German Gov Announces Heating Cuts To Face Dwindling Russian Gas Supplies
German newspaper Bild: “The electricity already costs more than four times as much as it did a year ago, and gas seven times as much.”
As Russia tightens gas supply, Europe, and particularly Germany, are likely heading for the coldest winter in post-war history.
With autumn just around the corner, the German government has rolled out nationwide measures to limit heating in public buildings. Close to 200,00o buildings will be affected by the decision taken by the country’s “Ministry of Economy and Climate Action,” the German state broadcaster ARD confirmed Friday.
The move will be in addition to sweeping energy cuts already announced by several big German cities, including Berlin, Munich and Nuremberg. Kindergarten, schools, gym, swimming pools and public offices will have to do without warm water. Cities will also be cutting on street lights and lighting of public monuments, including Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate.
The German public broadcaster DW News reported the last nationwide measures:
Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced plans to limit heating in public buildings come winter and turn off some lights at night to conserve gas supplies in an interview with German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
“Public properties, with the exception of hospitals and other parts of the social system, of course, will only be heated to 19 degrees Celsius,” or 66 degrees Fahrenheit, Habeck said.
His comments come after Russia has moved towards reducing and potentially cutting supplies to Germany in what could be seen as retaliation for Berlin canceling the Nord Stream 2 pipeline following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Buildings, monuments and advertisements will also no longer be illuminated at night as part of the latest energy saving measures, Habeck said. (…)
The government has also launched a campaign of public service announcements aimed at convincing the public to do its part to save energy.
So How Bad is The Situation in Germany?
“The electricity and gas prices are going through the roof,” the German newspaper Bild wrote Friday. “The electricity already costs more than four times as much as it did a year ago, and gas seven folds as much.”
If this wasn’t painful enough for ordinary Germans, the government is now charging them a ‘surcharge’ to save country’s big energy concerns, many of which made huge profits doing business with Kremlin, from going bankrupt. “And on top of that there’s the new gas surcharge, which is supposed to save suppliers from bankruptcy,” the newspaper noted.
The economic indicators are just as worrying, with economists predicting steep price rise and rising unemployment. “The Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) has warned of the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, and double-digit inflation rates due to high gas prices,” the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper reported Thursday.
A European Disaster in Making
As winter approaches, the rationing of electricity, gas and heating will not limited to Germany. Last month, all 27 member of the European Union agreed to a Europe-wide energy rationing plan to cope with dwindling Russian supplies.
EU members “backed a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, a target that could become mandatory if the Kremlin ordered a complete shutdown of gas to Europe,” the British newspaper Guardian reported July 26.
As Russia wages war in Ukraine, Kremlin-controlled energy giants Gazprom has reduced Europe’s natural gas supply through its main Nord Steam pipeline to merely 20 percent of its capacity.
[Excerpts from German media reports translated by the author]
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Comments
Just the other day the German Health Minister was trying to plug their new COVID vaccine app bullshit and he flashed his card at the camera at an angle they were able to scan the QR code.
Turns out the duplicitous asshole hasn’t taken a jab in over 270 days while pushing for people to be fired for not taking it.
This is the German government right now.
Lol lol
It’s okay, he’s an elite and they live by a different set of rules. This winter his home thermostat will be set at 25˚C…
And his indoor pool to 31 C.
I try s any government. Does anyone think all, or even a very few of our “important “ govenment officials took that junk?
Crank up the wind and solar!!!! Free energy!!!!
When I lived in Germany, my family forgot what color the sky is. There was heavy, gray cloud cover every day for nearly a year. The blue skies of Italy were a shock. There wasn’t much wind, either. I have no idea how Germany could switch to renewable energy.
They don’t either.
Ooh. Dat hurts!
There is a site called Global Solar Atlas, which is run by solar-loving goofballs and shows where on the planet the most sunlight exists for panels. Just about all of Europe is terrible for solar, no other continent comes close for being as bad for solar.
There is also the Global Wind Atlas. The northernmost part of Europe does better for this, according to them. But living in Texas, I see how many wind farms you need for a fraction of energy production here. Europe does not have the land for it.
Europe is screwed without fossil fuels and nuclear.
Let them rot back into the dark ages.
Texas (well, Rick Perry) put ten billion dollars toward windmills and we ended up having blackouts. It was a stupid decision.
They are a blight on the landscape, they kill birds, the blades cannot be recycled. West and South are full of these things, I cannot stand them.
West and South Texas
@Colonel Travis – and they take more energy to manufacture the metal required to build them than they could possibly produce over their entire lifetimes, so they are a net negative energy production for humanity.
