A minister within Germany’s ruling leftist coalition government has demanded fracking be legalised to try and boost gas supplies in the country.
Christian Lindner, Germany’s Federal Finance Minister, is now pushing for fracking to be legalized in the country in what appears to be a desperate attempt to bolster the country’s supply of gas, which has been severely disrupted since the start of the sanctions war with Russia over Ukraine.
Projections have suggested that the country could completely run out of gas by the end of February, with it feared that, with many in the country likely to be unable to adequately heat or power their homes, public unrest and even rioting could become a severe problem in the EU powerhouse.
However, despite the energy crisis, government authorities in the nation have been extremely reticent to roll back their climate change agenda, maintaining a complete ban on the use of fracking technology in service of the country’s carbon goals.
According to a report by Der Spiegel, Lindner has now openly derided this position, saying that his colleagues needed to get over any “ideological” issues they have with the extraction method in order to increase the availability of gas.
“We have to approach the funding quickly,” the minister remarked, before saying that there were multiple locations in the country where the technology could be implemented.
“I am confident that in a few years we will be able to cover a relatively large demand from domestic gas sources,” he continued. “It’s advisable to do that when you look at the developments in the world.”
“It would be rather irresponsible to avoid fracking for ideological reasons,” Lindner argued.
This last line appears to be a rather pointed jab at the finance minister’s own government, which includes the climate alarmist Green Party.
Being mainly made up of leftist politicians from the country’s Social Democratic Pary (SPD) and Green Party, bigwigs within the German government have repeatedly resisted taking steps to reduce the impact of the ongoing energy crisis over fears it will disrupt their green agenda.
For example, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Climate Minister Robert Habeck have both previously attempted to prevent the country’s three remaining nuclear power plants from continuing operation into 2023, despite the power generated by the plants being badly needed in the context of people fearing electricity blackouts.
Things are likely to be no different with fracking, with Der Spiegel reporting Habeck in particular as having vocally opposed the technology in the past, with Deutsche Welle describing him as instead pushing for the country to reduce gas usage.
“We have a clear task: reduce the amount of energy we consume, at all levels,” he said earlier in the year.
However, business leaders have since cast serious doubts over reducing energy usage as a core strategy, with the head of one commerce group saying that the majority of companies were simply unable to reduce usage by anywhere near the 20 per cent required.
As a result, he said that any serious reduction in the use of gas by Germany’s business sector would be a result of companies either downsizing or going out of business entirely.
“Further goals to further reduce gas consumption in ongoing production operations are simply unrealistic,” the head of the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry explained.
“The decline in gas consumption in the economy is now more and more often the result of plant closures or production restrictions,” he continued.
“We must therefore look for other ways to mobilize additional gas or to save gas, for example in electricity generation.”