On these spring days, the wind often blows clouds of black coal dust from the port of Brunsbüttel. Where liquid gas from large tankers will one day make it independent from Russian gas, there is still little evidence of the latest lighthouse project for the energy transition, with copious amounts of foreign coal still being processed here, transported to its destinations. Drink with small freighters.

Federal Minister of Economy Robert Habeck (The Greens) and the coalition of Jamaica in Kiel prefer to activate an LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel today rather than at floating dump stations tomorrow and until then gas from the US, the Arabian Gulf or the Norwegian quarter.

For a long time there were plans to download LNG to Schleswig-Holstein, but they always failed due to cheap natural gas from Russia through pipelines. The Ukraine war now marks a turning point for energy supplies.

In addition to the two planned locations in Lower Saxony, liquefied gas should also reach Brunsbüttel, as the partners of the Jamaican coalition still in Kiel prefecture agreed shortly before the state election, even if the Greens consider LNG to be a climate-damaging fossil. At best, it wants to use fuel as a bridging technology, and the terminal green hydrogen as quickly as possible.

As a result, Russia’s bloody action in Ukraine is the impetus for the energy transition in the north, whose strength under the Jamaican coalition has been depleted: the CDU has slowed the expansion of wind power, and the state Greens have long worried. With an LNG terminal associated with American cracking gas.

Under the influence of the war, the FDP, as its third coalition partner, is also picking up the pace when it comes to expanding renewable electricity generation: At the federal party conference this weekend, the Northern Liberals want to intensify natural gas and oil production in the North Sea in the short term, but offshore in the medium term. They want to increase the number of wind farms significantly and create artificial islands for hydrogen production in the open seas.

The federal government also wants to install wind turbines with a total capacity of 70 nuclear power plants in the North and Baltic Seas by 2045.

Schleswig-Holstein already produces more green electricity than it needs, primarily from wind power and solar power, which is costing local consumers and local industry high grid fees – but green electricity is increasingly becoming a positional advantage in the structurally weak north.

In March, Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt announced it wanted to build a factory near Heide in Dithmarschen that would one day produce sustainably produced lithium-ion batteries for up to one million electric cars – company boss Peter Carlsson announced the facility’s intended location. Up to 3,000 jobs with excess electricity from onshore and offshore wind power.

He even described the region to the business magazine “Capital” as the “Valley of Clean Energy”, where batteries with the smallest ecological footprint can be produced.