Germany in the gas dilemma: Winter is only a few months away, Russia is turning off the gas tap more and more. Can we make it through the winter? Three things are important now, says economist Andreas Fischer – and explains why nuclear power only makes a limited contribution to the solution.
FOCUS online: Mr. Fischer, the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) told the “Handelsblatt” on Monday that the “energy transition with gas as the base load” had failed. Do you agree?
Andreas Fischer: I cannot agree with that. The answer to the current problems must be to push the energy transition towards renewable energies really consistently. And we will not simply be able to do without the use of natural gas in the medium term. However, the fact that too little progress has been made in the energy transition in recent years weighs even more heavily.
Andreas Fischer is an economist for energy and climate policy at the Cologne Institute for Economic Research. His areas of focus include energy raw materials and supply chains as well as the expansion of renewable energies.
In retrospect, however, the whole of German society relied too much on cheap Russian gas, right? Even the design of our energy transition is based on gas-fired power plants as a backup.
Fischer: You have to differentiate between “gas as a bridge for the energy transition” and “Russian gas supplies”. Relying on gas, also as part of the energy transition, makes perfect sense, partly because gas-fired power plants can be used flexibly at peak loads, as a supplement to renewable energies and can help with the transition to the use of hydrogen. Gas will continue to play a role in the energy transition.
Of course, it made less sense to become so dependent on Russian gas instead of also including alternatives such as LNG. For a long time, the priority here was on relatively cheap imports and the resulting dependency was not sufficiently priced in.
What happens if the gas tap is turned off all the way? Different forecasts are circulating among economists as to the consequences for the German economy.
Fischer: Yes, there have been a number of studies on this subject, and some now point to the immense costs of a potential gas shortage. It is also to be feared that a real shortage will result in major economic damage. With Corona, for example, the last sections of the value chain were more affected. Here it would also hit the first stages, which of course also has consequences for the rest of the value chain.
Whether or not there really is a shortage depends on too many different factors to be able to foresee exactly. Of course, an important factor will be how quickly we manage to stock up on replacements and fill up the stores. This requires new supply partners and deals, for example with Qatar or countries like Algeria that want to expand their capacities. Basically, the greater the dependency on Russia in the winter, the more difficult it will of course be.
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What is the most important thing German politics and German society have to do to get through this winter?
Fischer: It depends on three things. Firstly, look for alternative sources of supply. Secondly: Use potential savings, both in business and in private households. Everyone can make a contribution here. Third: Don’t let the expansion of renewable energies slip by. There is still a lot to do here, too. But I’m glad that the Ministry of Economics has initiated things like the Easter package and the Wind-on-Land Act, although they certainly had their hands full with the current situation.
Probably the biggest controversial topic in recent weeks has been nuclear power. Can a service life extension make a contribution to the gas crisis?
Fischer: In principle, nuclear power can cover part of the electricity generation, currently it is about six percent. But at the same time, our problem is more a gas problem than an electricity problem. And when it comes to electricity, nuclear power plants cannot replace the flexible balancing of a gas power plant.
If the stress test by the Ministry of Economic Affairs now reveals that Bavaria, for example, is threatened with a power shortage, then nuclear power can be helpful for a short transitional period. Or if it turns out that we urgently need replacements for the failed nuclear power plants in France, where a large part of the power plant park is currently failing. Of course, there is also a political component: what steps must be taken to achieve this? What additional costs will we face if the previous exit is untied again?
So, while nuclear power could play a certain role, the concrete contribution to solving the current situation is often overestimated in the public debate.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner recently called on Economics Minister Robert Habeck to ban the generation of electricity from gas. Is that even realistic?
Fischer: That could certainly be done to a large extent – provided that more coal is then used instead of the gas-fired power plants. However, there are also gas-fired power plants that produce combined electricity and heat, which is why these are still required, at least in part, for the heat supply. You would also have to see whether the situation differs regionally – is a country like Bavaria, for example, where there are fewer fossil alternatives, more dependent on gas power generation? It’s not all that easy.
I’m also not sure whether such a ban can be implemented so easily politically and legally. In addition, efforts are already being made to end the generation of electricity from gas, and the first reactivated coal-fired power plant was only connected to the grid again this week. Lignite-fired power plants will follow in autumn. So something is being done there.
