Germany, like other European countries, has boxed itself in with its response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Now the government is preparing its citizens and businesses for the cold and dark winter that lies ahead. Rather than revise national policies, it is recommending the acquisition of emergency generators to get through the coming blackouts. There’s no word on how people will be able to afford the inflated prices for fuel to run those generators.
Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from T-Online. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:
Federal government advises the purchase of emergency generators
No more gas from Russia? In that case, power outages could occur. Companies should arm themselves, warns the federal government, and makes a recommendation.
As a result of the gas crisis and an impending shortage of resources, the federal government is recommending companies to stock up on emergency power generators. This is reported by Bild on Saturday.
The precautionary proposal was preceded by a reply from State Secretary for Economic Affairs Patrick Graichen (Greens) to Stephan Pilsinger, member of the CSU Bundestag, which stated that the emergency power generators should compensate for possible power failures in the future.
No shutdown sequence
“Being equipped with emergency generators is particularly recommended for operators of critical infrastructure,” explains Graichen in his reply. The reason is that there would be no “shutdown sequence” in the event of a crisis.
“In the event of a shortage of gas or electricity,” the Federal Network Agency takes over the function of the federal load distributor. “They are then responsible for the distribution of gas or electricity in close coordination with the network operators,” the government’s response continues. Graichen therefore recommends that the emergency generators should have a bridging time of 72 hours.
Pilsinger criticized the federal government’s request. “The fact that the government is recommending the purchase of emergency generators is a declaration of bankruptcy,” he told the newspaper.
Businesses and consumers need to brace themselves for tough times
The federal government has been calling on companies and consumers to save energy since the start of the Ukraine war. Given that Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened to stop gas supplies, it cannot be ruled out that shortages and possible energy supply failures may occur in the future. [Are these people actually aware of the hypocrisies they are spouting? They are literally demanding that a country they are sanctioning and having a proxy war with continue delivering “arms and ammunition” to them, so that they can carry on their war against that country.]
The Hamburg Senator for the Environment, Jens Kerstan (Greens), just announced this Saturday that there may be limits on the amounts of hot water available for private households in the event of a gas emergency in the Hanseatic city. “In an acute gas shortage, hot water may only be made available at certain times of the day in an emergency,” Kerstan told the Welt am Sonntag. A “general reduction of the maximum room temperature in the district heating network” may also be considered.
“In Hamburg, for technical reasons alone, it will not be possible in all places to distinguish between commercial and private customers in the event of a gas shortage,” Kerstan continued. “However, if we don’t manage to save enough gas on the part of the large companies, we may face delivery restrictions that would then affect individual parts of the city.”
Afterword from the translator:
Germany, a country with the most expensive electricity network and the highest electricity prices in the whole world, can also afford the world’s most incompetent politicians that dollars can buy…
Generators, a brilliant idea, right? They shut down a power plant and are now decentralizing it. Will a company that is critical of the government be able to obtain diesel or petrol for the emergency generator? And private households? They can’t even afford to travel to work because of the fuel prices.
Or should the emergency generator run on solar cells, or wind power?
Phew — at least the authors of children’s books have another new bedtime story for Germans. Now they can sleep peacefully again. It will be interesting to watch…
Here in South Africa we’re battling with rolling blackouts, or what they call “load-shedding”, because of insatiable greed, combined with utter incompetence in more ways than one, since 2006. Very few people can afford nowadays to buy or even run a generator. My 8kW diesel generator is standing idle now, because I cannot afford US$3 per hour to keep the lights on any longer. The wife of a friend had to quit her job recently, because the costs of travel — 100km a day — ate up most of her meagre salary as a nurse.
Germans, world: just carry on sleeping about what is being done to you, because in the end, if you should wake up — You WILL own nothing, and you WILL be HAPPY… with the scraps from their table (or crickets) until it’s time for you to enter the communal shower. Or in this case, take the next injection.
President Trump so needed to have ended our treaty connections with NATO. This western Europe is being controlled by complete idiots, and the people of Europe need to end them.
