Huffy Habeck + back to the future + tractor terror

Photo by Suzi Kim on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

Few questions are so polarising in German society as that of whether going all-in on renewable energy is a far-sighted masterstroke… or a blundering misstep.

For proponents, wind and solar will supply the country with endless amounts of free energy (‘the sun doesn’t send a bill’). For opponents, ‘unreliable renewables' are making the grid unstable, making German industry uncompetitive, and even risk causing blackouts.

This week, opponents of the Energiewende (energy transition) found an almost irreproachable ally in the country’s national audit office. The job of the audit office is to deliver non-partisan assessments on government policy. And its new report on the Energiewende is damning. “Secure supply is at risk, electricity is expensive, while the government is unable to comprehensively assess the impact on the landscape, nature and the environment,” the report stated.

The audit office found that the government was massively failing in its tim…