I created this video over the past month before the Nord Stream pipeline came under attack via sabotage. Obviously, this is another massive development in this ongoing story, and it is all far from being over. That being said, if you want to view my ongoing coverage of this greater European conflict and Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, you can watch the first 35-minute long coverage of the war that I produced here on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/reallifelore-modern-conflicts-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-phase-1 To my European, Ukrainian and German friends and viewers; stay safe, healthy, and vigilant this winter. I sincerely wish you all the best to get through this and I only wish I could do more to help.

Germany should have listened to its neighbours when they were trying to convince them to be more independent from Russia, especially Poland and the baltic states. Writing this as a German.

I understand why people were scared by Fukushima, and it’s reasonable, but modern nuclear reactor designs are the safest they’ve ever been, especially when built in areas that are relatively safe from natural disasters. I wish more people would give nuclear consideration at least

There's a pretty good quote from a former swedish primeminister, Göran Persson, back in 2006 or 2007. When asked why he was skeptical to Nordstream he said something akin to "because it is russian, and it contains gas".

One thing to note is, that the overdependence on Russia was the intentional attempt at pursuing good relations through trade. Like after WW2 when the EU formed to make Europeans' economies so interdependent, that it would be too costly for everyone to have wars. It was thought, that Russia wouldn't be stupid enough to tank their economy and kill their only exports by, for example, invading Ukraine. They would never be that crazy.

Real life lore is gonna need a entire playlist just for catastrophic gas problems

I think Germany tying itself to Russian gas will be seen as one of the biggest strategic blunders in history.

Well German here from 10 months later. This Video describes the fear that many Germans had before the winter pretty good. And yes the temporary increase in cost was a huge burden for German households. But luckily the winter was pretty mild and you forgot to mention one vital fact. Germany doesn't rlly have a lot of debts compared to other countries in Europe so while we try to avoid this we can always throw money at any problem if need be. Which is exactly what we did to fill the gas reserves. Also the LNG Terminals are more or less on schedule, one is in operation and ppl are starting to doubt if we'll even need all 5. Nuclear is completely faced out by now, the effect of that on the energy market was despite the worst fears more or less non existent. Also the Government increased its effort to build more wind and solar and so far 2023 is the best year we've ever had regarding renewable energy production. The only effect that still sticks is that we're more reliant on our good ol coal than we planned to be, but from the looks of things that will be but a temporary setback. So yeah much was feared, surprisingly little happened.

Alternative title: "How Germany shot itself in the foot"

I love how poland built their LNG port literally as far away from russia as possible... lol.

It’s a shame the people who make these decisions largely avoid their consequences, but still reap their benefits

I find it fascinating that this one video is more valuable for understanding the current conflict with Russia than the entire coverage of the topic in German TV for the last couple of months.

German here, gotta applaud the accuracy and especially those details like the BER disaster leading to low faith in German construction projects. You might have added that Germany has some minor gas reserves that could be accessed by fracking. There's an ongoing discussion in the Northern states about if and how to access those.

I distinctly remember a minor fight I had with a friend a few years back. He's American, I'm German. I believe it was shortly after the annexation of Crimea. I must have been in my mid-teens at the time. In any case, he was pushing for a position that takes more direct opposition against Russia. "First Ukraine, then Poland and then we'll have to bail your asses out." or something along those lines. I scoffed at him "Conventional warfare is dead. It would be uneconomical for the Russia, wouldn't be worth it. They only managed to pull Crimea because they could stage it as a peaceful take-over of territory that has historical ties. There's no way for them to pull a move like that anywhere else." or something along those lines was my reply. I felt quite smug. Mentally putting away his concerns as "Those crazy Americans still living in the Cold War." Haven't talked to him in years. In fact, I don't think I have any remaining routes through which I could contact him. But sitting in this here chair, in Germany, in the year of our Lord 2022, I feel very, very foolish and I cringe at the conceit I had shown my friend during that conversation. Simply because I couldn't fathom that my comfy life could ever be different. After all, "Its 20XX and I live in Western Europe, what's the worst that could happen?"

Closing their nuclear power plant and replacing them with coal and gaz was an abysmal decision...

21:40 You say that german government has received a lot of pushback against Nord Stream, but the picture shows a PRO Nord Stream demo xD the banner "Gas aufdrehen" literall means that they should start operating the pipeline

As a german I love how accurate this video is to a point of explaining exactly how the citizens reacted to certain decisions our government did. I even learned why some decisions were made. I would love an update on this topic as the video is a few months old already. But whoever researched this, did such a great job!

