Finance & economics | Going great guns

War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition

They may have knocked as much as ten years off the timeline

dpatop - 07 February 2023, Lower Saxony, Hohenhameln: The sun rises behind Mehrum power plant in the Peine district. The coal-fired power plant has been back on the grid as a "market returnee" since August 2022. An ordinance had allowed hard coal-fired power plants from the so-called grid reserve to be put back into operation in order to save natural gas. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa
Image: DPA

To many activists, Lutzerath, an abandoned hamlet in Germany, symbolises the nightmare of the global energy crisis. For months campaigners blocked the site’s demolition after Robert Habeck, the country’s energy minister, allowed a utility firm to mine for lignite—the dirtiest form of coal—under its graffitied houses. As a giant excavator swallowed its way closer, hundreds of police, unfazed by the pyrotechnics propelled at them, dragged protesters from their stations. Now the village is empty; its last buildings gone. Only bits of lutzi (cables and roads) are left for the bucket-wheeled machine to gobble up.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Going great guns”

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