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The ban on fracking in Germany is once again being called into question - especially by the FDP. Economics Minister Robert Habeck, however, wants to stick to it. He prefers to get gas from abroad rather than draw on his own resources. Will the gas treasure be lifted after all?

It is one of the strictest fracking laws in the world that the Bundestag and Bundesrat passed for Germany little more than five years ago. The Fracking Prohibition Act of 2017 bans commercial unconventional fracking projects. The aim is to protect the environment and health from the risks of this technology. And that means the roughly 2.3 trillion cubic meters of gas in Germany's shale rock will remain untouched - for now.

Because now the debate about the law is flaring up anew. The Federal Republic is in the midst of an energy crisis due to the war against Ukraine started by Russia. Gas is becoming an increasingly scarce commodity. The problem is that Germany gets around half of the natural gas it needs from aggressor Russia. This now needs to be replaced, as a quarter of the energy required here is produced with natural gas.

The agreement reached by the Bundestag and Bundesrat provided for a ban on fracking until at least 2021. After five years, the Bundestag was then to decide whether the regulations should remain in place. If the Bundestag does nothing after this time, the ban will continue to apply, it was said at the time. To date, nothing has happened in this regard and the law stands.

Most recently, CSU leader Markus Söder and NRW Economics Minister Andreas Pinkwart (FDP), as well as the head of the Institute of the German Economy (IW), Michael Hüther, called for an open-ended review of fracking. According to " Welt am Sonntag ", the Professional Association of German Geoscientists (BDG) is also in favor of considering fracking in view of the energy crisis.

The FDP now wants to go ahead and, in view of the energy crisis, put the ban on natural gas extraction by fracking to the test. "As scientific studies show, fracking does not cause any relevant environmental damage under modern safety standards," argues Torsten Herbst, parliamentary director of the FDP, in the "Welt am Sonntag" newspaper. Those who import fracked gas from the U.S. cannot be against safe fracking production in Germany, he said. "Serious consideration should therefore be given to whether major shale gas extraction is feasible in Germany from an economic and technical point of view," he said.

Michael Kruse, energy policy spokesman for the FDP in the Bundestag, tells the newspaper his party supports "the significant expansion of domestic natural gas production." All options must be examined, he said. "We have always rejected the fracking ban law of 2017 in terms of content from this straightforward position."

So the FDP sees an energy goldmine in the German shale rock that needs to be unearthed. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck, on the other hand, continues to reject the use of fracking. He points to possible negative consequences for the environment and legal hurdles.

With the help of gas imports from Qatar and the USA, Habeck is trying to solve the energy problem by other means. However, he has not yet been able to organize much gas. Liquid gas is to be shipped from the USA, but it cannot yet be stored in Germany. There is simply a lack of special port terminals. The German government is trying to build these in a hurry. Floating LNG terminals are intended to bridge the first few years. But that costs a lot of money. In addition, the imported, liquefied LNG natural gas must first be converted back into its gaseous state at high energy cost. Another of Habeck's ideas is to help Israel develop a gas field. In any case, the Economics Minister cannot be accused of refusing to work. But all his plans have one problem: they could take too long.

To save gas, Habeck also wants to take additional measures, as can be seen from a four-point paper. For example, the use of gas for power generation and industry is to be reduced and the filling of storage facilities pushed forward. The federal government is providing billions in funding for this purpose. In addition, coal-fired power plants are to be used more.
2.3 trillion cubic meters of gas: enough to supply Germany with natural gas for decades

And so the 2.3 trillion cubic meters of gas deposits in the country's own shale rock are once again coming into focus. This amount would be enough to supply the country with natural gas for decades, says Hans-Joachim Kümpel, former president of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, to the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. As long as natural gas is needed in Germany, it is a fool's errand not to produce it, Kümpel said. "A production volume of 20 billion cubic meters annually is possible, for decades to come." The volume would be equivalent to about half of current natural gas supplies from Russia, he said. "It would significantly reduce the glaring dependence on imports," the raw materials expert emphasizes.

And the cost? Within a year, the gas could be extracted from shale rock in Germany, Mohammed Amro of the Freiberg Mining Academy tells the newspaper. But for that to happen, the ban would first have to fall. In as little as five years, Germany could increase the production rate to the point where it could cover one-fifth of its natural gas needs with domestic fracked gas.

So Germany is now at a crossroads - again. Forced by a war in Europe, it must decide whether to tap its own gas resources and possibly accept damage, or to buy in expensively and import resources from faraway countries. The environmental aspect is already being torpedoed here. "The fact that we ultimately harm the climate by foregoing domestic natural gas production and accept substantial economic losses through foreign exchange payments is regrettable, if not irresponsible," Kümpel says. Experts have given up arguing against it, he says.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)


I knew that it was there. But not that it was this much.


Once again ideology trumps over reality.