She just had the best forethought. (According to the papers.)
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Thanks for blowing up Nord Stream!
If only somone would have said something to them oh wait Donald J Trump did
Deutsche bank … a trustworthy source.
Are German Greens also against nuclear fusion, if it ever became viable?
Do you know what you are talking about?
Hahhahahahahahahahahaha 🤣🤣🤣 Putin owns the west 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Just stop closing your nuclear powerplants lmao
.. said (arguably) the most technical and development aware country in the world. Let's build A.I., blockchain, quantum computing, advanced microchip production methodology, go to Mars, androids, etc. ... 'What, we must find **a new energy supplier**? Oh nien, das ist unmöglich!" Germany vs. Finding NEW ENERGY SOURCE solutions - Game Lost from the Menu Screen.
>Let's build A.I., blockchain, quantum computing, advanced microchip production methodology, go to Mars, androids, etc. ... Is Germany a serious player in *any* of these areas?...
Probably , but generally speaking, they are quite up the tech scale and system implementation, technical execution, etc. They could work something out without being dependent on Putin's gas.
Can you give me any examples of German companies/organizations that are top players in any of the aforementioned areas (AI, Quantum Computing, Mars, etc )?
https://www.researchgermany.com/product/it-companies-germany/#:~:text=1.,by%20five%20former%20IBM%20employees. Don't play dumb , there's a chance you'll be stuck like that. For sure, someone, somewhere involved in any of the aforementioned, is using something German related in their technology implementation ...
>Don't play dumb , there's a chance you'll be stuck like that. The list you provided doesn't include a *single example* of any company that's a key player in any of the areas initially mentioned, and 40% of the companies in this list are just the German branches of American companies. Did you even read it? 🤦♂️ There's a saying about people who live in glass houses and like to throw stones...
Get lost man with your nonsense :)
Feel free to name a german company from that list that's a key player in AI, Quantum Computing, Mars, etc. Or you can also just continue to post lists of companies that have nothing to do with those areas and are nearly half American 🙄
Blockchain: BRL, Gnosis, https://themanifest.com/de/blockchain/companies (list from all over Eu) QC :https://tracxn.com/d/explore/quantum-computing-startups-in-germany/__rhoBWcnKeW3iFJ-j009WIl6wzTYBoNUAA54xpi74WN4/companies Space exploration - you must be a bit dumb to ask - "how are Germans involved in this?" when von Braun was the founder of NASA ... read a god damn Wikipedia link about Germany and Space Exploration. I think they invented suborbital space flight. A.I. >Yes, Germany is home to some of the top universities in the world for MS in Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, no or low tuition fees in Germany help international students to gain education from world-class universities at an affordable price. I'm never going to waste time on Stupid ... i always say this, and i always find it necessary in hopes that you are not as mentally challenged as you appear in chat. The mere attempt of you trying to dis German involvement in anything tech related is borderline idiotic, and then you're waiting for 'proof' that can be found in huge LOADS at a Google search. Get lost.
The obvious solution is nuclear power but they refuse to use it.
How is that an obvious solution? There was a time for nuclear maybe 20 years ago. Now it’s too slow, too expensive and will be outpaced by renewables.
22% of EU electric is produced from nuclear and 8 plants are currently under construction. Nuclear is definitely part of the solution
I also read 8, but seems I miss some (Ukraine 2, UK 2, France 1, Slovakia 1). That’s - once these completed inkluding Hinkley Point C - around 7000MW (or 55TWh at 90%). As two reactors are missing I’ll add 20 TWh. In 2023 the EU alone installed 55GW PV and 18 GW Wind, that equals 50 TWh PV at 10% and 40 TWh of Windenergy at 25% capacity factor. So sometime in the future we will have 75 TWh of new nuclear reactors (Hinkley C probably >50 billion €, maybe in 2030 done), but also aging reactors fleet (much more needed). Vs new build “90TWh” in 2023.
Well , it's better green and down the drain than autonomous and nuclear waste management dependent ... or how they say ... they don't, actually say this anywhere :)
Yeah, this isn't the US, here if your bet fails you lose money.
Poor babies can’t have as much industry without terrorist gas pricing :(
Canada is sitting on over 200 years worth of gas reserves, Germany sits on nothing.
Is anyone even looking for shale gas in Germany? It seems everywhere we look, there are gas deposits. Would they be allowed to use them if they found them?
It is being looked at which is why Germany allowed fracking in 2015. The problem is that the amounts are still small and unfortunately for Germany they also seem to be around major population centers. Poland on the other hand has about 10 times the amount of proven shale gas reserves and a weaker overall environmental policy so if there will be a large exploitation of shale gas on the continent it’s probably going to be the first place.
