German Energy Policy Meets the Real World: Evonik CEO Christian Kullmann Says the Energy Transition Has No Value Whatsoever

Evonik CEO Christian Kullmann has delivered a blunt verdict on Germany’s Energiewende. In July 2026 interviews with the Rheinische Post and others, the head of one of Germany’s largest specialty chemicals companies stated that the energy transition has cost around €1,000 billion—and delivered “nothing.”

“Wir haben nicht genug Gaskraftwerke. Wir haben eine Netzinfrastruktur wie in Albanien und es gibt keinen bezahlbaren Wasserstoff,” translated is: “We don’t have enough gas power plants. We have a grid infrastructure like in Albania and there is no affordable hydrogen.”

Kullmann said, arguing that the planned coal phase-out by 2030 in North Rhine-Westphalia is unrealistic. Coal will be needed at least until 2033, and likely longer. Germany’s climate-neutrality target should shift from 2045 to the EU’s 2050 timeline. Further tightening of emissions trading would only weaken domestic industry against global competitors. Germany accounts for just 1.6% of global CO₂ emissions; the timing of its neutrality is “unerheblich” for the world climate but decisive for the survival of German chemistry. He criticized years of “Greta-Hörigkeit” in Berlin and Brussels and called for a pivot to growth.

Evonik is cutting thousands of jobs (including further reductions announced in 2026, with a heavy share in Germany) amid high energy costs, weak demand, and competition from Asia and America. German chemical plants have operated at historically low capacity utilization—around 70% in recent data, below profitability thresholds—while energy-intensive industry output has contracted sharply since 2021.

This is the real-world collision of ideology and physics, economics, and engineering that Germany’s political class long denied.

The Model That Wasn’t

For years, progressive politicians and activists in U.S. Blue States (California, New York, and others) and the UK held up Germany’s Energiewende as the gold standard of climate leadership. California deepened formal climate and clean-energy cooperation with German partners, including joint statements and exchanges on renewables, grids, and hydrogen as recently as COP30 in 2025. The UK and European institutions frequently pointed to Germany’s rapid renewable build-out and nuclear phase-out as proof that ambitious Net Zero timelines were achievable.

Germany shut down its last nuclear reactors in April 2023 and accelerated coal exit plans (legally 2038, with earlier targets pushed for the Rhine region). It poured subsidies into wind and solar while industrial electricity prices soared. The result: intermittent supply, inadequate firm capacity and grid infrastructure, dependence on expensive LNG imports after the cutoff of Russian pipeline gas, and a competitive disadvantage for energy-intensive sectors. Renewables have grown to cover a majority of electricity generation in strong periods, but coal and gas still fill the gaps when the wind doesn’t blow, and the sun doesn’t shine. Deindustrialization pressures are visible in chemicals, steel, and manufacturing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is splitting. One group prioritizes energy security, affordability, and realistic technology pathways—expanding nuclear where feasible, developing gas as a bridge, and deploying renewables where they make economic sense without destroying the industrial base (parts of the U.S., China, India, and others building capacity across the board). The other doubles down on aggressive Net Zero timelines, carbon pricing that disadvantages domestic producers, and rapid fossil phase-outs regardless of alternatives. Europe’s strictest CO₂ regimes and Germany’s early nuclear exit have become case studies in the latter.

The Nord Stream Question

One practical question hangs over any German course correction: Russian natural gas. Nord Stream 1 and most of Nord Stream 2 were sabotaged in 2022. One line of Nord Stream 2 remains physically intact. The Kremlin has repeatedly stated it could be activated quickly—“just press a button”—delivering substantial volumes if political decisions allow. Recent legal developments around the operator company have kept the technical possibility open, and Russian officials continue to float resumption as part of broader negotiations.

The EU has moved toward a phase-out of Russian gas imports. German leaders have resisted reactivation for geopolitical reasons. Yet high energy costs remain a structural drag.

If the war in Ukraine ends or freezes, pressure will intensify: resume relatively affordable pipeline gas (assuming sanctions and politics permit) and stabilize industry, or continue the path of expensive imports, intermittent power, and further deindustrialization and fiscal strain. Kullmann’s critique makes the stakes clear—ideology has already imposed enormous costs with limited global climate impact.

Germany’s experience is not abstract. High and volatile electricity prices have hammered households and industry. Household prices (medium consumption band, all taxes included) in Germany rose from the low-to-mid 30s euro cents per kWh around 2021 to peaks above 40–45 cents in 2023 before settling still elevated near 38–40 cents into 2025—well above many European peers and far higher than U.S. industrial benchmarks in competitive states. Wholesale prices spiked dramatically during the 2022 crisis and remain structurally higher in Germany than in nuclear-heavy France or hydro-rich Nordics in many periods.

The Energiewende was sold as moral and technological leadership.

Kullmann’s assessment—and the industrial data—suggest it has primarily demonstrated the costs of sequencing failure: shutting firm low-carbon (nuclear) and dispatchable (coal) capacity before reliable, affordable replacements at scale exist. Other nations watching the German experiment face a clearer choice: realistic energy plans that keep industry competitive, or continued doubling-down that risks the same deindustrialization and fiscal decline.