Germany Faces $1 Trillion Challenge to Plug Massive Power Gap
By Paul Homewood
Germany has set aside more than €260 billion ($275 billion) to deal with the immediate risks of an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine, but the ultimate fix will be much costlier — if the country can pull it off at all.
The pending price tag for future-proofing the country’s energy system is projected to amount to over $1 trillion by 2030, according to BloombergNEF. The costs include investments in upgrading power grids and above all new generation to manage the phase out of nuclear and coal plants, handle increased demand from electric cars and heating systems, and meet climate commitments.
The transition will require the installation of solar panels covering the equivalent of 43 soccer fields and 1,600 heat pumps every day. It also needs 27 new onshore and four offshore wind plants to be built per week, according to a wish list presented by Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a recent visit to Volkswagen AG’s headquarters in Wolfsburg.
“This is a bold undertaking — possibly the boldest project since the reconstruction of Germany,” Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who oversees climate and energy policy, said earlier this month.
Around 250 gigawatts of new capacity will have to be installed by 2030 — when power demand is expected to be about a third higher than it is now — according to estimates from Germany’s network regulator and think tank Agora Energiewende.
To put the scale of the challenge in context, the required generation is enough to cover current household demand for all 448 million people in the European Union. The additions will be a mix of renewables and gas-fired plants — that might one day be converted to run on hydrogen.
It will be a long road to get there. This week, the government announced it will prepare tenders this year for gas plants that account for about a tenth of that capacity. And for renewable expansion, setting up a single wind mast can takes as long as seven years to clear Germany’s red tape.
BASF SE’s plans to cut 2,600 jobs as it faces strains from the energy crisis is a sign of the urgency. The chemical giant’s operations in Germany swung to a loss during the second half, and it’s now closing a number of energy-intensive factories, including two ammonia plants and related fertilizer facilities, resulting in 700 job cuts at its main Ludwigshafen site.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I wonder when the politicians will wake up to the stupidy, the futility, of this whole NetZero things and the dubious AGW/CC science that they think has to be followed? I guess probably never.
Bold is one word for it. A more appropriate word for it would be suicidal
As in “Yes Minister”, “That’s a very brave decision minister…”
What have we come to! For over two decades of campaigning against “climate change” I assumed that its proponent were just technically challenged and could be persuaded to see sense. Big mistake.
Given that the same people that push “climate change” are by and large the same people who brought us the democidal Covid plandemic, I have concluded that the climate change crowd are not (just) stupid, they are bad or mad. The money men at the top are mostly bad and the useful idiots lower down who act on their bidding are mostly mad.
This article is the culmination of three years of writing about the Covid plandemic and how it relates to the other abuses being inflicted on us, like climate change: https://metatron.substack.com/p/we-are-being-horribly-abused-by-lies.
It is good to see that Chris Morrison at the Daily Sceptic is starting to use the M-word (Malthusian) in his reporting on climate change: https://dailysceptic.org/2023/02/27/the-fight-against-climate-zealots-is-just-one-front-in-the-battle-to-preserve-freedom-and-democracy/.
I would describe the initial group pushing climate change/unilateral Net Zero as the same group who pushed for unilateral nuclear disarmament in the last century. Fortunately we didn’t fall for that one but this time there is so much money available it has now been taken up by politicians and corporates.
Not just “politicians and corporates”, also the UN, WHO, WEF, NATO, Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Club of Rome, World Bank, BIS, Big Tech, Big Money, megalomaniac billionaires like Bill Gates, Big Pharma, assorted NGOs, almost all political parties on both the left and the nominal right. In other words a “conspiracy” of all the top globalist powers that be and their lapdog lickspittle politicians.
This unholy bunch of conspirators is working to digitally shackle the global population by one means or another – a fake pandemic, a fake climate crisis, food shortages or whatever – to pre-empt an uprising of the people before the global fiscal meltdown caused by the greed and mismanagement of these “elites” comes about.
I find it hard to believe that the German government is so stupid, but then, they did throw out the nuclear option with the bathwater, now they are expecting the wind and sun to rescue them. They’ll be joining the UK and the western countries in poverty soon..
With the architects – mostly ex Nazis – of the great German post war industrial miracle now long gone, it is slowly collapsing under the management of the current ignorant morons. They will feel much more pain than the UK given that we have neglected our industrial base for decades and flogged most of it for short term gain to foreigners – not unlike our football clubs.
I thought they hadn’t gone, as the current policies appear to have similar objectives, just more subtle means of getting there.
Does “Clogs to clogs in three generations” apply to nations?
Germany . . . live life intermittently. I anticipate youtube videos of Munchen Glockenspiel stopping half way around.
Removal of power generation that works. Installation of power generation that works some of the time. It appears they don’t understand that wind/solar only work part of the time. Industrial giant Germany cannot run on intermittent power.
