Germany’s Hamburg city to ration hot water

Hamburg, the largest non-capital city in the European Union, has warned that it could ration hot water as the Russian energy crisis causes chaos.

Jens Kerstan, environment senator for Germany’s second biggest city, told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag on Saturday that Hamburg could restrict availability of hot water to certain times of days “in an acute gas shortage.”

“We are in a much worse crisis than most people realize,” Kerstan said in a separate interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt on Sunday. He urged people to take shorter showers, avoid full baths, and install modern thermostats and water-saving shower heads. “The more we save now, the better the situation will be in winter because the stores will fill up,” he told the Hamburger Abendblatt, speaking about reducing demand for natural gas. Western nations have been moving to pivot from Russian energy sources after the country invaded Ukraine in late February. Some have imposed sanctions on Russia’s energy sector in an attempt to cut off funding to its military, while Russia itself has cut off some gas supplies to countries including Germany over their refusal to pay in rubles.

Germany’s economy and climate ministry said that it previously imported around 55% of its gas from Germany but that had fallen to 35% by mid-April. Germany says that Russian imports could account for as little as 10% of its natural gas consumption by summer 2024. (www.businessinsider.com)