2022

The rising price of gas and the fear that the gas supply could collapse is causing many people to look for an alternative heating option. Fireplaces and wood stoves are already almost sold out and there are long waiting times (Blackout News: 10.07.22). Now the sale of electric fan heaters, oil radiators and infrared heating […]

The head of the Federal Network Agency Klaus Müller warns of a serious bottleneck in gas supply in view of the already throttled gas deliveries from Russia and the upcoming maintenance of Nord Stream 1 from 11 July 2022: German gas storage facilities would be able to guarantee security of supply for a maximum of

The impending gas supply stop from Russia could lead to a serious technical problem, which Klaus Müller, as President of the Federal Network Agency, warns of: If the gas pressure in the pipelines drops, the gas in Germany will be distributed unevenly to individual municipalities and regions. Due to a lack of pressure, several hundred

Rising energy prices in Germany have so far hit the lower income groups hard. In the meantime, the middle class is also suffering. This means that Germany has the greatest energy poverty in post-war history. Share of energy costs in the household budget On average, the German household spends 10.2 % of its disposable income

For weeks, less gas has been coming to Germany via the Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 1. Politicians keep trying to portray this as an act of retaliation by Russia due to the European sanctions. However, as we already reported in our article “Why less gas is coming via Nord Stream 1” (Blackout-News 26.06.22), this

Habeck’s energy policy is heading from one disaster to the next. The shutdown of nuclear and coal-fired power plants was supposed to be compensated by the construction of modern gas-fired power plants. Now gas is in short supply, not least because of the sanctions, and the gas-fired power plants have to be taken off the

Inflation, energy shortages and the decline of the euro against the dollar are already having a massive impact on our prosperity. Due to the massive rate of price increases, larger households are already losing a quarter of their purchasing power. Companies are closing down or relocating their production abroad. The cause of this is the

The expansion of green energy plants lags far behind global growth. The share of renewable energy has been stagnating for more than 10 years. At the same time, the gap between aspiration and reality is widening. The global energy transition remains an ideological illusion. Expansion of green power plants cannot keep pace with global economic

With the start of the Ukraine war, the cost of gas and heating oil has risen sharply. This has now led to a real boom in demand for wood-burning stoves. Stove builders and installers can hardly save themselves from corresponding orders to install an additional heating option. In many places, wood-burning stoves are already sold

The latest figures show the massive impact of energy policy on the German economy. The trade balance is negative for the first time since 1991, due to the dramatic collapse of exports to China and Russia (Welt: 04.07.22). Not a single German company is among the world’s top 100 any more. More and more companies,

Economics Minister Robert Habeck wants to replace Russian natural gas with liquefied natural gas (LNG). But this involves considerable quantities that are not available on the world market and the necessary infrastructure is not in place. German shipowners have now expressed massive concerns that Habeck’s LNG strategy will work. Experts criticise LNG strategy of the

If the gas crisis continues to worsen, there will also be failures of heating systems in private households during the winter. In Baden-Württemberg, the district of Ludwigsburg now wants to prepare warming halls for the population. In the prepared halls it should be possible for up to 5,000 people to shelter in winter. Especially in

Economics Minister Habeck wants to expand renewable energies to 80 per cent of electricity demand by 2030. He envisages a quadrupling of the expansion with solar installations. However, the introduction of a nationwide solar roof obligation has failed so far. Now the managing director of the engineering firm Solar Experience, Stefan Abrecht, is proposing a

The rich European industrialised countries are trying to become independent of Russian gas supplies. To this end, they buy liquefied gas on the world market from all available sources and pay almost any price for it. This leads not only to an explosion in prices, but also to massive supply bottlenecks in the emerging countries.

The energy supplier Uniper is Germany’s largest gas supplier, and also the largest buyer of Russian natural gas. As a large intermediary, Uniper primarily supplies gas to municipal utilities. Since mid-June, Uniper has received only 40 per cent of the agreed delivery volumes from Russia. Therefore, the energy supplier has to buy the missing 60