Some need electricity, preferably from the wind. Your opponents want to protect nature – and especially a bird of prey. The dispute over the red kite shows why the energy transition is faltering in this country.
Axel Drösser is a hot air specialist. The man runs the Marsberg glass factory Ritzenhoff, which produces 50 million vessels a year. Samples for world-famous beverage brands are laid out on the 58-year-old’s standing desk.
Ritzenhoff generates 86 percent of the heat for the glass melt with natural gas. Its price has increased 2.3 times since October 2021. Drösser has to swallow when he mentions this number. And when he looks towards winter, he gets really uneasy: If Putin continues to play at the gas tap, Ritzenhoff could run out of volatile material. Or even not at all.