Europe’s Self-Inflicted Energy Crisis: Germany Issues Nationwide “Energy Saving Decree”
German cities switch off street lighting amid surging migrant crime.
As Russia halts gas supply to Europe, the German government has issued an “energy saving decree” (Energieeinsparverordnung) ordering businesses and private households to reduce power consumption. Going by the new regulations which came into effect on September 1, Germany is heading towards its darkest and coldest winter since the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973.
The new ordinance is a “set of binding measures to reduce energy consumption nationwide,” telling Germans to cut on heating, lighting, and other sources of energy consumption, German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported Saturday. These regulations will be in force for the entire winter, the German media notes.
Germany has been forced to order sweeping rationing of energy after Russia closed its key natural gas pipeline to Europe. “Russia indefinitely suspends Nord Stream gas pipeline to Europe,” the London-based Financial Times reported Saturday.
German public broadcaster DW News reported a few of the new energy regulations:
Illuminated advertising must be switched off after 10p.m., with only a few exceptions. If advertisements serve traffic safety, they remain switched on, for example, at railroad underpasses. Street lamps also remain on, and store windows may continue to be illuminated.
Monuments and other buildings may no longer be illuminated at night. At least not for purely aesthetic reasons. However, emergency lighting will not be switched off, and illumination is permitted for cultural events and public festivals.
In public buildings, halls and corridors will generally no longer be heated, and the temperature in offices will be limited to a maximum of 19 degrees. In places where heavy physical work is performed, temperatures will be even lower in the future. However, the restrictions do not apply to social facilities such as hospitals, daycare centers, and schools, where higher air temperatures are essential for the “health of the people who spend time there,” according to the Economy Ministry.
Cutting back on warm water. Likewise, in public buildings, instantaneous water heaters or hot water tanks should be switched off if they are mainly used for washing hands. Exceptions are made for medical facilities, schools, and daycare centers. Some cities go even further. There, the showers in swimming pools and sports halls will remain unheated.
German Cities Switch Off Street Lighting Amid Surging Migrant Crime
These regulations are in addition to the measures taken by German cities to cut on public lighting, heating, as well as warm water for kindergartens and schools.
The move to switch off street lighting has lead to widespread fear among women who already apprehensive of being outside after dark. Amid surging illegal immigration, German has seen as rise in violent crimes against women.
Merkel’s Dark Legacy
In 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to quit nuclear energy, and run Europe’s biggest economy on solar and wind power. “Merkel, her allies say, is ready to lead Germany into an era in which wind and solar energy can replace nuclear plants,” The New York Times declared at that time.
Since these renewable energy sources were highly unreliably, Merkel’s government decided to plug the gap with Russian natural gas. Berlin invested billions in joint pipeline projects with Moscow, including the now-defunct 760-mile Nord Stream 2 pipeline that ran under the Baltic Sea.
German politicians and media scoffed at every criticism of their dealings with Russia. President Donald Trump was widely mocked in Germany for suggesting that the country was getting fatally dependent on the Kremlin for its energy requirement.
As Russia now shuts down the gas supply, President Trump’s words appear almost prophetic. The German weekly Der Spiegel notes: “Europeans, and Germans in particular, risk running out of gas in the winter if supplies through Nord Stream, the pipeline that delivers gas directly from Russia to Germany, don’t increase again.” With the remaining nuclear power plants going out of commission and no viable substitute to Russian gas, Germany faces a disaster of its own making
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Comments
Maybe they could reconsider arrogantly provoking the folks who supply the energy to them? Perhaps look for a diplomatic resolution in Ukraine that doesn’t depend on continuing US support which may not endure. As NG prices continue to climb this winter the American people will be growing less tolerant of shipping our resources to Europe if that means higher prices at home. Sooner or later export controls will be applied in some form.
By the time Russia wad ready to invade diplomacy was done. The boat to diplomacy set sail November 2019.
Do you really not understand that diplomacy is involved in ending wars? Otherwise, once begun a war would only end with the genocidal annilihation of one party by the other. The battlefield winner would reject even an unconditional surrender by their opponent.
Let’s just examine our own Nation’s war of independence. After Yorktown it was basically over for the British in the former colonies. That was in October of 1781 but the Treaty of Paris, ending the war between The USA and Britain wasn’t signed until September of 1783, why? Diplomacy.
