ZThe Greens are currently showing contrition about the moral dilemma of their renewable-fossil energy policy. But what does it actually consist of? In the visit of Robert Habeck in Qatar? Where is Germany going to send the national soccer team to become world champions? There have been worse conflicts. Or because coal now has to be burned longer because natural gas, renewable energies and grid expansion just don’t add up? The Ukraine war and the impending gas emergency revealed only a miscalculation. But it has always existed.
Behind the supposed dilemma is actually a confirmation of green perspectives. The price of gas is finally as high as green politicians have always wished for. It now obeys your party congress resolution from 1998 and is the equivalent of five marks. On top of that, the gradual phase-out of all fossil fuels, brought about by ever-increasing CO₂ prices and accompanying bans, no longer requires any special justification.
Where’s the moral dilemma?
This exit may be illusory in the short term, but it always has been; in the medium term, however, the newly proclaimed “declaration of independence” from coal, gas and oil has almost become a reason of state. Renewable energies are no longer just the winners in the fight against climate change, but also the beneficiaries of this development, which was accelerated as a result of the war but was desired anyway.
Where’s the moral dilemma? Isn’t that what we call the reconciliation of morality and realpolitik? Only one politician is currently preparing to throw the federal government in a real dilemma, but the lobbyists for renewable energies don’t want to hear about it. Markus Söder wants to extend the life of at least one nuclear power plant, the last one in Bavaria, Isar 2.
Söder can be accused of only distracting from his own omissions. Resistance to the expansion of wind power is part of it, which certainly has something to do with the fact that the Bavarian state government has put everything on one card, new gas-fired power plants. She had no other choice, because the network expansion from north to south in Germany is progressing far too slowly. The decisive factor, however, is that trust in renewable energies to supply an industrial location is not very pronounced in Munich.
In Berlin you see it very differently, and it won’t bother Söder that everything in Bavaria also depends on it. The prime minister thus has the traffic light coalition where he wants it, as an adversary, as a threat to Bavarian interests. This means that, with the majority of the population behind you, you can campaign very well for the CSU in the coming year. Especially when companies may have to close and Habeck repeatedly repeats that the population must be sensible and save because “every kilowatt hour counts”.
Two cultures collide
If that is the case, then Söder is not acting, but the coalition of cynical calculation. Once again, as in defense policy, two cultures clash. This time it’s not the peace movement, whose descendants have risen to office and dignities and are facing a heap of broken glass. This time, it’s the inheritors of the anti-nuclear movement who have gotten where they always wanted to go, defending the dreams of their youth. Everything is now being done to find arguments against federal approval for a state-politically desired decision.
This extends to populist confusion, gas does not play any role in the power supply (89 terawatt hours of electricity speak a different language), and nuclear power is only marginally important anyway (more than 12 percent of the electricity feed-in speaks a different language here too). The old prescription against nuclear power must not be missing. To stir up fears, Russian bombs are used that could hit Isar 2.
The coalition is therefore switching off a climate-neutral energy source that could at least partially replace what cannot be supplied by other means, not on time or only at a high price. This price also includes endangering entire companies. Is it worth it?
We have coal, oil and gas, even if they will soon no longer be from Russian sources, is all the coalition can say and weep for their moral dilemma. The real dilemma, however, is that Olaf Scholz and Robert Habeck do not have their own majority on compulsory vaccination and defense policy to do the right thing on the country’s cardinal issues. It doesn’t get any better by asking the population for reason that they cannot enforce themselves.
#antinuclear #government #defense #energy