“P.S. We also don’t eat cats and dogs,” Berlin’s foreign ministry taunts Republican presidential candidate.
Germany’s foreign ministry hit back Wednesday at former U.S. President Donald Trump after he criticized the country’s energy policy at the presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump slammed Germany in his closing remarks, claiming Berlin regretted its decision to transition to renewable energy.
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But the German foreign ministry took umbrage at that, blasting Trump in an unusually blunt statement on social media.
“Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50 percent renewables,” the ministry wrote. “And we are shutting down — not building — coal and nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest.”
I’m not sure I follow? According to this chart the import from Sweden to Germany is almost negligible.
Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Poland all seem to be bigger net importers.
It’s the difference between Germany exporting when prices are low vs importing from us when prices are high. This is a huge problem in Sweden where one of our four electricity regions have almost 10x the price of the others.
Based on the article, it seems more like that’s more of a problem of south Sweden just having a big energy deficit in general, not as a result of imports/exports or the actions of Germany particular.
The way I understand it, it’s more that a new connection just wouldn’t make sense because Germany already has a problem from moving energy from its own offshore wind parks in the north to the south.
I couldn’t find a good article explaining the current energy situation in south Sweden, but looking at ElectrityMaps, I’d guess that part of the problem is that there’s a huge amount of nuclear energy being produced in South Central Sweden, saturating the grid and making the transfer of cheap hydro and wind energy from the northern Zones difficult.
I live here and don’t need to guess :) We would be perfectly fine if Germany (mainly) wasn’t buying energy from us when prices are high on the continent. Due to how the energy market works we then have to pay those prices as well in the region bordering Germany.
Splitting Germany up into energy regions (like Sweden is split up into four) would help - but Germany doesn’t want to.
If you want to keep guessing instead of appreciating my first hand knowledge that’s fine - it’s just a bit tiresome.
https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2024-05-28/darfor-ar-elpriset-mer-an-tio-ganger-hogre-i-lund-an-i-lulea/