The USA was unable to sign a separate peace with Britain due to treaty commitments to France. The French couldn’t sign off on peace due to commitments to Spain. Then there’s the Dutch who were acting more or less independently in the west Indies trying, without much success, to regain possessions previously lost to Britain.
Diplomacy ends wars. It does take leaders who understand that they have lost and then seek the best terms possible in defeat. Some people seem to have a hard time admitting the reality of the situation. Unless you are advocating perpetual war then at some point every conflict must end. Sometimes in victory, sometimes in defeat.
If you refuse to admit defeat then you leave your opponent no option but to destroy you. See the Japanese reaction to defeat in WWII. Militarily they were defeated but still refused to surrender. Then we dropped a Nuke, still they refused. It took dropping two nuclear weapons on largely civilian targets to get Japanese leadership to admit defeat. Hopefully Ukraine and the folks in the west pushing them to fight to the last Ukrainian won’t be that stubborn.
Diplomacy can be used to end conflicts, but only if both sides have an interest in ending it on terms agreeable to both sides. Diplomacy didn’t stand a snowflake’s chance in hell of ending the war with the Empire of Japan. Japan offered terms, but since these included holding onto their gains in China, or at best, status quo antebellum, there was no fucking way the Allies were going to agree to it. You cite Yorktown, but what if it’s 1778? Did diplomacy stand a rat’s ass of a chance then? Great Britain wasn’t about to settle for anything less than the suibjugation of its former colonies, while America wouldn’t and couldn’t accept anything less than independence. Diplomacy stood zero chance of ending WWI until one side or the other gained a clear victory, or both sides fell apart in exhaustion.
What makes you think Russia is interested in anything less than, at the very least, holding on to all of its gains in Ukraine? Or that any “peace” would be anything other than a breathing space to prepare to take the rest of Ukraine? What evidence do you have that Ukraine could agree to that? More importantly, why do you think they should foolishly agree to that? It would be as stupid as their surrendering their nuclear weapons proved to be in the long run. Do you think the Ukrainians who have fought so hard against the invader are actually interested in becoming a rump state subject to being later absorbed in whole by the Russians, extinguished like the rump state of Czechoslovakia was in the ~6 months following the Munich Agreement?
Defeat is a bitter pill. No one sets out to lose a conflict, even when they would have been wiser to decline that conflict. See weight class and the wisdom of staying within it.
Let’s flip your analysis. Please tell me if Russia will tolerate a defeat? Why should they give back hard won territory? The same territory that they believe is/should be part of Russia.
Personally I would advise the Ukrainian government to cut their losses and negotiate a peace that ends the war. The Russians want the Donbas and security for Crimea. They have largely achieved those territorial goals. The Ukrainians are at the fork in the road; one is a defeat with recognition of Russian territorial gains, the other leads eventually to the end of Ukraine as a separate Nation.
The populace of the EU is not going to be willing to endure the damage to their economy and disruption to their lives for the sake of Ukraine. Hell, it’s barely September and protests have begun. Wait till December.
When reality hits that they are living in the dark and cold with their manufacturing base idled due to lack of reliable energy, all because their govt chose to PO Russia then those populations may insist on different policies. The Ukrainian government would be wise to make peace now, while they still can.
It seems to me that the UK should return to coal and peat for fuel. They really need to get busy.
During WWII they never stopped producing steel but they are shutting down now.
“that doesn’t depend on continuing US support which may not endure. ”
****
I don’t think Germany has any facilities for handling LNG from tankers, which, if true, really limits their options.
It’s Trump’s fault. He was fully aware that the wokesters will always do exactly the opposite of what he recommends their hatred of Trump being so deeply embedded in their psyche. Knowing this, Trump told them the truth anyway and offered the correct advice. Open and shut case of something illegal for sure.
There is no shame in capitalizing on their stupidity.
The Green blight of renewable, intermittent, unreliable, ecologically hazardous energy.
… with Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring enhancements.
It’s not even that. It’s that it takes more energy to manufacture one of their windmills or solar panels than it can possibly produce over its entire projected lifetime. Their ‘renewable’ bullshit IS A NET ENERGY NEGATIVE.
