German Finance Minister: We must allow gas to be extracted by fracking
Amid Russia's war against Ukraine and Europe's energy crisis, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner is calling for the fracking ban to be lifted, citing the high prices the country is paying for liquefied natural gas (LNG). Fracking was banned in Germany in 2017.
Speaking to German newspaper Bild am Sonntag , Lindner said Germany should lift its ban on fracking and "then private investors can decide whether mining is cheap".
“Compared to gas from other regions of the world, I expect competitive advantages.” Lindner said.
With his call to allow fracking, Lindner breaks ranks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats and Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens, both coalition partners.
Germany has rejected fracking not only because of environmental concerns. Last month, Scholz noted that fracking would be an expensive and wasteful venture that would take too long to start production. By the time production is feasible, Scholz noted, demand for natural gas will have decreased. In reality, fracking wells are activated in the USA in nine months.
The German chancellor noted that there is no support for the exploitation of natural gas reserves through fracking in the country. “If you get close to it, it vanishes into thin air,” he said in December according to German media. It is widely believed that Germany, due to its dense population, is unsuitable for fracking, while the technological complexities would make it irrelevant to the current energy crisis. In reality this statement has a lot of preconceptions, as in any case, theoretically, the country has an adequate geological structure.
Instead, Germany is building LNG infrastructure at breakneck speed to increase its capacity to accommodate fractured American natural gas.
By the end of 2022, Germany had managed to reduce its dependence on Russian gas to 20% from 55% a year earlier, according to Bloomberg data. The country's first new floating LNG import terminal was opened in mid-December on the North Sea coast, with more terminals planned.
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The article German Finance Minister: We must allow fracking to extract gas comes from Scenari Economics .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/ministro-delle-finanze-tedesco-dobbiamo-permettere-di-estrarre-il-gas-con-il-fracking/ on Mon, 02 Jan 2023 17:24:58 +0000.