Nord Stream 2 disregards the energy policy triangle

Energy security, economic viability, environmental protection. The US sanctions are justified.

Thank you, Hans-Josef Fell, for this brilliant article, which clearly sets out the facts about the “climate killer” natural gas. As an addition: natural gas is, after all, the current basis of the much-praised hydrogen transition. Especially in Austria, the energy transition is/was understood, promoted and driven forward politically as a hydrogen transition; unfortunately, very few people care where this hydrogen comes from. The pretence is that it comes from surplus renewable electricity, which we are miles away from… So on top of everything, we are throwing ourselves not just into an energy policy dead end, but MULTIPLE times into an energy disaster.

Now I am interested to see how the new federal government will reassess this, especially as all renewable energies are already far cheaper than natural gas and all other fossil energies, … and nuclear energy is unaffordable anyway.

With sunny greetings and best wishes for health, happiness and success in 2020, Wolfgang Löser

REPORT/NEWSLETTER BY HANS-JOSEF FELL

Dear readers,

The unanimous US decisions to impose sanctions on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline have caused a great stir and provoked unanimous outrage in the grand coalition.

Coverage in the German media was mainly reduced to the insinuation of a single motive, namely that US President Trump was only interested in exporting dirty fracked gas to Europe – in other words, purely economic interests.

What was often left unsaid was that a rare agreement between Republicans and Democrats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate brought about this sanctions decision. It was at least reported that the US motivation was geopolitical: Germany’s and the EU’s energy dependence on Russia should not be deepened any further.

But there are many more reasons for rejecting the gas project, all of which lead to the conclusion that building and operating the pipeline really is politically irresponsible.

The complexity of the effects, however, calls for a more differentiated assessment: on the one hand from a geopolitical point of view and on the other from the point of view of the so-called energy policy triangle. This triangle of objectives comprises the three decisive energy policy factors: energy security, economic viability, and climate and environmental protection. All these considerations lead to the conclusion that the Nord Stream 2 project is irresponsible, serves the particular interests of the gas industry and plays into the hands of the geopolitical interests of other nations, without sufficiently considering the effects on society as a whole.

Geopolitics: In 2014 Russia occupied Crimea in breach of international law. Outrage in the West was rightly great, also about the war in eastern Ukraine and the shooting down of the Malaysian aircraft MH17. The G7 then decided to reduce energy supplies from Russia – both to reduce the energy dependence of the EU, and thus of Germany, and to hit the Russian economy, which depends heavily on exporting fossil fuels, at its core. The hope was that this would persuade Russia to back down in the Ukraine crisis. The then economy minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) supported this G7 goal for Germany and hoped that, even in times of crisis, no one would use energy as a weapon. (https://www.welt.de/newsticker/…/G7-Staaten-wollen-Putins-Gas-Macht-schwaechen.html (German))

The USA has consistently pursued this line, agreed with Germany. Germany, by contrast, abandoned this policy long ago and is increasing its energy dependence on Russia more and more – not only, but above all, in the gas sector. The grand coalition’s support for building Nord Stream 2 runs diametrically counter to the geopolitical interests of the West. It is not the USA that has left the common G7 line, but Germany. This is precisely what Republicans and Democrats in the USA will not accept, especially as many Eastern European states also oppose the pipeline.

Energy security: Energy security is often given as the reason for building Nord Stream 2. It is a self-contradictory argument to try to achieve energy security by increasing dependence on the very country on which Germany is already highly dependent for energy. Deliberately putting oneself at the mercy of a regime that will have no scruples about using energy as a weapon in a crisis (see the gas cut-offs in Ukraine in 2009) has nothing to do with energy security. Real energy security is achieved through one’s own energy production, which in Germany too could essentially only be created with renewable energy. Germany supplying itself 100% with renewable energy would bring by far the highest energy security. But the federal governments under Mrs Merkel have cut back the once flourishing expansion of renewable energy bit by bit, while on the other hand supporting Germany’s high dependence on imports, especially from Russia.

Then, however, there is often talk of diversifying among gas-supplying countries, which is why Germany has also decided on new subsidies for LNG terminals. But then again, in the Nord Stream 2 debate, the USA is criticised for supposedly only wanting to sell its dirty fracked gas instead of “clean” pipeline gas from Russia. It hardly gets more schizophrenic than that: criticising the USA for wanting to sell fracked gas while at the same time spending millions in taxpayers’ money so that the USA can deliver its fracked gas to Germany at all.

Economic viability: It is often argued that natural gas, as a low-cost energy, will be needed for a long time so that the supposedly high costs of expanding renewable energy do not overburden the economy. What a distortion of the economic facts. Today, the cost of generating electricity in a typical gas-fired power station is around 100 euros per megawatt hour; for wind power it is around 60 and for PV around 30 euros. And the costs of solar and wind will continue to fall significantly in the coming years, which no one can predict for natural gas. Infrastructure costs are also likely to be much lower for renewable energy. The infrastructure for Nord Stream 2 alone costs around 10 billion euros. On top of this come many more billions to distribute the gas further within Germany and the EU. That even gas heating is hardly competitive with renewable energy any more can be seen from the fact that, in the federal government’s recently adopted “climate package”, gas heating is now to be subsidised not only through the market incentive programme but additionally even through tax breaks.

Climate and environmental protection: The federal government’s entire gas policy, with its support for Nord Stream 2 and LNG terminals and the new subsidies for gas heating, is not only an economic absurdity, it is simply a climate policy disaster. Because of the high upstream methane emissions, greenhouse gas emissions rise by 40% when switching from a coal-fired to a gas-fired power station, just as when switching from oil heating to gas heating, if fracked gas is used. When switching to conventional natural gas, the emissions are in each case roughly as harmful as using coal and oil. (http://energywatchgroup.org/…/EWG_Erdgasstudie_2019.pdf (German))

Anyone who believes that pipeline gas from Russia has an advantage over US fracked gas is very much mistaken, because Russia has meanwhile also started fracking, particularly on the Yamal peninsula, where Nord Stream 2 begins. (https://rogtecmagazine.com/)

If you look just a little more closely, the same picture always emerges: Nord Stream 2, together with the whole of German gas policy, is an incredible failure on the part of the federal government. It is a climate policy disaster, heavily subsidised with taxpayers’ money, uneconomic compared with climate-friendly renewable energy, and a geopolitically dangerous wrong path.

It is no longer bearable how this German government tramples on the interests of the common good solely for the sake of the interests of Gazprom, Wintershall, Wingas, Total, OMV, Engie and other corporations – just as it tramples on the energy policy triangle of security of supply, economic viability and environmental friendliness.

Hammelburg, 3 January 2020

Yours, Hans-Josef Fell

fell@hans-josef-fell.de www.hans-josef-fell.de (German) Twitter: @HJFell

You can find the article on the website here: https://hans-josef-fell.de/nord-stream-2… (German) With me, renewable energy comes first!

Wolfgang Löser – who am I

“Austria’s first energy self-sufficient farm” since 2002, with talks and seminars

Address: Untere Dorfstrasse 23, 2004 Streitdorf Austria

Tel: +43 (0)2269 2317 Mobile: +43 (0)680 1113363 Email: w.loeser@aon.at | www.energiebauernhof.com (German)

Link to the book (German): Wolfgang Löser – Der Energierebell (out of print, used copies at Bookbot)

Link to the film: Enerkey – Who holds the key to the energy transition?

Think about it today: wind, solar and photovoltaics with POWER STORAGE, e-mobility and combined heat and power as balancing energy