"they shut down their nuclear power plants after Fukushima and...

"they shut down their nuclear power plants after Fukushima and decided to go with Russian gas. At the time, the nuclear plants were old and needed replacement, cheap plentiful Russian nat gas was the best-looking solution. Ukraine has made that policy look shite also."

This is entirely correct, HC. For years the German economy took an enormous advantage based on cheap gas from Russia (which gave Angela the opportunity for the stupid decision to shut down all nuclear power plants). But with the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and the blast of the major Northstream-2 pipeline this came to an abrupt ending...

Actually today the green-socialist government made the announcement for the new power plant strategy for Germany, which "is intended to create the framework for investments in modern, highly flexible and climate-friendly power plants that are capable of running on hydrogen in the future".

In the short term, new power plant capacities of up to four times 2.5 gigawatts of hydrogen-capable gas-fired power plants are to be put out to tender. From a switchover date to be set in 2032, they are then to switch completely to hydrogen "between 2035 and 2040". The subsidies are to be financed from the Climate and Transformation Fund, a special federal fund. According to coalition circles, the costs will be around 16 billion euros (around A$26b) over the next 20 years or so.

The new gas-fired power plants are supposed to step in during "dark doldrums" - when there is no wind and no sunshine - to cover the demand for electricity. However, energy companies have so far shied away from investing because the new power plants are not profitable. Economics Minister Habeck (Green party) had spoken out in favor of state subsidies, which could be in the billions. The government parties had agreed to "ideally" bring forward the coal phase-out to 2030 in order to prevent the emission of climate-damaging carbon dioxide. So far, however, an eight-year earlier phase-out has only been agreed in the Rhineland (i.e. RWEs Garzweiler 2) coalfield. It is controversial in the coalfields in eastern Germany. New gas-fired power plants could primarily replace coal-fired power plants. They are initially to be operated with natural gas, but then increasingly with hydrogen.

The German government's target is for 80 percent of electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2030. Currently, it is just over half.