AMAC Exclusive – By Ben Solis
As congressional Democrats and the Biden administration continue to ram through their fanatical vision of a “green revolution” in the energy sector, Germany’s current energy crisis stands as a stark warning of what could befall the United States should it continue down its current path.
For decades, German climate ideologues have convinced their government to focus all of its energy investment in so-called “green” resources, while also pressuring German industry to do the same. They insisted that, with enough money, wind, solar, and other renewables could meet the country’s energy demands.
Former President Donald Trump famously warned about the folly of this strategy during a speech before the UN General Assembly in 2018, and was laughed at by world leaders at the time.
But Trump was proven correct following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite Germany’s constant preening about its commitment to green energy, the country remained reliant on shipments of natural gas from Russia, most notably via the Nord Stream pipeline.
When supplies from Nord Stream stopped, Germany’s green utopia became a dystopia, and the country faced a real risk of freezing this winter.
It was only by the grace of God that the largest economy in Europe avoided this fate. Berlin, which usually experiences harsh freezing winds and thick layers of snow, saw an unusually mild winter.
But despite the favorable weather, German industry was still dealt a major blow. In the fourth quarter of 2022, private investment in machinery and equipment fell 3.6 percent, while a trade surplus that stood at €15 billion for the last nine years dropped to €11 billion last January.
Germany’s largest chemical company, BASF, announced 2600 layoffs and a major industry relocation to China, blaming Berlin’s overregulation and energy prices. Other companies in energy-intensive industries, including chemical, cement, paper, forest products, iron, and steel are considering similar steps.
In response, Berlin is desperately trying to secure cheap energy supplies, both to keep its industry afloat and keep its cities’ lights on.
According to the German Association of Coal Importers, about 50 trains deliver 30,000 tons of coal each day from the seaports of the North Sea to 15 German power plants – part of a complete reversal from earlier plans to shutter coal power plants. Nearly 40 percent of coal imports come from Russia.
While EU countries had to cut Russian oil imports, Berlin – with Moscow’s permission – imports oil from Kazakhstan via the Russian-controlled Druzhba pipeline to Germany.
Germany has also quietly announced plans to build its storage capacity for liquid natural gas (LNG) to more than 70 million tons by 2030, which will make the country the fourth-largest LNG import capacity holder in the world.
Last month, Germany also unexpectedly joined a group of countries that oppose ending the production of new gas cars by 2035. German carmakers, along with some in Italy, have been adamant that they want to continue selling cars with a combustion engine, in defiance of the European Union’s “carbon neutral” mandates.
The depth of the German leaders’ panic over energy supplies has been evident in their frequent last-minute visits to overseas energy exporters. In March, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock traveled to India for this purpose and sparked a controversy over the Indian delegation supposed giving her the “cold shoulder.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also visited the United States last month, with German energy specialists commenting that the main purpose of his visit was identical – to beg President Biden for lower oil and gas prices.
In short, reality has burst the German “green dream” bubble.
However, many German ministers are continuing to publicly kowtow to the radical left’s environmental activists, even as their government silently ramps up consumption of fossil fuels.
Last month, Germany’s energy minister, a life-long Green Party activist, tried to convince the German Parliament that the country could facilitate a jump in renewable energy production, adding 263 gigawatts of renewable-generated energy by 2031.
Critics have calculated that Germany would need to add 43 soccer fields of solar batteries every day to fulfil that goal, slamming it as hopelessly unrealistic.
Moreover, Germany would need to construct 59 gigawatts-worth of wind turbines in the next seven years to meet the goal. It has only been able to construct 56 gigawatts in the last 20 years.
This proposed energy transition would cost an exorbitant $1 trillion over the next seven years – a full third of Germany’s entire federal budget.
Meanwhile, instead of heeding the warning of the German failure, leftists in the United States have seemingly taken inspiration from the Green Party’s proposals.
Indeed, the Democrat “Green New Deal” – some of which has already been passed into law – is in many ways even more radical and unrealistic than the plans being discussed by German leaders.
A Biden administration plan called “CarbonStar” and its Clean Electricity Standard program would force car makers to produce every part for every vehicle with electricity generated from renewable sources. A similar proposal in Germany was met with warnings from industry leaders that it would “hike production costs right up to the moon.”
Biden’s wind turbine plan also mirrors the German one and dismisses the fact that renewable energy efficiency is not equal to that of fossil fuels.
President Trump again warned about the disastrous consequences of these policies during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year, calling the environmental lobby’s plans “expensive and unreliable.”
The German Green Party’s energy transition plan turned a global economic power into a broken-down cart begging foreign countries for discounts on fossil fuels. Americans should be wary of allowing their country to travel any further down the same disastrous path.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