+1
On the other hand – it’s good that the Germans are waking up to the fact that we may be approaching energy dead end and cannot continue on the current course anymore. Germany has a good collective strength to put up with technical problems. The most obvious and the cheapest solution is – of course – coal. There is coal in central EU…
On the Czech front, Czechs still pay significantly more for gas and electricity than any neighboring country, though the Czech Republic is a pure electricity exporter. If the Russians cut the gas, Czech Republic may soon after that cut all electricity exports, and Germany will be the one at the end of the cable. The French don’t seem to be exporting much of electricity this winter too. It’s just my guess as to where things may go, if EU loses access to Russian gas.
When you are in Der Große Reset … live like a Pakistani.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/173568/power-problems-generators-add-to-air-and-noise-pollution
So, Germans are told to suffer and to pay so that Ukraine could be ruled by a gang of corrupt oligarchs brought to power and financially supported by the US and its NATO and EU allies on condition that this gang would pursue anti-Russian policies and promote US interests using an ultranationalist and unashamedly racist ideology as a tool to harm Russia.
But what do ordinary Germans gain from all that rabid Russia bashing?
The energy problems in Europe are largely the fault of the politicians who, of course, will experience no hardship at all.
I don’t understand the problem at all.
If you had a winter like ours – minus 30 degrees Celsius, then yes. I think Putin will get rid of us in this way – those who are not killed by his Chechens and Muslim migrants will be frozen in winter.
The problem is the cities in Europe are heated by Russian gas and there is no easy way out of it.
The funny thing is – places that experience extreme weather are usually better prepared for emergencies than the lukewarm places like European cities.
This shows up even in small things. For example, all drivers of our city on certain calendar dates change the tires on their cars to winter ones. Because they know that tomorrow it may suddenly start to snow.
And so we have fewer accidents.
Shouldn’t essential services have emergency generators anyway? I’m fairly sure British hospitals do.
Telecom does as well, though 90% of the network will go down in 2 hours, and we shut down everything except for GSM in emergency situation (LTE and 5G are huge energy eaters) – the core network is backed up by diesel generators.
If enough Europeans take their holidays outside of Europe during winter that will reduce fuel demand. Of course that sounds silly because of the amount of fuel used to cook somewhere else. So perhaps they can take a queue from the migrants as they travel Africa and the middle east. All kidding aside, is the government paying for any of the energy costs for migrants. I assume they are when you see hotels used for migrant stays. Has anyone budgeted for that increased cost. That could be a trigger, migrants in heated hotels paid for by the people who can afford there own heat anymore.
It’s not silly at all. The fuel we need for winter is for heating, and when you add up the costs – I already know two people who bought houses – one in Sicily and the other guy bought a house on Canary Islands. The houses are worth one fifth of what it costs to buy a house here, in Central Europe, so as long as the airlines are flying, it really does save money to spend winter in a warm place.
Why not remain on Canary Islands for good? Spain is as crazy as Germany, but at least you won’t have to worry about the heating.
Australia or New Zealand would be an even better choice.
I do not understand it!
You should look before you jump.
We Germans were under economic interdiction in both World Wars and learned NOTHING!
We should have have a food supply for all germans for at least 10 years! And thats the absolute minimum!
The same for energy.
We do something (make Russia angry) and then we are surprised about the results.
For Christs sake: We invented the wargame so that we may have an idea what may happen in a war before we actually go to war.
(And before anybody says a game is not reality: The Japanese wargamed Midway. And the original game – before an umpire showed bias – was nearly the same as the real battle of Midway.)
There are not only wargames about battles but also about economy.
Remember the old SPI game “After the Holocaust”? (It is about the nuclear holocaust!)
I’d say, Germany was ok as long as the post war generation ruled. Now it’s a new generation that has never experienced anything even close to the interwar period or even the war.
And I wouldn’t be so harsh on “you” Germans. Green deal was and is a trap. Situation is the same in countries everywhere, it’s almost as if the plan was to make national governments so incompetent as to provoke the populations to get rid of them. Problem, reaction, solution. The reaction will be to “get the strong man who will make things right!”
So my good German friends, would you mind explaining to me why all those coal and nuke plants that they shut down are now tooling up to be turned on again? Yes, that is correct, the folks that own these plants haven’t dismantled or shut them down, they are refurbished and in running order just waiting to be turned on, they have stock piles of coal for the coal plants that will last all winter and the nuke plants have now been refueled. interesting no?