It’s Not Easy Being Grün

One country is learning the hard way:

Gemany is in the middle of one of the most audacious and ambitious experiments a major industrial economy has ever attempted: To swear off nuclear power and run Europe’s largest economy essentially on wind and solar power.

There’s just one problem – it’s not really working.

The energy transformation, known as “Energiewende,” was meant to give Germany an energy sector that would be cleaner and more competitive, fueling an export-driven economy and helping to slash greenhouse-gas emissions. On that count, the policy has floundered: German emissions are rising, not falling, because the country is burning increasing amounts of dirty coal. And electricity costs, already high, have kept rising, making life difficult for small and medium-sized businesses that compete against rivals with cheaper energy. …

Business groups representing small and medium firms wring their hands over Germany’s high energy costs while Brussels frets that Berlin is subsidizing big German industry with rebates on inflated energy bills. Foreign leaders, and plenty of pundits, blame the Energiewende for Europe’s inability to answer Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Utilities, meanwhile, are bleeding money, slashing investments, and shutting down power plants.

Keating has more on the country’s troubles:

Despite Angela Merkel’s government’s focus on green energy, the country’s coal use actually hit its highest level since 1990 last year. With no conventionally extractable natural gas on its own, some are also recommending that the government consider hydraulic fracturing in Germany, which the government currently opposes on environmental grounds.

All of Merkel’s government’s goals—shifting to renewable energy, weaning the country off Russian gas, reducing the risk of nuclear accidents—have been admirable, but doing them all at once raises some questions about how exactly the country plans to keep the lights on in the medium-to-long term. It would be an unfortunate irony if coal and fracking ended up being the beneficiaries of Merkel’s green energy push.