He's probably right. Nothing like rising prices to accelerate the shift to alternatives. That's classic economic theory.
Probably not likely to win him any new fanboys, though.
Accelerating the transition to firewood. Thats it, thats all. Nobody in EU is rushing to install wind and solar. Woodstoves are the hot commodity.
Trudeau isnt sane.
Germany’s use of renewable energy has increased dramatically in recent years, but the country is still heavily dependent on oil, natural gas and coal.
Between 2010 and 2020, the share of wind and solar in Germany’s energy mix increased by 242%, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). At the same time, coal’s decreased by 45%, oil by 10% and natural gas by 2%.
But that does not tell the whole story. Wind and solar supplied just 6%of total energy consumed in Germany in 2020, up from just 1% in 2010. Meanwhile, in 2020 oil and gas supplied 61% of Germany’s total energy demand. That’s up from 55% in 2010 as oil and gas were used to replace coal, which decreased to 16%.
A leading architect of Germany’s “Energiewende” push toward wind and solar over coal, oil, gas and nuclear admits that renewable energy alone is insufficient to maintain reliable supply. The comments by Peter Altmaier, who served as federal minister for economic affairs and energy from 2018 to...
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“The challenge today is that even if you expand the capacities of renewable energies, you still will need classical traditional energies like oil and gas and nuclear,” Altmaier said.
Renewable energy has become increasingly important in Germany’s electrical grid, supplying 49% of power demand in the first half of 2022.
But wind and solar “are not always providing electricity when it is needed,” Altmaier said. Solar panels and turbines produce more power than Germans require in the summer but less than they need in the winter, he said. Natural gas helps balance this volatility.
Germany’s energy mix is much more than its electrical grid, with heavy industry consuming 20% of total energy used in the country – the highest level in Europe, Altmaier said.
As renewable energy grows, more gas will be needed to substitute coal, he said. The question is where that gas will come from now that Russian gas is off the market for Germany? Hmmm….
Russia supplied about 55% of Germany’s natural gas before it invaded Ukraine. But the main pipeline has been shut down since early September. Germany has scrambled to find alternative supply, including signing long-term deals with U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) shippers.
Shame there’s not a viable business case for this according to Canada’s current Gov’t.
Further worsening of the already tense situation cannot be ruled out, with the German government warning companies and private consumers to “expect a considerable increase in gas prices” with winter on the horizon.
Altmaier’s visit to Calgary comes about a month after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz came to Canada seeking a deal on LNG supply.
“As Germany is moving away from Russian energy at warp speed, Canada is our partner of choice,” Scholz said. “We hope that Canadian LNG will play a major role in this.”
But he left without an LNG agreement, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reinforcing that “there has never been a strong business case” for terminals on Canada’s East Coast.
Sorry Olaf.
While Altmaier declined to comment on the issue directly, he said that “Canada in international relationships has never been a problem, but always part of the solution.” And “people in Germany have confidence that the fossil fuel energy in Canada is produced in a more environmentally friendly way than in most other countries around the world.”
He sees Canada’s opportunity to export not only oil and gas but also hydrogen (
To throw a bone to the Greentards so they can save face) as world hydrogen markets
(eventually) develop. Rest at the link.
