Germany needs Russian gas for energy reform

Germany’s federal industrial union BDI, headquartered in Berlin, believes that the country needs Russian gas for a variety of reasons, including the ambitious energy reform program for curtailing the operation of the nuclear power industry and shifting to alternative sources of energy. “Russian gas is a relatively ecological fuel and it can prove very important to Germany’s plans for shifting to alternative sources of energy,” BDI public relations officer Olga Wilde told Itar-Tass on Friday. Earlier, Germany’s former chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, expressed a similar point of view. “Germany needs gas supplies, if it really wishes to accomplish the energy reform and go ahead with its climate policy. We receive gas only from those countries that have large reserves of this fuel. Russia is one of such countries,” he said. In the wake of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster on March 11, 2011 the Angela Merkel Cabinet made a decision to phase out all of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants. Ecologically clean energy sources and greater effectiveness of the power grids are expected to compensate for the power shortfall.