An EIR intelligence team in Wiesbaden, Germany is currently drafting a paper to be presented at a coming event in Munich, with proposals on how to stop the deindustrialization of Germany. A key chapter is dedicated to energy.
High energy costs are the main factor driving German producers out of the market. While the decisive blow was delivered by decoupling from cheap Russian gas, the German energy policy was already on a self-destructive course. Through its exit from nuclear power and from fossil sources under so-called “decarbonization,” Germany had reduced its stable, non-intermittent energy base-load, leading to a situation in which so-called renewables produced either a scarcity or an excess of power, forcing Germany to import or to export—in both cases at significant cost!—and exposing it to a collapse of the network. By steadily increasing wind and solar power capacities, Germany has paradoxically had to increase its stand-by capacity, ready to be connected to the grid in case of a lull (the famous Dunkelflaute). Keeping a base-load reserve on stand-by is expensive, and it is more convenient to import power from Germany’s neighbors, thereby increasing the economic loss of the base-load capacity. When the renewable sources produce in excess of German demand, Germany begs its neighbors to take that surplus, and pays them to do so! In the opposite situation, when Germany needs to increase imports, much of the imported energy comes from nuclear plants.
The minimum base load has not increased much from ten years ago (an average of 45 GW vs. 35-40 GW), but its composition has shifted substantially. Ten years ago, with wind/solar covering only a modest share of the total, the residual load minimum was close to the base load itself (~35–40 GW)—conventional coal and nuclear plants ran nearly flat-out to cover it.
Today, thanks to massive solar and wind expansion, the residual load can fall to near zero or even go negative on sunny, windy days. In early January 2024, for example, the base load was around 36 GW while the residual load minimum was only about 1 GW.
Generation from dispatchable, always-available sources (coal, gas, nuclear, biomass, hydro), was 436 TWh in 2015, and collapsed to 249 TWh in 2025.
A peer-reviewed study by Jan Emblemsvag from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) shows that, through combined investments and subsidies, Germany has spent almost 700 billion Euros in its energy transition, to achieve a 25% cut in emissions. Had thd country kept nuclear power and invested half that money in additional nuclear capacity, it would have achieved a 73% cut in emissions.
Prior to the sabotage of Nord Stream, though, energy prices were kept down through cheap Russian gas. After the “decoupling,” Germany was forced to replace Russian gas with American LNG, which costs five times more.
The combination of volatile and expensive energy sources, along with Green taxation (CO2 Certificates is a tax in favor of German competitors) is killing Germany as an industrial nation. An urgent, radical shift is demanded, with two basic steps: 1) a large program for nuclear power; and 2) a re-activation of Russian gas pipelines.
A comparison of the German energy policy with its neighbor France shows the contrast. France still has 70% of its electricity (ca. 373 TWh in 2025) produced by nuclear plants. Although France is not immune to Green ideology and has expanded its intermittent sources, it has improved the capacity of the nuclear base load to modulate production. Nuclear modulation was ca. 33 Twh in 2024-2025, more than double what it was in 2019, making it today about 9% of the total nuclear production.
France is importing no energy—it exports at record levels: ca. 92-3 TWh in 2025.