Also, their expected lifespan is only twenty years. There’s no way they can earn back their cost over that time, even before you figure in the cost of disposal.
These are GERMANS. They can do ANYTHING.
“Jan 3, 2022 BERLIN — Germany on Friday shut down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power. The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002.”
Only German geniuses could figure out how to hold THEMSELVES hostage.
One thing they could do ia bring in more muslims. When people crowd together they keep each other warm from body heat.
Only if they want to hand the country over to Islam faster. I wonder what they’ll do when the cullings and mass gang rapes begin in earnest, as they always do in Muslim conquests.
“ I wonder what they’ll do when the cullings and mass gang rapes begin in earnest, as they always do in Muslim conquests.”
Blame the Jews.
Rape is also exceedingly exothermic.
Northern Europe is at a surprisingly high latitude. Northerly sea currents keep it far warmer than it would be otherwise, but Berlin is 52.5 degrees north latitude (Portland, Me is only 43.7) and a high latitude means low solar insolation. Even if seemingly perpetual overcast actually lets the sun shine. it is indeed one of the populated world’s poorest sites for solar energy.
Not that solar would do you much good in the winter at 52.5 N. Lat. anyway, with the sun low in the sky and the short days.
Build more windmills!!!!
Has the electricity crisis shutdown Tesla’s Berlin production plant?
Let’s pick an economic fight with tariffs and sanctions, currency obstacles and throw the Russians out of the international banking settlement transfer system! Wait the Russians cut our supply of oil and Nat gas and coal at the same time we shut down our nuke plants and most of our coal fired electricity plants? Not fair, they are meanies! /s
Let’s consider the real problem. The germans and most of the your a pee uns are stupid marxists. Among others, Trump warned them and they laughed. Who is laughing now?
I am. I think it will be hilarious when the lights are out and the factories are shuttered and the homes are icy.
This is what happens when you are stupid.
By then, the Wermact will be marching towards Stalingrad.
Has it ever happened before?
🙂
Yes. An event frozen in time…
🙂
Several times, and it has never gone well for the Germans.
There is a climate crisis, and robust response is needed. However, it is a political climate crisis, not a fake meteorological one.
Now political leaders worldwide are beginning to realize that all the green technologies that were supposed to replace fossil fuels aren’t up to the task, technologically speaking. Several nations are backtracking on their shuttering of coal plants, natural gas processing plants, nuclear power production (both existing and new ones), while ignoring the New World orders of shutting them down for unproven power production of solar and windmills.
I suspect their coming pain will be a good teacher, it usually is for the rest of us. The European establishment and their citizens have been largely insulated from the consequences of their actions by reliance upon the USA directly and indirectly to forestall the day of reckoning. That painful day is very close and probably not avoidable at this stage.
Yea, maybe.
We’ll see.
Even funnier, they’ll still be blaming Trump for all their problems. It’s
practicallya religion.Where is Trump when you need him? Dumb are the arrogant Europeans.
Was Scholz one of “der schmerken” when President Trump tried to warn them this would certainly happen?? (yeah, German for smirk is “Grinsen” or something, but it just sounded more Yiddish this way!)
I don’t think Yiddish has a word for “smirk”.
I believe there is a word for sneer.
What did socialists/Germans use before candles?
Electricity!
Greenies are fond if saying that fracking now won’t reduce the price of gas (which it won’t RIGHT NOW). However same commies are pretty big on building more windmills and mirrors right NOW because magically when energy is generated by these things it can be used “magically” right now because as we know you don’t have to connect these new windmills and mirrors to energy grids right. Fucking useless fucks.
And all those millions of birds the windmills murder, including our National Symbol, the American Bald Eagle, they can just put them in a pot and eat them!
Win win situation!!!
Nah, on top of their energy stupidity they are vegans…
They can’t be! Chevrolet stopped producing Vegas decades ago.
The last year or two were pretty good cars.
No hot water at work cuts out the trick of taking home a large bottle of hot water at night and chilling it in your refrigerator at home, for heat.
refrigerators run on electricity, so that trick will never work anyway. Plus, the factories will be closed.
The refrigerator is just a heat pump. If you chill the water, you get more heat out of it than just bringing it to room temperature. All the energy the refrigerator uses also winds up as heat, so it’s completely efficient no matter how inefficient it is.
A heat pump gets more heat out than the energy that goes into doing it.
The key question is what is the US doing to boost LNG exports from the US to Europe? Are they waiving export controls under Section 3 of the Natural Gas Act?
