Germans Pass Green EU Da Gas

WSJ seems shocked Germans are about to reverse their overzealous plunge into Green energy & pull off a 5-yr engineering feat by rebooting nation’s natural gas supply in months. Yet recall miraculous post-WWII recovery. Ya!

As the story put it, “Europe is racing to build natural-gas facilities to keep its economy afloat” & especially as winter approaches. Being cut off from most of Russia’s natural gas in the wake of the Ukraine War forced the leaders to face the reality that green energy of today couldn’t replace it any time soon. In March, Germany’s gov’t led the way by asking its energy companies to weigh a seemingly impossible engineering task: “Could a new liquefied natural gas import terminal, which normally takes at least five years to build, be erected [in a key port town] by year’s end?” The job & then hook up to the country’s gas pipeline infrastructure seemed daunting. Toxic soil & environmental regs protecting frogs & bats stood in the way. Don’t laugh. In the EU, such concerns sometimes take years to address. And, a more obviously dangerous roadblock involved the port’s seabed needing to be scanned for unexploded WWII munitions. Then, there were shortages of necessary parts, as well as numerous pipeline issues.

The WSJ goes on to report this project appears to be on track as hoped while other similar efforts across the EU are languishing and energy “rationing” is being planned. But, I never had any doubt of Germany’s ability to pull off engineering miracles like this. Walking across the Rhineland “zu fuss” as a 30-yr-old, I was amazed if not stunned how quickly & thoroughly the German know-how as well as resolve turned their cities that had been reduced to rubble by allied forces back into the idyllic land- and urban-scapes they were known for; that is, before innocence was lost & the ugly side of human nature had reared its head.

Davd Soul