{"id":253519,"date":"2025-10-31T16:03:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/253519\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T16:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:03:19","slug":"how-germany-blew-up-its-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/253519\/","title":{"rendered":"How Germany blew up its economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrobusiness.com.au\/2025\/10\/australia-is-the-dumbest-developed-nation-on-earth\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">argued<\/a> that Australia is the dumbest developed nation on Earth for choosing to give itself expensive and unreliable energy when it is literally a global energy superpower rich in everything other than oil.<\/p>\n<p>In retrospect, I should have awarded the \u201cdumbest developed nation\u201d prize to Germany, which stupidly chose to blow up its zero-emission, non-weather-dependent, nuclear generators in favour of wind and solar generation, alongside a return to coal generation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Germany shut down its final nuclear power plant on April 15th, 2023. The images of protestors celebrating the end of their 50-year war on nuclear energy were met with anger and disgust by pro-nuclear activists online.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s difficult to believe that protesters could celebrate something that so clearly harms Germany\u2019s ambitions for clean energy and energy security. Shutting its nuclear facilities has caused Germany to be far more dependent on fossil fuels than its nuclear neighbour France, while driving up energy costs.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Germany emits 440 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour it generates, versus just 30\u201340 grams in nuclear-heavy France.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Power-generation-global.png\" width=\"861\" height=\"799\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Germany now has the <a href=\"https:\/\/infographicsite.com\/infographic\/germany-electricity-prices-comparison-2024\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">highest electricity prices<\/a> in Europe, alongside the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cleanenergywire.org\/news\/germanys-household-power-prices-5th-highest-world-report\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fifth most expensive electricity prices in the world<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/German-electricity-prices.png\" width=\"847\" height=\"730\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The impact on German industry has been destructive, with industrial production shrinking at an alarming rate:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/germany-industrial-production.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"523\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"German industrial production\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>As expected, the deindustrialisation of Germany has been concentrated in energy-intensive industry, which has shrunk 20% since 2022:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/German-manufacturing.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"377\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"German deindustrialisation\"\/><\/p>\n<p>I can think of no other major developed nation that has butchered energy policy as badly as Germany. Although the United Kingdom and Australia are giving it a fair shake.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, I argued that Australia is the dumbest developed nation on Earth for choosing to give itself&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-253519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}