EU Energy Crisis to worsen ...

Only 15%??? That’s not that much.

That’s 15% of electrical generation. Natural gas makes up 25% of total German energy consumption. For a quick comparison, the drop in global energy consumption during the Great Depression was about half that.
https://pages.uoregon.edu/stanm/phys162w2006%20/phys162s2003….

DB2

Natural gas generates 15% of German electricity. I would not call that massively switched to natural gas.

ATM

24% coal, 12% nuclear, 12% natural gas, Germany has counted on affordable, abundant supplies of natural gas from Russia as a replacement for coal completely moving away from all coal fired plants by 2030. In 2022, 10% of Coal Fired plants are being converted to natural gas. As I pointed out, the remaining nuclear plants are scheduled to close at the end of 2022.
Do the Math

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24% coal, 12% nuclear, 12% natural gas, Germany has counted on affordable, abundant supplies of natural gas from Russia as a replacement for coal completely moving away from all coal fired plants by 2030. In 2022, 10% of Coal Fired plants are being converted to natural gas. As I pointed out, the remaining nuclear plants are scheduled to close at the end of 2022.
Do the Math

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Here is the math:

In 2021: 28% coal/lignite, 12% nuclear, 15% natural gas, 41% renewables, 4% others for electrical power generation.

Germany will burn more coal/lignite/biomass to make up for lost Russian natural gas for power generation and shutdown of nuclear power. Germany will not convert their coal fired plants natural gas because it is not easy to convert to natural gas. German newest natural gas plants are combined cycle plants.

Now lets look at German TOTAL energy consumption in 2021: 32% oil, 18% coal/lignite, 6% nuclear, 27% natural gas, and 16% renewables. As you can see nuclear is only a small part of German TOTAL energy consumption.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/p…

Of course we know that Germans will not freeze this winter. If they can not import enough natural gas from the non-Russian sources for heat, then they know how to make syngas.

Jaak

That’s 15% of electrical generation. Natural gas makes up 25% of total German energy consumption. For a quick comparison, the drop in global energy consumption during the Great Depression was about half that.

To some extent, energy generation source are fungible (for example use hydro, solar, nuclear, etc instead of NG to generate electricity*). So if they generate electricity using something other than natural gas, all that natural gas saved can be used for things that require natural gas (like gas heating, etc).

  • And perhaps suffer some additional outages due to the lack of flexibility regarding speed of bringing up a source, or variation of weather.
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Germany will burn more coal/lignite/biomass to make up for lost Russian natural gas for power generation and shutdown of nuclear power.

Well, glad you’ve got it under control. So, there’s no problem, good to know.

As you can see nuclear is only a small part of German TOTAL energy consumption.

Which was my entire point. Before 2011 Germany was producing more than 50% of its electricity due to nuclear power. As is the current situation with France, and for the same reason that France is not dependent on Russian oil & natural gas.
This is why Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck warned last week — increasing worries that the country could be forced into a recession if Germany sould face a complete shutoff of Russian gas by the middle of July.

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Before 2011 Germany was producing more than 50% of its electricity due to nuclear power. As is the current situation with France, and for the same reason that France is not dependent on Russian oil & natural gas.
This is why Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck warned last week — increasing worries that the country could be forced into a recession if Germany sould face a complete shutoff of Russian gas by the middle of July.

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Germany never produced more than 50% of its electricity by nuclear power. The peak was around 25% to 30% for a few years.

France uses lots of oil and gas.

Oil: In 2020, Germany leads EU with a 22.5% share of the total EU oil consumption, followed by France (15.6%), Italy (9.8%) and Spain (9.7%).

Gas: In 2021, Germany, Italy and France had the highest EU demand for natural gas with 3,633,109 terajoules, 2,899,704 terajoules and 1,718,451 terajoules respectively.

Who supplies France with oil & natural gas?

Jaak