Scholz assures that Germany will survive the winter with a gas shortage, but the German industry can no longer cope
Germany is well positioned to get through this winter with plenty of energy thanks to efforts to shore up supplies.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said this, rejecting criticism from the opposition.
Center-right CDU opposition leader Friedrich Merz told parliament that Scholz's three-party coalition lacked "strategic thinking" and criticized this week's decision to stick with a plan to close Germany's last three nuclear power plants at the end of this year. According to him, the government “could cause irreparable damage to German companies.”
According to the AP, Scholz responded that his coalition had worked since taking power in December to prepare for problems that ministers from Merz's party in the previous government had failed to foresee.
Scholz noted that his government has taken steps to build liquefied natural gas terminals, the first of which are due to open this winter, and to restart coal-fired power plants.
While the plant's shutdown is expected to proceed as scheduled, the government wants to maintain the option of reactivating two of the three reactors in the event of power shortages in the coming months.
Merz, who called for extending the life of the reactors by three to four years, called the decision a “bad compromise.” He called on Scholz to “stop this madness.” Scholz suggested that Merz was too focused on nuclear power.
Summarizing his speech, Scholz added that the country's gas storage facilities were more than 85% full at the time Russia stopped supplying gas to Germany.
Meanwhile, Germany's largest ammonia and urea producer, SKW Piesteritz, has run out of AdBlue, a liquid used to neutralize diesel exhaust gases that reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 90%, after stopping production due to high natural gas prices. The problem is that German trucks will not be able to work without these additives.
“We are emptying our AdBlue stocks because we no longer produce it,” said SKW Piesteritz.
“Back in August, the owners of SKW Piesteritz told Chancellor Scholz and Economics Minister Habeck about the catastrophic consequences of stopping production, clearly hinting that without cheap (read Russian) gas they “won’t survive.” What a surprise! “They didn’t pull it out.”
There are only two options left:
- Buy liquid abroad (this is time, this is additional expenses)
- Ask Berlin for financial assistance to purchase expensive gas and resume production.
Otherwise, Germany (and possibly neighboring EU countries) will experience a shortage of motor fuel, especially for trucks.
There is a third option...perhaps it is somehow connected with the Russian Federation and gas,” Russian political consultant Marat Bashirov writes in his blog.
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