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usrnmtoday at 12:34 PM4 repliesview on HN

Genuinely curious, what alternatives were there in the 2000s? Did dependency on Russian gas doom German manufacturing or did it provide it 20 additional years of artificial life support?


Replies

thyristantoday at 12:37 PM

Nuclear. The Schroeder government initiated the German nuclear phase-out (which was later reverted and re-reverted by Merkel). But rumor has it that the nuclear phase-out wasn't only motivated by the greens being anti-nuke, but also by Schroeder being interested in pushing gas instead.

Btw., after his chancellorship, Schroeder got a post at the Russian state gas supplier Gazprom.

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mft_today at 12:39 PM

His direct involvement with the Russian oil and gas sector (and, most likely, influence on their behalf) is a lot more recent than just 'the 2000s' [0][1].

[0] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/ex-german-chancellor-sc...

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Rosneft

Tade0today at 12:54 PM

Diversifying just a little bit would go a long way.

When Russia invaded Ukraine suddenly several LNG terminals gained regulatory approval, even though previously those projects were in bureaucratic purgatory for years.

iamflimflam1today at 12:54 PM

The alternative was to aggressively pursue nuclear power.