Free Republic

... The stand-off with Russia has forced countries like Germany to find supplies elsewhere, and its stores have increased from less than half full in June to 84% full today. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told journalists Germany would get through the winter, adding that Russia was "no longer a reliable energy partner". He said the government would make one-off payments to pensioners, people on benefits and students. There would also be caps on energy bills. Some 9,000 energy-intensive businesses would receive tax breaks to the tune of €1.7bn. A windfall tax on energy company profits would also be used to...

Germany could be forced to scrap Oktoberfest celebrations and its famous Christmas markets as officials desperately search for ways to save energy after Russia began throttling gas supplies to Europe. Hanover yesterday became the first major city on the continent to announce it will turn off all hot water in public buildings to conserve energy, while Berlin has begun dimming streetlights and Augsburg has turned off public water fountains.

Germany's leading energy expert says she's living in a nightmare. What's worse, she saw it coming. Germany had vowed to ditch coal but is now restarting mothballed, coal-fired power stations For 15 years Claudia Kemfert says she tried to warn politicians and the public that the country was too reliant on Russian energy. Until recently Germany bought more than half of its gas from Russia. She advised Berlin to find other sources and focus more on renewables. And she warned against the construction of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline through which Germany receives much of its gas. "That's what I...

Russian President Vladimir Putin can afford to cut off natural-gas exports to Europe thanks to ample revenues from other commodities, but such a move would come with longer-term risks for Russia’s sanctions-stricken economy and its prolific energy industry. Earlier this week, Moscow resumed gas supplies via the Nord Stream pipeline after annual maintenance ended, easing worries in Europe that Mr. Putin would further crimp exports at a time when the continent is filling up its storage ahead of winter. The restarted pipeline, however, is pumping at just 40% capacity, after a separate, still-unresolved technical issue that Moscow blames on Western...

German energy prices surged on Monday due to insufficient wind generation.In April, Germany unveiled the Easter Package, a plan to expand renewable energies through onshore and offshore wind development in line with the European Union’s REPowerEU Action Plan, a plan to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels before 2030. The Easter Package target goal is to transition 80 percent of Germany’s electricity to renewables by 2030. Wind droughts, such as that which plagued Europe in summer and fall of 2021, have been exacerbating the continent’s current energy crisis, already severe because of the disturbance to global energy markets from...

Today I am risking being too glib, but my excuse is aspiring to meet the Einstein standard, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” It’s not hard to see that as rough as economic conditions are now, they are set to get worse. And it’s not hard to see that despite the considerable blowback from the sanctions against Russia, the West is not going to relent. Here’s a simple baseline forecast. Russia wins in Ukraine. The West may try to define it somehow as not a victory, but it’s hard to see how Russia does not take the...

The Germans aren’t laughing now. In fact, gas prices are so high in Germany today that wood-burning stoves and firewood have become scarce nationwide. German citizens are loading up on wood to heat their homes next year — just like they did in the Middle Ages.

Some landlords in Germany are rationing hot water and will turn down the heating as Europe's largest economy battles soaring energy costs due to reduced supplies of Russian natural gas. German real estate company, Vonovia, said it would lower tenants' heating during the night to cut costs. In a statement sent to Insider, the company said the move was designed to "save as much gas as possible," adding that reducing temperatures between 11pm and 6am would reduce heating costs by about 8%. Some tenants in Dippoldiswalde, Saxony, will only be able to take a hot shower between 4am and 8am,...

For months, Germany has feared having to ration energy amid Russia’s increasing willingness to turn off the tap. Now those fears are becoming a reality as Germany prepares for a return to 1970s-style energy rationing, when the OPEC oil embargo forced governments to mandate measures like dimmer lights and car-free Sundays. Only, the energy crisis of 2022 isn’t limited to oil. Last year, Germany relied on Russia for 55% of its natural gas imports. Germany has since been able to reduce that number to 35%, but with Russia seemingly prepared to further cut gas shipments to Europe, German officials are...

German energy supply giant Uniper said Friday it is asking the government for a bailout amid a growing natural gas crunch due to the war in Ukraine. Uniper, which is Germany's biggest importer of Russian gas, said in a statement that its board has applied to the government for “stabilization measures.” The move could see the government pump billions of euros (dollars) into Uniper to keep the company afloat. Germany's Cabinet had approved a plan preparing for such measures earlier this week.

In 2018, when then-President Donald Trump warned Germany about their reliance on Russian energy during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, the German delegation just laughed it off. It’s no longer a laughing matter now. Russia announced in June that it will reduce natural gas flows to Germany by roughly 40 percent. The German government recently declared that the country had entered the “alarm stage” of the emergency gas plan, calling on its citizens to reduce consumption. In London, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that Russia could cut gas supplies to Europe entirely to boost its leverage...

A Marshall Plan approach to a condition of war or the threat of war is likely with intervention in non-Russia natural gas supply made up as the United States supplies Europe for most of its requirement.

Just over six months ago, in December 2021, I asked the question that was on the tip of the tongue of everybody who follows the subject of the ongoing massive “green” transition to fossil-fuel-free energy. Actually, that’s a lie. The question I asked was not on the tip of the tongue of everybody who follows the subject, or even of most of the people who follow the subject, for reasons that to me are completely inexplicable. The question was : “Which Country Or U.S. State Will Be The First To Hit The Green Energy Wall?” The candidates that I nominated...

Germany and the Netherlands will provide Ukraine with six more Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled artillery units. This was announced in Madrid by German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht and her Dutch counterpart kaise Ollongren, the Censor informs.No with a link to DW. "In Germany, we decided that we could give Ukraine three more Panzerhaubitze 2000s. Together with the Netherlands, it will be six," Lambrecht said. If they say what they need, we do everything possible to provide it. And in this case, Germany and the Netherlands were able to do just that," Ollongren said. At the same time, Lambrecht said that now...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's visit to Serbia has been cancelled after countries around Serbia closed their airspace to his aircraft, a senior foreign ministry source told the Interfax news agency on Sunday. The source confirmed a Serbian media report that said Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro had closed their airspace to the plane that would have carried Moscow's top diplomat to Belgrade on Monday. "Our diplomacy has yet to master teleportation," the source said.

A German state agency has said that it will likely soon be providing over 400,000 more Ukrainian migrants with unemployment benefits over the next few weeks. A total of around 410,000 migrants ostensibly from Ukraine will soon be on the German dole, with hundreds of thousands more on top of that expected to end up receiving unemployment benefit in the central European state before the end of the year. This is the assessment of Germany’s Federal Employment Agency, which is already reportedly giving handouts to millions of migrants under the so-called “Hartz IV” scheme. According to a report by Die...

Norway’s excess oil and gas profits will exceed one hundred billion euros. It is indirectly preying on Putin’s induced war. It is unfair, they should share, said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Saturday at a meeting with young people. He called on young people to “write to their friends in Norway” about this. On Saturday, the head of government participated in a question and answer session during the National Youth Dialogue Congress. He said the surplus – in excess of the annual average of recent years – oil and gas profits from “a small country of five million like Norway...

Days after taking office as Germany’s vice chancellor and economy minister in December, Robert Habeck asked his most senior officials for a detailed assessment of his country’s dependence on Russian energy. The result shocked him. The country heavily relied on Russian hydrocarbons to power vehicles and factories and heat homes, and there was no contingency plan to secure other supplies, Mr. Habeck said. The government had no viable alternative to Russian imports.