“Germany is bleeding cash to keep the lights on. Just under half a trillion US dollars of government subsidies and counting, to make Germany’s broken energy system affordable for end users.
Germany’s half-a-trillion dollar energy bazooka may not be enough
Story by By Christoph Steitz
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany is bleeding cash to keep the lights on. Almost half a trillion dollars, and counting, since the Ukraine war jolted it into an energy crisis nine months ago.
And it may not be enough.
“The national economy as a whole is facing a huge loss of wealth.”
The money set aside stands at up to 440 billion euros ($465 billion), according to the calculations, which provide the first combined tally of all of Germany’s drives aimed at avoiding running out of power and securing new sources of energy.
That equates to about 1.5 billion euros a day since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Or around 12% of national economic output. Or about 5,400 euros for each person in Germany.”
“Germany is bleeding cash to keep the lights on. Just under half a trillion US dollars of government subsidies and counting, to make Germany’s broken energy system affordable for end users.”
Here’s the problem: At least for this winter and likely for next winter, there is only a FINITE amount of natural gas that Germany can access (thanks to us blowing up their pipeline).
They literally risk running out of gas. So, when the government makes gas more ‘affordable’ than their present situation should dictate, what do people do - they use MORE GAS (or at least don’t cut back nearly as much). What’s needed is PAIN, which means gas costing enough to force the usage cuts. At a 20% reduction target it is doable, but will likely cost every household $5k to $10k per year (but that’s the least they can do for Ukraine).
Germany is going with the ‘subsidize’ route and are thus playing with fire as far as running out, completely.
“ Almost half a trillion dollars, and counting…”
For that much money, Germany could be the fracking natural gas supplier to all of Europe.
Gee. Too bad. Embrace the suck, Krautland.