These figures coming out of Germany and the government's reaction to them are reminding me more and more of the German command bunker scene in Patton. The one where the shelling is causing the ceiling to collapse as frantic German generals, officers, and aides try to burn documents and plans before Patton's Army marches into Berlin. And the one German officer who has been Patton's profiler the whole time is staring at his picture and says something like, 'Das ist das Ende. Das Ende,' which basically translates to 'This is it, muchachos.'
And then he drops Patton's portrait into the wastebasket bonfire he has going.
That's pretty much where Germany is right now, only it's a dumpster fire of immense proportions.
At the end of January, I told y'all how Germany needed to light candles for a warm February because their natural gas stores, which were already in a less than optimum state going into winter, had been drawn down to dangerous levels in many regions by repeated Siberian cold waves washing back over the northern part of Europe.
The German government was doing its best imitation of an ostrich as stockpiles shrank.
Germany’s Natural Gas Crisis Escalates … One Storage Site Near Empty …Government Silent
Germany’s shift to green energy has really turned into a nightmare.
It’s the dead of winter and already the first heating gas storage facility in Germany is near empty, only 6% full!
Germany desperately needs to pray for a warm February miracle if the country is to avoid an energy disaster and a state of emergency.
Currently, there’s no danger to private households as their supply is guaranteed. The risks, however, are for industry. Should storage levels drop to even more dangerously low levels, then energy-intensive industry will be forced to shut down — a step that would cripple the already struggling German economy.
Bavarian gas storage levels at critical lows
Germany-wide, LNG storage levels were well below average at 38%.
Many reviled coal plants were being pushed back into service.
A cold winter is exposing Germany's energy choices.
— Electroverse (@Electroversenet) January 26, 2026
Natural gas storage levels are dropping fast.
In Bavaria, one major site is just 6% full
While nationally, storage has slipped below 38%, a level officially classified as "critical".
Household supply is protected, for now,… pic.twitter.com/f2IsHoysE0
...Household supply is protected, for now, but Germany's industry is not. Energy-intensive factories, particularly in southern regions, face shutdown risk.
Renewables are not covering the gap.
Low wind and solar output has pushed fossil fuels back to supplying the majority of Germany's electricity, with retired coal plants called back into action to save the country from freezing to a halt.
A week after that, as the Siberian air jolts and draws continued, the storage levels had dropped another 10%. Relief that Germans counted on from the Norwegians, who had been providing LNG shipments, was coming under strain from the continued cold. The natural gas from that source would soon become unavailable.
Why coal plants are needed: German's natural gas storage is down to 28% and "Germany’s most important supplier via pipeline, Norway, is reaching its technical limits and Germany cannot 'simply order more' because the pipelines are already operating near maximum capacity."
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) February 7, 2026
Coal…
..Coal plant operators have piles of coal outside their window. No pipelines needed.
A reserve of 26% or 27% sounds like one still has wiggle room until you realize that much of 20% of it is 'unrecoverable,' like draining an ancient car's gas tank to the last drop.
EU natural gas inventories in % of full - EU at 37.08%
— Giovanni Staunovo🛢 (@staunovo) February 9, 2026
Germany at 27.37%, Italy at 53.90%, France at 27.36%, Netherlands at 20.30%, Austria at 42.26%, Spain at 57.54% https://t.co/WThmqiwN4m pic.twitter.com/L0rMMMPKnW
You don't want what that pulls into your engine.
Germany's natural gas storage facilities are 27% full, of which 20% is considered non-recoverable technical residue. pic.twitter.com/F3gGPNSmzf
— Oo ps (@ps_trump) February 9, 2026
Now here we are, going on three weeks later, and there's been no relief. Temperatures during the day are in the low forties and remain well below freezing at night in many areas, with snow still in the forecast.
The liquid natural gas (LNG) that the Germans were planning to buy from the Dutch and the other Scandinavian partners they trade with? Those plans have also been foiled by the extreme weather, as sea ice is blocking boat access to the LNG terminals and hiding critical navigational buoys that guide vessels safely in and out of port.
...German authorities hope to avert a supply shortage by importing gas from the Netherlands and Norway, and shipments of LNG. However, according to Blackout News, the LNG terminal on the island of Rügen is currently out of operation due to a thick layer of ice in the Prorer Wiek and the port of Mukran. Because the shipping channel is no longer safe to navigate, LNG tankers are unable to enter or leave the terminal.
The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) reports that wind is pushing the ice together, narrowing the channels. Additionally, navigation buoys have been displaced or pushed under the ice, making safe passage nearly impossible for large tankers.
It is so bad right now, according to one popular German YouTuber, that the German Chancellor has reportedly banned discussion of the LNG situation.
...According to the YouTube channel by Alexander Raue, the situation in Germany is so dismal that Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reportedly issued an official ban on debating the current gas crisis until the end of March in order to avoid negatively affecting the ongoing election campaigns.
I can't find any other confirmation of that, so take it with a grain of salt. On the other hand, knowing what the German government is capable of, it is definitely not outside the realm of possibility.
Thanks to their depleted inventories, the Germans have also put themselves in a bit of a nasty Catch-22 when it comes to trying to boost them back up should it ever warm up again.
The prices going forward, thanks to this cold snap, are so high right now that no one is purchasing the contracts to refill them.
There was an element of déjà vu — similar concerns dominated the event a year ago — but the situation has worsened. With six weeks to go until the end of the heating season, Europe’s storage tanks are set to emerge from this winter even more depleted than in 2025.
Natural gas inventories play a vital role during winter, meeting about a third of demand. When consumption surges during a cold snap, fuel stored in tanks supplements the regular daily flow from pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals. It’s normal for storage to decline in winter and be refilled in summer.
Yet there’s little financial incentive right now for buyers to purchase fuel to inject into storage sites during the warmer months. Summer gas prices are still slightly higher than those for next winter, setting the stage for another challenging injection season.
“It is clear that the storages that are quite low are out of the money,” Helle Ostergaard Kristiansen, senior vice president for gas and power at Equinor ASA, said in an interview.
In fact, in an alarming development, LNG storage facilities in Germany are filing requests with the government to close permanently because they are unprofitable. God forbid it becomes a trend, just as the need for additional LNG storage space skyrockets because of the exceptional drawdown from this winter. This obviously also reduces overall storage capacity for next winter. What if it's, like, cold, too?
...There’s a risk that more storage sites could close if no state support comes in time. Germany’s Uniper SE has already submitted a request to the regulator to shut down its loss-making facility, Breitbrunn, a move followed by Bayernugs GmbH’s site in Wolfersberg.
If winter conditions remain around average up to the end of April, Europe will need approximately 130 more LNG cargoes than last year to fill the storage gap this summer, said Marco Saalfrank, head of merchant trading at Axpo.
All this is predicated on this winter finishing out as 'average.' That there's been nothing average about it so far is the joker in the pack.
All of this self-inflicted misery could and should serve as an ongoing cautionary lesson to those with green stars in their eyes who are forcing precisely the same calamitous decisions on their citizens in the UK, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and California.
But it won't be.
It's much like communism, with the inevitable gruesome end to those experiments and the next eager group already in line to try again - it's always that the other guys just never did it right.
[CUE: dumpster fire]
Das Ende.
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