Env min: USA "harms itself" with new energy policy / RWE bets on coal

For a long time, Germany's insistence on the energy transition raised eyebrows, Nils-Viktor Sorge writes in an opinion piece for manager magazine Online. Six years on from the Fukushima disaster, it's the USA that increasingly looks like the odd man out, Sorge argues, as Donald Trump embarks on an emotionally driven "energy policy killing spree". If Trump “gets away with it,” the biggest loser - besides the climate - will be the US itself, Sorge writes. Trump’s “abstruse pro-coal campaign slogans” will impede innovative US companies and help their counterparts in China, which is actively pushing to modernise its energy system.

Read the opinion piece in German here.

Solarworld still is Germany’s largest producer of PV and other solar installations, but its outlook is becoming more and more grim, Hannes Koch writes in Hamburger Abendblatt. Last week, the company announced a loss “equalling half of our capital stock.” Solarworld CEO Frank Asbeck said “dumping” by Chinese PV exporters was responsible for the company’s woes, but curtailing of Germany’s renewables support had also been a heavy blow for Solarworld, Koch adds. The company has already made drastic job cuts, reorganised production, and got a haircut on its debt to stay in business. But a 700-million euro compensation claim from the US for failing to comply with a supply contract looms large, Koch says.

Read the article in German here.

Six years after Germany resumed plans for a quick nuclear exit, there is a still question over whether funds put aside by nuclear plant operators for a final nuclear waste repository will be sufficient, Bernd Freytag writes in an opinion piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Freytag describes the uncertainty as demonstrating “the whole madness of [German] energy policy.” How the utilities will fare under the liability is clear from a glance at EnBW’s balance sheet, however. With 1.8 billion euros in losses, the state and municipalities who own the company will have to waive their dividend, employees part of their salary and EnBW part of its capital stock, Freytag writes. 

For background, see the CLEW dossier Utilities and the energy transition.

Frank Appel, director of Germany’s postal service Deutsche Post AG, says the country is unlikely to achieve its aim of shifting a considerable share of its freight transports from road to railroad to reduce emissions, Alfons Frese writes for Der Tagesspiegel. Germany’s railway system is “not flexible enough” for distances below 500 kilometres, while for longer distances there were “not enough lines,” Frese writes. Expanding the railway network is unlikely to be an option since citizens would resist it, Appel added. According to Deutsche Post's director, the CO2 problem will nevertheless “be solved in the coming decades,” but mainly through the use of e-cars and diesel cars with tighter emissions controls, Frese writes.

See the CLEW dossier The energy transition and Germany’s transport sector for background.