Trump said a lot of junk but that clip, where even he sees the problem, shows how naive Germany was.

A geographically stable country ditching the entirety of nuclear power because a country sitting on five major tectonic plates suffered a terrible earthquake and subsequent tsunami which damaged a power plant is pretty short-sighted.

Is this channel just one guy's work? The production value is insane

You have no idea how upset I was when I first heard that Germany was shutting down its nuclear power plants, and now, hearing about them having a major energy crisis, I just want to cry.

Germany's biggest mistake in my opinion was shutting down its nuclear power plants. Germany is not in an earthquake rich environment and it could have been able to take countermeasures. it was a step back and one that now bears consequences

And another info from a German: We weren't naive or didn't know about this risk. It was actively ignored and downplayed. They didn't want to bite the feeding hand. We dont call it corruption, we call it lobbyism. And we don't really have anyone left thats not in some lobby or the other. Its not illegal here.

Five month later it turns out it's fine. No catastrophe, no energy crisis. Things are more expensive, but that was to be expected if Russia blows up the world trade system by going rogue. But we can afford it. There's a lot of criticism of Germany for its energy policies, but the only thing that really didn't work was that it failed to prevent the war in Ukraine. Everything else turned out to be alright or manageble. The dependency to russian gas was an intentional interdependency and it worked quite well. It was not in our interest to mess with Russia and it wasn't in Russias interest to mess with so. Therefore energy supply remained remarkebly stable and yes, also cheap. And both sides left each other (mostly) alone and in peace. Where it failed was to factor in third countries, Ukraine in this case. The system didn't protect them and when Russia made the decision to attack them, *we* were the ones who wanted to break out of the interdependence with Russia. They would have just kept on trading and supplying us with energy, and they still did for months even though the relationship aready had deteriorated to a full blown ecenomic war. I'd call that quite stable (but not unbreakable). But as we can see now, it's not in our immediate intereset to cancel this relationship, but if we really want to, we can. It's just expensive. So it's not like we ruined ourselves. We upheld a wealth creating system for decades (also peace creating, at least between Russia and Germany) and now it broke, but we can afford to quit it. Other problems mentioned in this video are also overblown. Electricity for example isn't a big issue and therefor quitting Nuclear power isn't either. In fact, we still mostly exporting power (quite a lot to France, who face more problems with Nuclear power than we do...). And renewable energies *can* supply our electricity. We're not *that* cloudy and wind-still. It just needs to be built up and that's what's happening (too slowly...). The missing natural gas is mostly a problem for our industry, but this problem was solved by throwing money at it. A recession was therefore avoided, let alone a catastrophic recession.

This account really loves the word “catastrophic”

Wow I never thought I would say this. But the way Donald Trump summarised it was totally on point. He was absolutely right and very straightforward. How can you stand together if you are paying billion of dollars to someone you want protection against lol.

25:50 he makes a pretty fair point

could you possibly provide links or origin of your facts for citing purposes? Great videos, but I was doing something for class and not sure if this video alone is good enough for proper citation.

I remember studying this very topic when I used to study Geopolitics, it always was a ticking timebomb the warning signs were there from early the late 2000s with the issues in Georgia then the annexation of Crimea in 2014 If you fail to prepare then you prepare to fail

Im from Germany and can say this is the first crises that you notice in you’re daily life. Everything cost around 20% more than before February. It’s not critical but it’s very hard especially for poor people…

I love all the nuances explained and how complicated world politics really is.

Your vids are so interesting, thank you for making and sharing them :)

Germany didn't need to get rid of nuclear in the first place. It's one of the safest and most power efficient sources of power and the problems of the geography of Japan are not the same as Germany. There is a nuclear plant within an hour drive of my house and I feel as safe as can be because I know the workers there know what they are doing and that it is safe from natural disasters.

FYI for Americans: In Germany, gasoline is priced in Euro cents per liter. Converting both the units of measurement (1 gallon = 3.785411784 liters) and money (1 EUR = 0.980352 USD), the €2.109/L price for the lowest grade of gasoline shown on the sign at 6:27 works out to $7.83/gal.

Update 2023: literally nothing happened to us germans. We currently have the warmest winter in history. So warm we can keep the windows open for hours

Thanks for great content

Most seem to forget that as reallifelore said, germany is a very manufacturing heavy country, which made the insanely low gas prices of Russia very appealing. Company's like BASF are providing thousands of very well paid and save jobs, and that's probably to a big part thanks to the low gas prices they had to pay over the last decades

Long story short: The EU kept shooting themselves in the foot, and were surprised when they slipped on the pool of blood.

