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Germany's own goal against German gas

2022-07-31T04:28:19.624Z


Germany's own goal against German gas Created: 07/31/2022, 06:20 Dirk Ippen comments on the gas crisis in Germany. © Sven Hoppe/dpa In Germany, gas production has been shut down in recent years for fear of "fracking". Dirk Ippen encourages the return in the Merkur commentary. Munich – Germany just doesn't seem as happy as Holland. In the province of Groningen, just across the German border, th


Germany's own goal against German gas

Created: 07/31/2022, 06:20

Dirk Ippen comments on the gas crisis in Germany.

© Sven Hoppe/dpa

In Germany, gas production has been shut down in recent years for fear of "fracking".

Dirk Ippen encourages the return in the Merkur commentary.

Munich – Germany just doesn't seem as happy as Holland.

In the province of Groningen, just across the German border, there is a huge underground gas field.

This has been in use since 1959.

But we also have our own gas reserves of an estimated 800 billion cubic meters.

Around the turn of the millennium, 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas were pumped out in Germany without any problems.

That is about a quarter of our annual requirement.

Due to irrational fear of so-called "fracking", this production has now been reduced to five to six billion cubic meters.

Merkel government banned gas production through fracking

German companies have been using the technique of hydraulically tapping gas reserves in shale rock (“fracking”) since the 1950s.

Not a single accident and not a single serious environmental damage has become known.

But when the US oil company Exxon wanted to use this technology on a large northern German gas field in 2008, the Green Party joined environmentalists in protest against this plan.

Russia's propaganda broadcaster “Russia Today” blew the same trumpet.

Fracking causes dangerous radiation, methane emissions and toxic waste.

In addition, the groundwater is polluted and fish kills are caused.

Even President Putin himself said at an international conference that fracking would cause black slime to gush out of the taps in our kitchens instead of clean water.

In 2017 the time had come for this not entirely altruistic propaganda to bear fruit.

Since then, a law passed by the Merkel government has banned gas production through fracking in Germany.

Fracking gas: Germany stumbled into the Putin trap

Since then, the industry has tried in vain to explain that fracking is not only completely harmless, but an absolutely safe method of gas development.

In particular, this technology has nothing to do with the supposedly endangered groundwater.

The gas lies 3,000 meters deep, miles below the water table.


Now, finally, no one wants to listen to Russia's propaganda anymore.

The Greens members of the federal government have also come to realize the energy crisis into which Germany, blind and seduced by Putin's flattery, dreamily stumbled.


Fracking methods can extract domestic gas

But it is still possible to return to sanity.

With today's even better fracking methods, German gas producers could produce twice as much domestic gas as before within 18 to 24 months.

And not just in the short term, but in the long term into the next century.

A nice step would be to supply gas independently of imports.


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Whether the traffic light coalition will manage to lift the 2017 ban on fracking – like the approval of nuclear power – is something of a litmus test of how serious it is about securing Germany’s energy supply and thus our prosperity .

Wind, sun, hydrogen technology or even fusion energy are beacons of hope that should be further developed.

But they in no way secure our supply for years to come.


It makes no sense to phase out nuclear power, coal and gas at the same time, as the Greens and their supporters have been vehemently demanding for years.

The energy transition works differently, with reason instead of dreams.

Dirk Ippen

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-07-31

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