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He wasn’t saying they were the sole source of funding.
Moreover, he made the point that the Greens attacked nuclear while trying to replace with wind and solar. But as a result they had a base power problem so turned to natural gas thereby benefiting Russia.
It isn’t quite the Baptist and Bootleggers combo but similar.
Can you explain how the green policy helped the US?
The European gas crisis more than quadrupled the US LNG export business, which started as a subsidized foreign policy tool and suddenly became very profitable (the ports were super expensive and were not competitive with pipeline gas before). 60% of US LNG now goes to Europe, totaling more than we send to Mexico and Canada via pipeline.
Biden just ended all new LNG export construction for "environmental" reasons, hugely enriching the existing owners (the government's partners) by granting them a monopoly.
So in one move they made Europe more economically and politically dependent on the US, paid off the party's cronies, gave their green wing a fake win with some payouts, and put an entire security-critical industry under the thumb of the party. It was a stroke of absolute genius.
And the most impressive part is how long range the plan was. Iirc the government started those then-unprofitable LNG export terminal partnerships over a decade ago, all for this moment when the strategy to split the EU and Russia came to fruition.
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Fair question. Germany adding a ton of solar/wind (before it is economically reasonable) shifts their willingness to conflict themselves with Russia and accept some pipes being blown as a nothingburger after all. To the extent the reduced dependence is real, good for Germans. To the extent it is only an impression that will resolve into a crisis, 'unexpected' costs, too bad.
I also think reduced German/European competitiveness is something the US is pursuing. Drains the talent, conflicts European nations with each other, generally makes us easier to manage.
Yes, they added baseload natgas over nuclear, as others pointed out. Not as much as I thought, something between 50-100% increase since 2000, looking at some charts? And fossil fuels suppliers are fungible (at significant cost), some more natgas does not anchor them to Russia permanently, as we've seen. But fair enough, I should have done more hedging myself, was thinking of last few years too much.
But the point was the greens pushed (oddly) for replacing nuclear (a very clean energy that is cheap after built) with unreliable solar and wind. The natural result is more Natgas which means Russia benefits.
The greens should’ve pushed for nuclear and solar and that would’ve been aligned.
They don't work together, especially in Germany. On summer days solar is producing over 100% of demand and spot prices go negative, then spike at 5pm depending on literally which way the wind is blowing. In winter solar produces zilch and wind stays variable, plummeting to nothing during those climatically stable dead-still cold spells where energy demand is highest.
There's no place for high-fixed-zero-variable cost nuclear in that environment, but it's ideal for cheap gas plants that can be turned off half the time but print money when electricity prices spike. And for gas heating.
There's honestly no explanation for Germany's energy plan but suicidal national insanity. It's as bad as their war plans.
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