Update: We have the middle of December, temperatures have fallen below zero. The people are chilled (not literally tho) despite the difficulties. I don't know anybody who would go to the negotiating table. Not now, not in the next 3 months. After that the Winter is over.

Great video!

Germany put itself into this position with years to fix it and instead spent their efforts on N2 instead of backing away from russia

I'm surprised you didn't mention the oil reserves found in Ukraine that also happens to be the same places Russia is currently occupying. I learnt it on this channel haha

Wow this is an amazingly great breakdown

There's news that Liz Truzz Blinken tweeted "It's done!" a minute after the blast of north stream. GB and US should pay for it!

I knew how bad the energy crisis in Germany is but this video helped me UNDERSTAND how bad it really is.

Future historians will have a real chuckle over how poetic this all is.

I found my best KZfaq channel ever. I watch and leave a like on every single video you upload.

One thing that's wild and sad to me about all this is knowing how close to home this hits for a lot of people here in the states too. Obviously the closer you are the more it impacts and I truly wish the best for everyone there. I used to work at this park doing kayaks and I had a lot of kids come and hang out with me and would offer to clean boats for free rides, there was this one family and kid Natikita who we would talk and I can't remember what was said exactly but I had mentioned or asked if he was Russian, this kid was always so nice and happy, he instantly got annoyed and was like "NO! NO, NO I AM NOT A RUSSIAN! THEY ARE BAD EVIL PEOPLE" then he kind of told me a little bit about what was going on and his family moving here. No excuse but I'm just some American in Florida I had no idea about any of that stuff going on, this was a couple years back and I haven't seen him since to talk to him about any of this but I really wish his family and others that were able to make it here the best and safety.

Reminds me when Trump said in a speech that Germany is making a big mistake for being too reliant on Russia. The audience just laughed him off. Guess nobody laughing now. Germany pretty much reap what they sow.

I remember when Trump addressed this at the UN and the German delegation just laughed hysterically

After viewing all US major competitors' #1 weakness series, looking forward to your episodes on the US & Mideast soon.

Russia didn’t face economic hardship from ending sales to Germany, they found plenty of other eager customers primarily in Asia.

Germany: "We need more green energy!" Also Germany: *Shuts off nuclear power plants*

The picture used at 21:40 is actually from a demonstration to open Nord Stream 2 after the German Government refused to license it when the war started.

Winter nearly over and we (germans) didn't struggle at all, lol.

"Europe outside of the Siberian peninsula isnt very sunny" Italy , Greece , Bulgaria , Southern France : "Are we a joke to you ?"

"Catastrophic" The favorite word of real life lore

The most messed up part when watching this video is that twice I was served a "zero emissions" ad by Uniper, a German energy company that is or was involved heavily with the Russian gas business and has also opened new coal power plants.

Stopping nuclear power was so stupid it’s honestly cringeworthy

Well, this didn't age well… Germans are extremely hesitant to adopt change when they don't need to. And while we love to mock Americans for their inefficient use of energy, we often aren't much better. So while almost every heating system in German homes had options for more efficiency, those were rarely used. But with the prices skyrocketing and the risk is a energy crisis, this quickly changed - and so for this winter the German gas usage has dropped by over 20%. Not by freezing, just by things like "you don't need 22°C in an unused room" or completely closing those famous German windows. And for 2023 almost everybody I know, want's to do some major changes to reduce their energy consumption (for heating, electricity and transportation). This has the interesting effect of some people saving more than the (massive) price hike… Yes, the prices have skyrocketed. For natural gas new contracts would have been 4 or 5 times higher than before in fall and electricity had doubled in extreme cases. But we now have a price limit (which still is +100% for natural gas and +50% for electricity), but the market prices are starting to level below this.

very informative.

I find it hilarious that basically all of the ex-soviet nations knew to not trust Russia and Putin at all yet a lot of people in the West chose to completely ignore it. Makes those 'shirtless Putin riding a bear' memes/jokes hit differently.

If only someone would have told them it’s a bad idea to depend almost entirely on Russia for fuel…

Wait if Russia can and did cut off supply through the pipeline (they mostly invested in build) why would they blow it up? They stand to lose more in initial investment and in eventual repairs.

VERY VERY WELL DONE!!! THANK YOU!!

