Germany needs to understand that once you shut down large companies you will loose them for a long time as other companies from other countries will step in with long term contracts.
I think the analysis is undercomplex. However, I can only talk about the chemical industry. 1.) Gas is used as RAW MATERIAL (gas ammonia fertilizer) as well as ENERGY source for running chemical processes. You should distiguish between the two. 2.) Gas as energy source can in almost all cases NOT be replaced by any other energy source, because the process design requires gas (used in chemical companies’ owned power plants to produce steam) 3.) Looking at chemical sites - due to their “Verbund”structure (by-products of one process are used as raw materials for another one [in order to avoid any hazardous waste]) it is impossible, to switch on/off whatever plant within this structure one wants to shut down. (Not even considering the general difficulties of starting up/shutting down any large scale chemical plant with all the off-spec materials etc.) 4.) The chemical industry is at the beginning/feeding into almost ALL value chains of the country. So, shutting down major parts of the industry would force a lot of other industries AND services to shut down/reducing their services as well , eg agriculture [fertilizer, crop protection] , food [additives, disinfectants], construction [additives, paints, insulation materials], cosmetics, health care [disinfectants, sealings, various materials for surgery/treatment], travel [fuel additives], … 5.) If Russian gas won’t be used for the production of chemicals (in Germany) any longer, there are not sufficient global spare capacities to produce the required amount for substituting these volumes. AND due to the pipelines from Russia to Germany - no other producer (apart from Russia) could use this gas for producing chemicals. Given a somewhat balanced global supply/demand-situation, substitution will never be possible for all the affected amounts. (building additional capacities takes years, not months/weeks) PS I know about the various calculations of the German economic experts. But, as you said in the beginning, REAL economies are way more complex. Following academic recommendations sometimes ends in disaster: www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-schweinemord-von-1915-als-die-wissenschaft-eine-100.html (in German)
Same thing in Energy sector people keep saying "Go Green, Solar, Wind, Hydro" they don't understand how energy is created and now nothing about peak and on demand energy that is needed to meet large commercial industries
great work!
Germany needs to understand that once you shut down large companies you will loose them for a long time as other companies from other countries will step in with long term contracts.
I think the analysis is undercomplex. However, I can only talk about the chemical industry.
1.) Gas is used as RAW MATERIAL (gas ammonia fertilizer) as well as ENERGY source for running chemical processes. You should distiguish between the two.
2.) Gas as energy source can in almost all cases NOT be replaced by any other energy source, because the process design requires gas (used in chemical companies’ owned power plants to produce steam)
3.) Looking at chemical sites - due to their “Verbund”structure (by-products of one process are used as raw materials for another one [in order to avoid any hazardous waste]) it is impossible, to switch on/off whatever plant within this structure one wants to shut down. (Not even considering the general difficulties of starting up/shutting down any large scale chemical plant with all the off-spec materials etc.)
4.) The chemical industry is at the beginning/feeding into almost ALL value chains of the country. So, shutting down major parts of the industry would force a lot of other industries AND services to shut down/reducing their services as well , eg
agriculture [fertilizer, crop protection] , food [additives, disinfectants], construction [additives, paints, insulation materials], cosmetics, health care [disinfectants, sealings, various materials for surgery/treatment], travel [fuel additives], …
5.) If Russian gas won’t be used for the production of chemicals (in Germany) any longer, there are not sufficient global spare capacities to produce the required amount for substituting these volumes. AND due to the pipelines from Russia to Germany - no other producer (apart from Russia) could use this gas for producing chemicals. Given a somewhat balanced global supply/demand-situation, substitution will never be possible for all the affected amounts. (building additional capacities takes years, not months/weeks)
PS I know about the various calculations of the German economic experts. But, as you said in the beginning, REAL economies are way more complex. Following academic recommendations sometimes ends in disaster: www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-schweinemord-von-1915-als-die-wissenschaft-eine-100.html (in German)
Same thing in Energy sector people keep saying "Go Green, Solar, Wind, Hydro" they don't understand how energy is created and now nothing about peak and on demand energy that is needed to meet large commercial industries