German Shambolic Energiewende - 2021

Climate Change, Anthropocene, & Associated Issues

Simon, et al., reported mid-November, 2021 that as the world focuses on the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the German government coalition talks are offering a no less fascinating stage for climate policy drama. Imagine a coal-reliant country with almost double the per-capita CO₂ emissions of France that also views itself as a leader in the fight against climate change. That is Germany, Europe’s self-proclaimed climate champion, which is now turning to fossil gas to compensate for an improvised nuclear phase-out and years of failed renewable energy expansion.

How did Germany get here? 2011 is probably a good starting point: The anxiety caused by the Fukushima disaster in Japan stampeded the Merkel government into freezing the planned extension of the country’s nuclear fleet and order a full exit from atomic energy by the end of 2022 – a decision that was taken almost overnight without consulting the country’s European neighbors. At first, it may have seemed a wise decision: the costs of wind and solar power were in freefall and Germany was expanding its renewable electricity generation at a rapid pace. The Energiewende was in full swing and countries across the world were enviously seeing the German wind industry as a world leader. But soon enough, things started going awry. In the name of nature conservation, environmentalists formed an unintended alliance with climate change deniers to block German wind turbine permitting procedures.

The result was to stymie the expansion of onshore wind power, effectively putting a stop to the industry’s expansion in Germany. Again in the name of nature conservation (or nimbyism), the expansion of Germany’s electricity grid was also thwarted, preventing abundant offshore wind electricity in the Baltic from reaching the country’s south. As a result, Germany now has its back to the wall: it must get rid of 130 TWh of polluting coal-fired power plants by 2038 at the latest while shutting down 64 TWh worth of carbon-free nuclear electricity in 2022.

To make matters worse, Germans are expected to consume an additional 100 TWh of electricity per year by 2030, partly because of the shift towards electric mobility. In total, that means Germany needs to add about 300 TWh of electricity production as fast as possible. Caught in the contradictions of its twin coal and nuclear phase-outs, Germany has few other options than to turn to Russian fossil gas imports, see (more).

Enter Nord Stream 2, the highly divisive gas pipeline project sowing discord in Europe while poisoning EU-US relations (another unilateral decision taken without consulting EU partners, it must be noted). Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor-in-waiting, has openly admitted to Germany’s dilemma: the country will have to “build new gas-fired power plants” to compensate for its lost nuclear capacity. Even the Greens have grudgingly accepted defeat, saying Germany “may need some additional gas turbines” in the transition to renewable energy. All the while, the country will likely continue missing its climate goals. In 2020, Germany was one of 6 EU states to miss its greenhouse gas emission targets under the EU’s Effort Sharing Regulation, alongside Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland and Malta.

Germany may ultimately have the wherewithal to turn its energy transition into a success over the long run. In the meantime though, Europe should draw lessons from the country’s shambolic Energiewende and consider keeping its low-carbon nuclear power generation capacity as long as necessary, [see (more)].

[For the full scope of German conditions (more)]