Germany is like the girl that stills talks and hangs out with the guy that stalks/threats/hit her because "he is a good person and he will change" and not only ignores all that people that say they can do better and they are being manipulated but actually defends the guy that mistreat them

I cannot tell you how glad I am to watch this channel over and over again because the way you make your videos is just so informative, especially as a german there seems to be no channel quite like this on youtube in german language that can explain things as good as you!

I were''t exactly impressed with energy policy in my country, but seeing this I'm think I need to give them more credit I guess.

Contrary to what you said, Germany does has some gas reserves themselves, but they aren't exploiting them due to environmental concerns I believe

I work in energy policy and I found this very educating. Well done.

Yeah my energy bill right now is going from €90-100 per month with minimal gas usage (220m³ a year), to €350-400 a month...In the Netherlands...

Calling petrol "gas" gets confusing here

Wow great video

Being from Groningen I can safely say the small continuous earthquakes has caused millions and millions of damage. For example my parents house had multiple decent cracks in the walls. The cracks were investigated and then paid for the repairs by the government, I think my parents got around 9000 euros for the damage and we live far from the epicentre

I just can't get my head around how you can let this happen, this wasn't one or two mistakes this was a consistent pattern of failures that led us to where we are today, people who run the country are supposed to protect from things like this, not make it worse time and time again. Theres has to be corruption at play here with businesses getting in the ear of politicians telling them how much they like cheap gas and how little they care about the consequences.

It’s been such a stupid decision to phase out nuclear energy.. I know it’s not perfect, but Germany doesn’t have earthquakes nor does it have tsunamis. I think nuclear energy is the best short term solution for our energy crisis whilst we keep trying to make renewable energy 100% waterproof

german here. yeah, we fucked this up, but our country has learned from it's mistakes before and we will get through this crisis. i still believe becoming emission-free is possible and even necessary now. we will find a way with the help of our friends in europe and the world. we just need to keep our democracy healthy and our minds focussed.

Do you remember when the US warned Germany through multiple administrations that becoming dependent on Russian natural gas and oil would be a massive liability? Pepperidge Farm remembers...

11:25 Denmark has stakes in the gas fields in the North Sea as well. We own the Tyra field, which is currently not in operation due to reconstruction and maintenance (re-opens in 2023-2024) and is administrated by Maersk.

I my list this video is my NUMBER 1 favorite.I love how to simplify these tricky topics. love you brother 🥰🥰

From the numbers you gave it doesn't sound like they are heavily dependent on Russia for energy, it's substantial yes, but it doesn't sound like it'll cripple their infrastructure. Not to mention Germany's investment in renewable energy.

34:08 I work like 500 metres away from this gas station, this is such a random place to show in a video, it's amazing... it's the gas station on Hohenzollerndamm at the intersection with Konstanzer Straße in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, the drone is from from kind of southwest to kind of north east.

The good thing is that Germany has been bolstering its gas storage since the war started. They had less than 20% of reserves when the war started, now they have almost 90% of their available storage reserve is full. Which should help with the winter. They have also delayed switching off to nuclear power plants that were supposed to be decommissioned this year to make sure they have what they need. Plus, they are doing a massive drive within the country to insolate homes and make them more energy efficient

1 year after. As a german i can say there was never a gas or energy problem before or after the winter

Things that are wrong/missing: - German nuclear plants are old and we're about to be shut down anyway - any nuclear power plant is a risk in times of war, see the one in Ukraine now. If handled wrong, a quarter of the country and it's population is gone. We don't want that here - gas is mostly used for heating not electricity. Converting electric power to heat is inefficient/impossible compared to using gas

As a Norwegian, I am glad we help support the German people, we are affected by the energy crises a lot too, and we are in this together. Stay strong :-)

Never depend on others more than you can depend on yourself unless it is necessary to do so for survival. Especially for a country that already had a system in place, and regardless of the reason, Germany should never have weakened themselves, even if it was done as a matter of trust and unity.

Germany gambled on the politics of detente with Russia. It was worth a try.

This is why I always advocate for nuclear power, can't turn of the tap on nuclear power.

"Reliance on a single foreign supplier could leave a nation vulnerable." - Donald Trump

Nordstream 1 and 2 were down to sheer greed and not much else. But the closure of the nuclear power stations was utter insanity.

