Germany to restart coal power plants due to limited natural gas from Russia

[GloomCookie]

Good evening E peeps.

I was browsing my Reddit feed and came across an article that Germany is going to start using coal again due to limited supplies of natural gas from Russia. A quick google search turned up the following articles:
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-fire-up-coal-plants-as-russia-turns-down-the-gas/a-62182321
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/world/europe/germany-russia-gas.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/19/energy/germany-russia-gas-supplies-winter-intl/index.html

According to the United States Energy Information Administration, Germany is the largest energy consumer in Europe and the seventh largest energy consumer in the world in 2019. It consumed 8.6 billion cubic feet per day (~243.5 billion liters) of natural gas, and was 25% of its total energy consumption that year, of which 97% is imported directly from Russia, the Netherlands, and Norway.

Coal, meanwhile, is available in Germany without imports, but two hard coal mines were shut down in 2018, reducing total domestic production to 145 million short tons (131.5 million metric tons) at the end of 2019. Coal accounts for approximately 18% of total energy output, with plans to end all coal power production by the end of 2038, though the latest (that I have records on) coal power plant was Datteln 4 that came online in June 2020 producing 1,100 Megawatts of power. While my records here only go to 2018, 45 Gigawatts (37.1 DeLorean Time Machines) are produced by coal.

Source for energy info: https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/DEU

[Humble Scribe]

Germany's decision to close all of its nuclear plants is also a major contributing factor. In 2011 there were 17 nuclear power plants in Germany, today there are three, and the government is perversely continuing with its decision to close them all before the end of 2022 in spite of the whole war thing.

Germany's Faustian pact with Russia goes back to the days of the Soviet Union; chancellor Willy Brandt and his Ostpolitik - an attempt to build bridges with the USSR by selling German manufactured goods in return for cheap natural gas supplies. That was fine in the 1970s and 80s when Germany didn't use much natural gas, but as Germany has progressively closed all of its coal and nuclear capacity this century for environmental reasons, so its reliance on Russian gas has increased dramatically, until it is has now placed itself in the position where one third of all of its energy comes from Russia, including half of its natural gas and one third of its oil. This was ok in a world where war in Europe was never going to happen again and borders were dissolving, and everything would be peaceful, but Putin clearly had other ideas. And the writing has been on the wall for many years now; Russia shut off gas supplies to Ukraine (and by extension Europe) in 2005, 2007 and 2008. The EU said at the time that it needed to be less reliant on Russian gas, and tried to make that happen, but because of the closure of coal and nuclear, and in spite of building a lot of renewable capacity, it has in fact become more dependent. Germany actually even collaborated in building huge pipelines like Nordstream to bypass Ukraine to ensure its supply of gas from Russia, increasing Ukraine's vulnerability. This now can be seen as the major strategic error that it was. The irony is that now, even as Germany and the rest of Europe sends billions of euros worth of missiles and guns to Ukraine, it is giving twice as much money to Russia at the same time by buying its oil and gas.

I imagine that Germany will tell itself that the turn back to coal is just temporary, and it will soon be able to pivot to renewables and imported LNG. But turning an entire economy around after years of investment in one direction takes many years. I still think they're crazy to switch off all of their nuclear plants right now though.

[GloomCookie]

I imagine that Germany will tell itself that the turn back to coal is just temporary, and it will soon be able to pivot to renewables and imported LNG. But turning an entire economy around after years of investment in one direction takes many years. I still think they're crazy to switch off all of their nuclear plants right now though.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Germany didn't have any LNG capable ports? I don't see how they'd import it unless it was through an intermediary like France.

[Oniya]

This article is from March of this year, and talks about 'plans for two' in response to the actions Russia was taking in Ukraine.  In May, this article mentions four floating terminals that could be operational by winter.

[GloomCookie]

This article is from March of this year, and talks about 'plans for two' in response to the actions Russia was taking in Ukraine.  In May, this article mentions four floating terminals that could be operational by winter.

I missed that initially, thank you Oniya.

[Oniya]

As I continued reading the article, it seems like the land-based LNG terminals are intended to roll over to be hydrogen plants as Germany continues to phase out fossil fuels.  So, at least it's not a full step back from the renewables goal.

You were absolutely correct that they don't currently have the terminals in place, but this has kick-started things towards a less Russia-dependent source.

[Humble Scribe]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Germany didn't have any LNG capable ports? I don't see how they'd import it unless it was through an intermediary like France.

Yes, as Oniya says, not yet - that was why I said "pivot to". But at the moment it's their only alternative to continuing to pay Putin.

[Humble Scribe]

And as if by magic, here's yesterday's first binding contract from a Germany utility to buy LNG.

Note that the contract starts in 2026 - EnBW presumably intends to have regasification infrastructure in place by then (well, it had better, otherwise it's going to be losing a lot of money!)