Brussels, Berlin Rapidly reducing energy dependency on Russia is a declared goal of Germany and the European Union in view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) called on Thursday to use energy much more sparingly. “The best energy is that which is not used at all,” said UBA President Dirk Messner.
Former Federal President Joachim Gauck had previously called for freedom to “freeze”, i.e. to turn down the temperature controller in the apartment. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sees saving energy as a top priority for citizens.
Many suggestions are currently circulating as to how citizens could save energy in the short and medium term in order to reduce gas and oil imports from Russia. The EU summit this Thursday and Friday will also discuss how energy could be saved. Which measures are useful and which are not – an overview:
Jürgen Resch, Federal Managing Director of the German Environmental Aid (DUH), called for 100 km/h on the freeway, 80 outside of town and 30 in the city. “A speed limit reduces Russia’s dependence on oil and saves 3.7 billion liters of diesel and petrol and 9.2 million tons of CO2 per year,” he said.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Every third liter of oil that is currently imported from Russia to Germany could be saved immediately, which is also the result of an analysis by the environmental protection organization Greenpeace. Limiting the speed on autobahns to 100 kilometers per hour would save around two percent of Germany’s oil imports. Economists like Veronika Grimm can gain something from the proposal. “I think you should go that way now,” she told ZDF.
>> Read also: Import reduction by two thirds within one year: This is how Europe wants to become independent of Russian gas
Car-free Sundays
Greenpeace calculates that if a car-free Sunday were declared twice a month, fuel sales would fall by 1.3 million tons over the course of a year. This corresponds to 2.6 percent of fuel sales in Germany and 1.4 percent of mineral oil imports.
If every Sunday were declared a car-free day, 2.9 million tons of fuel could be avoided, which corresponds to around 5.6 percent of total fuel sales. This suggestion is not taboo for Grimm’s economy either. Should Russia impose a delivery stop, the situation would be challenging and a good reason to take “extreme measures”, said Grimm.
Ban on domestic flights
The debate about shifting domestic flights to long-distance rail transport is as regular as the speed limit. Rail transport is more efficient, especially for short distances, since the take-off of flights requires a particularly large amount of kerosene.
Peter Kasten, traffic expert at the Öko-Institut, thinks little of a ban on domestic flights. It would be more effective if the federal government were to increase the attractiveness of the railways and local public transport in the short term, for example through discounted tickets and Bahncards for families, he said. “It would also make sense to introduce a 365-euro annual ticket across the board.” That would encourage people to switch from cars to public transport.
Lower room temperature
Gas is the most used energy source in Germany when it comes to heating. Around half of all apartments are heated with natural gas. A quarter of all apartments are heated with oil. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the average temperature in heated buildings in the EU is 22 degrees Celsius.
If people forgo just one degree of heat, this would result in immediate annual energy savings of around ten billion cubic meters of natural gas: seven percent of the gas that Europe has been importing from Russia to date.
The UBA estimates that by reducing the room temperature by two degrees in all German residential and non-residential buildings and by using energy-saving shower heads, around ten percent of Russian natural gas can be saved.
home office
Greenpeace believes continuing remote working could result in significant fuel savings. From a regulatory point of view, it would be conceivable to extend the home office obligation that currently applies.
The organization points out that the measures overlap and therefore cannot be added up. Greenpeace disclosed the calculation methods in an analysis. Overall, ten to twelve percent of the net imports of oil and oil products could be replaced with the measures, it is said.
Economists like Hubertus Bardt from the German Economic Institute (IW) still regard the proposals with caution: “If households with gas heating consume less, they of course make a small contribution to solving the problem,” said the IW managing director of the Handelsblatt. “After all, 31 percent of natural gas in Germany is used by private households.” Especially now that it’s slowly getting warmer, it might be possible to do without heating a little earlier. “But I’m skeptical that the overall effect is really noticeable.”
In addition, according to Bardt, the high prices are a good incentive to use energy more sparingly. If a liter of diesel costs more than two euros, every car trip will become more expensive. Typically, consumers didn’t react strongly, but given the unusual magnitude of the surge, that could be different. “I am cautious about coercive measures analogous to the oil crisis in the 1970s, we are not rationing due to lack of quantities.”
In contrast, the energy economist Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) considers the “numerous energy saving measures” to be a substantial contribution to reducing dependence on Russian gas and oil.
Kemfert sees energy saving as a “sleeping giant that has not yet been discovered”. It is “realistic that up to 15 percent of oil consumption can be reduced in this way,” she said. That is about half of the oil that Germany imports from Russia. The other half can be obtained from other sources.
More on this: “Cannot be replaced in a short time” – that’s how dependent the German economy is on Russian oil