‘The transition will require the installation of solar panels covering the equivalent of 43 soccer fields every day’
Solar works only a few hours a day. Solution? Put in many, many more solar fields.
Plus, Germany is quite far north for efficient solar. Munchen is 48N. Bremen is 53N.
What are they thinking? It is irrational, self-mutilation.
As the glory of Germania fades, which state will rise to manage the EU? Belgium? Ooo, I bet the Austrians would love to take over.
Headline from the Braunau Am Inn Post…..”Local Boy Makes Good.”
“Germany . . . live life intermittently”
To which you can add “Live life in the cold”
Tsunami Of Green Bans: German Economics Minister Plans End Of Gas, Oil Heating Beginning 2024!
https://notrickszone.com/2023/02/28/tsunami-of-green-bans-german-economics-minister-plans-end-of-gas-oil-heating-beginning-2024/
Wind power company Enercon’s boss has said that Habeck’s wind expansion plan is unattainable. He cites approval procedures as well as the previously noted problems in expanding the grid.
Surely, this is a posting of an article from the Babylon Bee.
The Russia-Ukraine excuse is pathetic. The German electricity system was going downhill anyway, just like all the other climate-obsessed countries. Their/our leaders just don’t get it, or don’t want to get it.
Could mention Ireland today…
Ireland’s energy crisis threatens blackouts
Surging demand and insecure supply has left the country vulnerable indefinitely
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/28/irelands-energy-crisis-threatens-blackouts/
– – –
They all have energy policies that don’t and won’t work, but can’t face up to it. Meanwhile the inevitable problems mount, with no genuine solutions they like the look of.
The island (Republic + North) hit the all time record electricity demand of 7,031 MW on 14 DECEMBER 2022, 17:30, this happened during a week of intense cold with no to very low wind across the British isles. Without demand management (industrial users switch to their own backup diesel generation), gas and imports from the UK, the situation is setup for major outage.
There are no gas storage facilities in Ireland, they had this facility and closed Kinsale gas field in 2017. It saved them during the extended intense cold Winters of 2009 and 2010. In March 2018 (beast from the east). Britain came close to declaring a gas emergency, that would have loss of heating and electricity for substantial numbers of people had it come to pass.
The current minister for energy is a Green party member, the Irish establishment wants to keep Sinn Fein out of power and is also beholden to Brussels diktats, the common refrain used to describe this behaviour among the Irish political establishment is ” being the best boys in Europe”. The consequence is the Greens have more power than they should have. The Green twit along with tax funded NGOs has stymied the development of LNG storage facilities and offshore gas exploration. The NGOs (e.g. An Taisce, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the Irish environment Ltd.) are all Green party operatives.
If only the EU had listened to President Trump’s warning about relying of Russia for energy. They literally laughed at him, and are hungry and shivering now after Joe Biden blew up three of three of the Nord Stream pipe lines. Lest you doubt the veracity of my claim, search U Tube for “Biden says he will destroy Nord Stream if Putin invades.” What is the reprise from that old Beatles song, “All you need is Trump, Trump…Trump is all you need. Sing it with me now..
Now, supposing that the guaranteed average from wind and solar is around 10-15%, and assuming you can build in enough locations to raise that (there’s always wind somewhere) – hah!! – they would need to build ten times the number of mills currently installed. But then, just imagine the time when it’s really windy and all those mills start to produce. A damn site more than needed. That’s a lot of constraint payments…
Germany announced a while ago that they were going to build enough new G/T capacity to completely support the economy when the renewables failed!
“…it’s now closing a number of energy-intensive factories, including two ammonia plants and related fertilizer facilities”
I wonder how many deaths from starvation this lunacy is going to cause before the penny drops and the backlash comes for its architects.
I can’t see it being pretty.
“…energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine…”
WHAT? Where has this author been since 2014 when the US and its Nazi American Terrorist Org. overthrew Ukraine’s govt, installed their own, and continued non-stop to slaughter Russians living in Ukraine?
“the US and its Nazi American Terrorist Org. overthrew Ukraine’s govt”
Actually, I think you’ll find it wasn’t the US, it was the EUrofascist Kleptocracy AKA the Fourth Reich in Brussels who pumped something between €10 and €100 billion into the Ukrainian Nazi coffers to overthrow the democratically elected Government with the intention of adding Ukraine to the EU, not NATO, an organisation the Fourth Reich detests.
The USA are mere amateurs compared to the Fourth Reich when it comes to implementing hard Left ideologies such as Nazism and Fascism (for which Benito Mussolini’s preferred synonym was “Corporate Socialism”, it was the Europeans that invented them in the first place and despite the odd setback have been developing them ever since.
the government should stop issuing new approvals for renewable applications that do not come with adequate storage. Problem solved.
Doubling the number of turbines will not increase output on wind free days or weeks