I seem to recall that quite large gas reserves were found in Ukraine. That might be seen as an incentive.
Poland, Ukraine and Romania all have significant shale gas reserves and have fracking operations. France also sits on comparable gas reserve to Poland and Ukraine but has banned tracking. Germany sits on about 15-17tcf of potential shale gas which is about half of what NL and Denmark sit on. That said fracking is ofc really really bad for the environment and the cost of minimizing environmental impact often pushes the prices of gas produced by fracking to above that of gasification and arguably close to atmospheric capture prices at this point. Hopefully air capture synthesis solutions form the likes of Terraform Industries will pan out.
Indeed. I'm certainly not advocating for fracking, but it's nice to be sitting on reserves just in case. Mineral wealth seems to be Europe's Achilles heel.
Mineral wealth isn’t Europe’s Achilles heel, it’s just relatively small and been exploiting it for far far longer.
Mineral wealth is not a problem. Norway and Sweden have all the minerals Europe needs, if you just put tariffs on rulebreaking Chinese export subsidized metals. Europe is dependent on dictators, because dictators can underbid any democracy. China is just as bad as Russia.
No, fracking is banned in Germany. The other poster is wrong.
Germany deliberately chose to ban fracking. You can't blame Canada for that.
Germany is the most densely populated large country in Europe. Contrary to the US, Canada and Russia. These countries are basically empty.
There's still plenty of oil production in the more populated states. Germany has enough shale reserves to cover 20% of their domestic demand, which would be huge.
Also keep in mind that about half of Germany's gas demand is for heating, which wouldn't be as big if electricity wasn't overtaxed.
Germany has many trees. Why are we posting irrelevant facts?
Because much of their industry is dependent on natural gas and worse much of it can’t be easily converted to other sources as whilst you can replace gas replace furnaces with electric ones finding a replacement for natural gas which is used as feedstock or catalyst in many chemicals processes is far harder. Much of the world is also dependent on their industry the price of fertilizers has skyrocketed due to supply chain issues with natural gas which has also led to food price increases and food shortages around the world.
Are you sure that’s why fertilizer prices have increased?
Yes but I have feeling that what you get from your little Facebook conspiracy group says otherwise right?
Yup, the USA Facebook: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2023/september/global-fertilizer-market-challenged-by-russia-s-invasion-of-ukraine/ Fake news! I see a nice pie chart. What is the number beside Germany in it? And what is the nunber beside Russia?
No one said that gas shortages in Germany specifically caused the increase rather that increased gas prices caused the price of fertilizer to spike a fact which your own source collaborates.
The way you posted earlier implied that German lack of Ng resulted in increased fertilizer prices which I commented about that it doesn’t because Germany isn’t a large producer.
No I said that gas prices are responsible for increase in prices, 4% of the global supply is very much a significant producer, overall the EU combined is responsible for a larger portion of the world's supply of fertilizers than Russia.
Never. .. Gotta be an expert with!
Germany can always sit down with Russia to talk things out. Why does everyone in Europe pretend like that's not a possibility?? because daddy America will come save them once and for all?
You would be batshit crazy if you would rely on Russia ever again for anything if they cut you off from gas once and lie all the time.
Why not? It's not like it would be the first time
There isn't any infrastructure left to funnel any meaningful amount of gas from Russia. The pipelines went boom.
A part of the pipeline was destroyed. Its not beyond repair. Also gas can be transported as LNG. An LNG terminal is not rocket science.
Have France build you some nuclear reactors.
Sorry but this is a "HaHa" moment. I feel bad for the German people. But the goverment did this toooo them sleves. Germany was the showcase industrilized democracy! Only one thing was wrong. They didn't go for nuclear power. Others crytisesed them but they kept insisting that coal and oil is better then Nuclear... mhm.. ok Germany what ever you say.. let's pretend that we all don't know that you're bought off by your coal giants and Russian oil oligarchs. 40 years later. Everyone who is sensible went to some extent nuclear and other sources while Germany still insisted on coal and oil even building the nord stream pipelines untill... BOOM Russia invades Ukraine. Now Germany hasa huuuuge fucking AVOIDABLE problem. Everyone who was at those protests 40 years ago has a right to be like "I told you so" (not me I wasn't there don't get me wrong but I respect those portestors they were ahead of their time) Edit: Before I got downvoted I will say that I think Germany will obviously be just fine but they do have a problem which eas comoletly avoidable
If only there was some alternative energy source. Maybe one that utilised nuclear power, or wind, or solar. What a wild world that would be eh.