I hope not. They made their bed…
In the case of Germany, it wouldn’t matter. Germany does not have a facility capable of accepting LNG shipments. They refused to build one because, of course, Trump advocated for it.
What’s the latest on the German nuclear-powered electrical generating stations that were about to be closed?
Don’t know but I’ll make a bet they decide maybe not…
Sometimes all the news just seems so bad. But then you come across a story like this.
The Russkies must be laughing their asses off right now. Sanctions aren’t working and colder weather will soon set in.
When the deep winter sets in the Russkies should turn off all oil and gas and then set terms of surrender to turn it back on.
That should teach those arrogant european assholes.
Just remember that the only reason the russians are befitting is because of the artificial energy shortage created by the biden regime.
Otherwise sanctions would work. It’s almost like the regime that includes obama (tell Vlad I’ll be more flexible after the election) might have it gamed out…
The sanctions are mostly working, just not as dramatically as the west hoped. The Russian government bought time by inflating the ruble and other temporary measures that are going to hurt in the long-term.
If the goal of the sanctions was to get Russia out of Ukraine then not working is an understatement. This was a strategic blunder by Europe facilitated by the US to shank the Euro. Digital finance aka printing money will not print commodities. Especially when you cut off the payment mechanism for those commodities. Nor when the Nations who possess the needed commodities grow tired of being on the short end of exploitive mercantilism.
The beta test of a BRICS + currency and commodity trading block as an alternative to the Dollar and Euro is getting off the ground. Once the proof of concept phase is over the US and EU lose a good deal of economic influence because an alternative will exist. Treating the rest of the world with a bit more respect instead of arrogantly seeking to impose the collective will of NATO and the EU would defuse a number of problems with extra benefit of not creating others.
Wind does not always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine 12 hours a day, there is not always enough water to produce hydroelectric energy, provide water for production of food, nor protect the fish, BUT the USA has over 300 years of coal reserves and achieved self sufficiency with oil and natural gas but our prior Socialist President (Obama)and current idiot (Biden) and the radical EPA wants to screw the taxpayer even more with non cost effective and burdensome regulations like 54 MPG for automobiles and electric vehicles that most don’t want or afford. We have cleaned up the emissions in transportation and we would be better served by eliminating the ethanol mandate, expanding natural gas for transportation, continue development of hydro, and build reliable nuclear power plants with a reasonable permitting process. Solar, wind, and other forms of alternative energy are not sustainable energy sources without financial subsidies from tax payers that make little financial sense. Energy storage from alternative energy is still a problem. For running the world’s economy, solar and wind are basically worthless without backup and storage. Wind and solar generation will not be able to meet the increased demand of electrification, because the land and battery storage requirements are unrealistic and technologically unfeasible. Wind and solar are basically a waste of money and provide no EC during power failures unless you are not tied to the grid and use expensive batteries. Their required subsidies cannot be justified. Big wind farms does a great disservice to farmers. To provide enough year-round energy to supply a city of 700,000 with electricity requires wind turbines to be spread out over 300 square miles of excellent wind sites. Using coal, natural gas, petroleum, and nuclear power continue as much cheaper and sustainable solutions.
We do not need to bankrupt taxpayers and our economies for the globalist plan to place humans in their designed habitrail environments! Coal, nuclear, petroleum, and natural gas provide needed energy 24/7 without the sun or the wind as America requires. CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas, and not strong enough to be a problem. We need to focus on the enormous benefits of increased concentrations of CO2 on plant life. Unlike the highly uncertain computer climate models with political manipulated data, it is a scientific fact that our carbon emissions have dramatically greened the earth. CO2 should be viewed as an asset rather than a pollutant.
No matter what they say they are going to do, there is a European and Leftist basic character trait, They always assume that whatever wish for they can declare to be a plan that WILL work. Therefore there is never a need for alternatives or contingency and fallback plans. Those in power are, by definition, infallible. Until they aren’t. Then by default it becomes our responsibility to fix it at our own cost.
I don’t think so anymore.
Subotai Bahadur
That’s true. The European establishment does exhibit a great deal of hubris in their actions and an equal amount condescending sneers at anyone who challenges or points out flaws in their planning. Especially so towards Americans.
I bet those proposed natural gas pipelines from Israel/Lebanon and Africa sound real good right now.
The richest country in the EU cannot afford to heat water but Russia can.
Like many wealthy, the Germans think they can buy their way out of anything.
The German People should soon announce cuts to the German Government in response to the energy crisis created by the German Govt.