Germany was warned of the problems of depending so heavily on Russia for energy with Trump even blocking the Nordstream 2 pipeline. Anyone sane and aware of what sort of person Putin was could see the dangers of letting him have such leverage over a *major* EU player... And Germans is now suffering for their leader's poor choices. Going forwards the country and it's people *must* find other sources of energy and distance itself from Russia.

Can we get a post winter update? How did Germany do with the dire decisions they faced?

As someone living on top of the Groninger gas field I want to clarify/add some things. Yes, there are earthquakes (60-80 a year) that cause *mostly* minor damage. I think most houses here have at least some cosmetic cracks in the mortar and plaster. Sometimes it's worse and it's affecting the structural integrity of the buildings. It isn't uncommon to see houses with (support) props for months or even years while the owners are having to deal with the relevant agencies to get the proper repairs done. That's the reason people are completely done with it. Since 2012 roughly 900 houses have been demolished as they were no longer safe to live in and about 27k still have to be reinforced to not end up being demolished for the same reasons. Anyway, the problem is the way the government and the company doing the drilling handled the situation. Sometimes people were told the damage wasn't caused by the drilling or it took years to get compensated. Meanwhile the government wanted more gas money and extracted more and more gas when reports told them it could lead to more and heavier earth quakes. And those earth quakes don't stop when they stop extracting gas: experts believe they could last for a decade or longer afterwards. Eventually the government could no longer ignore the issues and decided to end the extraction of gas in 2024. That also meant the government decided to limit the amount of buildings that will be reinforced. There were reports saying which buildings had to be reinforced to maintain a certain level of gas extraction, but the government ignored that. If they quit in 2024 the earthquakes and future damage should be limited so they kept the reinforcements to an absolute minimum. When the war in Ukraine started, many people here thought and supported(!) extracting more gas again if the government would guarantee proper compensation of the damages without any of the usual bureaucratic BS. However the government kept saying they would keep the levels at the absolute minimum and stop completely in 2024. That decision meant that they are still not reinforcing more buildings. So while they can slowly increase the amount of gas again, we can't go back to the old levels before proper action is taken to ensure houses are safe. Had they just preemptively done that in March then we would be better prepared in case we get a cold winter. But that's just the Dutch government ignoring problems until it's too late as usual.

The picture at 41:40 does not show protests against Nordstream 2, but shows protest against current sanctions against russia. You are right there was criticism against the pipeline, but this picture does not show them.

Removing nuclear was so so stupid and short sighted. I'll never understand why on earth they did something so dumb

A good summary. 👍👍👍Despite all justified criticism, one should not forget that we have benefited from cheap gas supplies for decades. Not only Germany, but all countries that receive our exports. Apart from that, Russian gas was passed on from Germany to other countries. Well now we pay the bill, shit happens. As a side note, about half of France's nuclear power plants were shut down this summer. Partly because the rivers weren't providing enough cooling water or because they needed to be renovated. During that time, France received electricity from our gas-fired power plants.😏 On the one hand, Germans demand 'leadership' and when we do it, we are shown the historic red card. On the one hand, they want our financial and economic power, if we pursue a corresponding interest-oriented policy, everyone will be afraid of the Krauts again. Despite this, the army is being rearmed again, and the Russian shows why. I hope that we will deliver more powerful, accurate weapons to Ukraine as soon as possible.🗡 After the Ukraine war, Russia can ask us to deliver gas again if we and the whole of Europe still want/need it. That will then finally teach Russia which system works better: market economy or planned economy. I am relaxed. Economic relations with Russia will be irrelevant for the next few decades. Russia is losing its young and innovative generation. Apart from the seat on the Security Council, nothing is left, regardless of whether they win the war militarily, because politically and economically they have already lost it. Perhaps they will then be able to honestly come to terms with their historical past. Nobody should be overly concerned about the German economy.💪 We have a motto: Necessity is the mother of invention. My country has shown that many times.😎 It will take e.g. B. to establish a green hydrogen industry, but the natural bases are there (in Southern Europe). The United States can be happy, this war will strengthen ties to western, democratically oriented countries more than any Sunday speeches.kettebindung

A nuclear engineer here. The fear of nuclear energy after Fukushima is absurd!! Modern reactors are several orders of magnitude safer than the ones built even as recently as 10 years ago. Add to that the fact the Germany is relatively safer, much safer, when it comes to natural disasters than Japan is.

"In our own german interest, we have to make sure that this is not the case. And I'm very confident what that is concerned." - Ursula von der Leyen, famous last words

I let all my friends know bout this channel a few years ago. Amazing ⏳️ 🌟 🌠 👏 🙀