Bloomberg: Germany CEOs Lament Lost Innovation Amid Fracking Angst

Germany has rejected genetically modified crops, nuclear power and magnetic levitation trains. Now, the country that invented the modern car and X-ray technology is adding fracking to the list of innovations it’s wary of.

Business leaders had lobbied for the extraction method, which injects water and chemicals underground, to lessen Germany’s dependence on Vladimir Putin’s Russia where a third of its natural gas supply is derived. Last week, the government started preparing a law to limit fracking to rare cases, unlike in the U.S. where the practice is widespread.

The restrictions are a setback for executives, who say policymakers bow too easily to concerns in the population that new technologies will harm the environment. Germany, which has the most powerful Green Party in Europe, is missing out on industries worth more than $200 billion globally, or about 6 percent of its gross domestic product, including nuclear power and fracking. Executives argue the risk-aversion hampers the competitiveness of a nation that discovered nuclear fission used to detonate atomic bombs, and has been led by a trained physicist, Angela Merkel, since 2005.
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