And let us not forget the disposal of “green” energy infrastructure when it wears out. Lots of toxic compounds…
The only way you can afford to produce Wind Turbines and Solar Panels is with low energy costs.
Theoretically – they return 5 units of energy for every unit invested. This is equivalent to chopping and burning cord wood.
“Almost” prophetic?
I would love to get a source for that.
This is what happens when the decisions for your entire government are made by people that pay no penalty for being catastrophically wrong and making decisions despite overwhelming evidence that it was stupid.
A simple comparison of the country’s energy needs vs the absolutely most rosy projections of their ‘green energy’ bullshit would show that it was absolutely impossible to sustain their needs, but they went ahead and did it anyway, What a shock that they can’t power their society on windmills and unicorn farts.
I’m sure that this is only a small bump in the road for the Watermelons. They are still convinced of the righteousness of their cause and will not stop at nothing to save Gaia even if means destroying civilization. Our descendants will ask what did we use before candles and horses, and they will gasp when they are told about electric lights and gasoline powered vehicles.
At least Venezuela is warm all the time.
“Almost” prophetic?
IMO the chickens are starting to come home to roost with this Climate Change scam. California brownouts, an ocean freighter sinking in February with $400M of high end VW cars from EV battery fires that could not be put out, and now this. I wonder how many people will die of the cold in Europe this winter. Where is a little Global Warming when you need it.
These Green fanatics are genocidal. They think there are far too many people on earth now, and a few billion dying would be OK with them.
A question that should be asked, but won’t — of all the nuclear plants that Germany shut down, how many can be re-opened, and on what timeline?
It is a very important question and one I unfortunately can’t answer. I guess some factors would be what kind of equipment needs to be brought back in, how much restoration needs to be done, also reestablishing supplies which means contracts, and then finding and rehiring those qualified to work at nuclear plants.
Honestly by far the most important thing is the trained and experienced staff that ran the damn thing for years.
If the plant closed, they have all almost CERTAINLY gone on to other jobs.
It may be impossible to get them back, and it takes a LONG TIME to train a brand new crew to run a nuclear plant safely and efficiently, and its going to be 10x worse because they don’t have any trained/experienced personnel to get the new hires into shape.
It would probably be 2 years to get a plant back on line and running, and that’s honestly probably optimistic.
The fact that President Trump was correct just makes them hate him even more. It’s comparable to hating the player on your team’s rival who keeps making the game winning play against your team.
If only the individual homesteads had their own, stand-alone lighting, heating, power generation.
I seriously hope that a lot of Germans have been stocking up on extra clothing, blankets, and winter gear to try and make it through this winter.
Most Germans live in huge high rise apartments
Book burning may soon return to Germany, for purely practical reasons.
May I recommend surplus CRT textbooks.
Packed full of heat, with no energy wasted on illumination.
I love how the Germans participate in slapping insane sanctions on Russia, crowing about how they are going to crush the country and Putin, and then whine about Putin and Russia not selling them gas that they desperately need (but that Russia doesn’t need to sell them). It makes you laugh.
Germany is serving as the new example put into the dictionary to illustrate “chutzpah”. Fitting …
“(Energieeinsparverordnung)”
Arthur C. Clark wrote a short-short story in 1953 whose premise was that once a particular group of Tibetan lamas had enumerated the nine billion names of God, God would finally shut down the universe.
There is a newer theory that the Germans could advance this date by condensing the entire Library of Congress into a single German neologism.
This is what Germany gets for the Shoah. It drove them mad. I won’t say what I hope happens to Germany this winter, but let’s just say I don’t wish them pleasant things.
This is the feel-good story of the year. Keep these articles coming, Vijeta.
Just keep posting the pics of the smirking Germans.
Schadenfreude is a German word…
I don’t understand why they don’t just build a few more Windmills.
That’ll fix everything.
It’s like the point of their energy policy was more control, not more energy, or even less “pollution.” Funny how it always works that way.
Hey, it’s Ok if your cold, as long as we’re all cold together. Funny how it always works out that way.
What’s the price in dead grandmothers for each 1-degree decrease in indoor temperature? Degree F, or C: I can convert.
Asking for a former NYS Governor.