Genuinely curious, what alternatives were there in the 2000s? Did dependency on Russian gas doom German manufacturing or did it provide it 20 additional years of artificial life support?

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thyristan 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Nuclear. The Schroeder government initiated the German nuclear phase-out (which was later reverted and re-reverted by Merkel). But rumor has it that the nuclear phase-out wasn't only motivated by the greens being anti-nuke, but also by Schroeder being interested in pushing gas instead.

Btw., after his chancellorship, Schroeder got a post at the Russian state gas supplier Gazprom.

	▲	Tade0 12 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Germany's gas problem wasn't purely about energy, but the availability of feedstock to produce chemicals. Natural gas, being 90% methane, is a valuable source of hydrogen.
	▲	ricardobayes 12 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That's just the energy part of it, German heavy industry needs petroleum-derived products as raw materials.

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mft_ 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

His direct involvement with the Russian oil and gas sector (and, most likely, influence on their behalf) is a lot more recent than just 'the 2000s' [0][1].

[0] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/ex-german-chancellor-sc...

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Rosneft

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Tade0 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Diversifying just a little bit would go a long way.

When Russia invaded Ukraine suddenly several LNG terminals gained regulatory approval, even though previously those projects were in bureaucratic purgatory for years.

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iamflimflam1 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The alternative was to aggressively pursue nuclear power.