Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) has received a lot of criticism for his attitude in the current energy crisis. Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) reacted angrily to Söder's advice to examine the use of fracking gas in northern Germany. "Are you okay?!" he asked on Twitter. "Dear Markus Söder, how about wind power in Bavaria?" Weil wrote.
Green leader Omid Nouripour also criticized Söder's fracking proposal in the newspapers of the Bayern media group: "It would be a big mistake to throw ourselves back into the use of fossil fuels. In the short term, it's about us being good about the next one or two Winter will come before we become independent from Putin. The same applies to fracking. We wouldn't get relevant production volumes for five years at the earliest. So that won't help for the next two winters. This is another bogus debate alongside the one about extending the life of nuclear power plants."
In the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", Söder had raised the question of using domestic gas reserves in view of the energy shortage as a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. "Nobody wants yesterday's fracking. But it makes sense to check whether there are new and environmentally friendly methods," said the CSU leader. "According to experts, there are large natural gas fields in Lower Saxony in particular," added Söder.
Fracking, which is currently banned in Germany, uses pressure and chemicals to extract gas or oil from layers of rock, which poses a risk to the environment.
Nouripour: Bavaria is doing little for the energy transition
Nouripour also attacked Söder in the debate about longer lifetimes for nuclear power plants beyond the end of the year. "Markus Söder is the problem bear of the energy supply in Germany and has slowed down the expansion of renewables in Bavaria. In 2020, just three new wind turbines were approved in Bavaria. That's not going to happen with the energy transition," he told the newspapers of the Bayern media group.
Nouripour also emphasized that the nuclear debate is being pushed by those who have always been against the nuclear phase-out and thus against the pacification of a dispute that has been going on for decades. "But when it gets concrete, the CSU ducks away on the question of final storage, but at the same time wants to accept new nuclear waste with the continued operation of the nuclear power plants. Another reason why there should be no extension of the service life. By the way, it's the Union in particular that has led us into this fatal dependence on (Kremlin chief Vladimir) Putin."
Nouripour, like Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), referred to a second, far-reaching stress test currently underway to check whether there could be a power shortage in winter. "If there is a need for improvement, we will use the facts to discuss further measures." The stress test is mainly necessary because the situation in Bavaria is so tense.
