Germany's municipalities are getting serious and preparing for the concrete consequences of a widespread power blackout. The Hessian Rheingau-Taunus district is the first of 401 German districts and urban districts to have a specialist company in Berlin examine and simulate what threatens in the event of a blackout in order to be prepared for the increasingly likely eventuality.

德国的市政当局正变得严肃起来，准备应对大范围停电的具体后果。在德国401个区和城区中，黑森莱茵加陶努斯区率先行动，请柏林的一家专业公司负责检查和模拟在停电情况下可能出现的威胁，以便为这种越来越可能发生的情况做好准备。

According to this, 400 deaths could be expected within 96 hours. After 24 hours, livestock would die, substations would fail, and water tanks would run dry. Then there would be looting, fires and economic damage in the hundreds of millions. Unlike Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, district fire inspector Christian Rossel currently considers the risk of a blackout to be much more likely than a lack of gas, which would not have such dramatic consequences, even if one were not preparing for it.

据此估计，96小时内可能会有400人死亡。24小时后，牲畜会死亡，变电站会失灵，水箱会干涸。然后就会发生抢劫、火灾和数亿的经济损失。与联邦经济部长罗伯特·哈贝克不同，地区消防督察克里斯蒂安·罗塞尔认为，目前停电的风险比天然气短缺的可能性要大得多，即使人们没有为后者做准备，也不会造成如此严重的后果。

Authorities admit danger is real

当局承认危险是真实存在的。

The blackout, a widespread power failure, is sadly no longer a horror fairy tale of sinister conspiracy theorists as authorities now consider the danger to be real (but conceal the fact that it is home-made and a consequence of their own catastrophic policies).

不幸的是，这次大范围的停电不再是邪恶阴谋论者的恐怖童话，因为当局现在认为危险是真实存在的(但掩盖了一个事实，这种后果是他们自己的灾难性政策造成的)。

The German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB) sounded the alarm and warned of a possible overload of the German power grid. Even worse: cities and municipalities are not remotely prepared for such a scenario.

德国城镇和市政协会 (DStGB) 曾拉响警报，警告德国电网可能过载。更糟糕的是，城市和市政当局根本没有为这种情况做好准备。

“There is a risk of a blackout,” said DStGB chief executive Gerd Landsberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag that realistic scenarios are both hacker attacks and “an overload of the power grid – for example, if the 650 000 fan heaters sold this year are connected to the grid if the gas supply fails”. In this case, Landsberg expressly does not want to rule out widespread power failures.

“有停电的风险，”DStGB首席执行官Gerd Landsberg告诉德国《周日世界报》，现实的情况是黑客攻击和“电网过载——例如，如果今年销售的65万台暖风机在天然气供应失效时连接到电网”。在这种情况下，兰德斯伯格明确表示不排除大范围停电的可能性。

The head of the DStGB is even clearer: the federal government has recognized the situation, but is not responding as it should. Every citizen must be aware of what happens when there is no electricity: “Then there is no water, you can’t fill up, after two days you can’t charge your cell phone. We are in no way prepared for such a scenario!”.

DStGB的负责人说得更清楚：联邦政府已经认识到了这一形势，但没有做出应有的反应。每个公民都必须意识到没有电会发生什么:“然后没有水，你不能加油，两天后你的手机不能充电。我们对这种情况完全没有准备!”

The “blackout” would only be a particularly drastic scenario. Less drastic scenarios such as electricity or gas shortages have long been casting their shadows. An umbrella organization for independent welfare in Germany based in Berlin, the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband recently warned that, as a result of the exploding energy costs, “the livelihoods of social institutions and services are threatened to an unprecedented extent”.

“停电”只会是一个特别极端的情况。长期以来，电力或天然气短缺等不那么严重的情况一直在产生影响。总部位于柏林的德国独立福利组织Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband最近警告称，由于能源成本的爆炸式增长，“社会机构和服务的生计受到了前所未有的威胁”。

Retirement and nursing homes, for example, are coming under pressure due to the rapidly increasing costs. The Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services (BPA) predicted that “this crisis will cost some providers their existence because the burdens from rising energy costs, general inflation and the omnipresent shortage of skilled workers can no longer be borne”. And all this is just the beginning, according to Bloomberg. The federal government’s €65 billion financial aid package will not be able to prevent the impending recession.

例如，由于成本迅速增加，养老院和疗养院正面临压力。联邦私营社会服务提供者协会(BPA)预测，“这场危机将使一些提供者难以幸存，因为能源成本上升、普遍通货膨胀和技术工人无处不在的短缺所带来的负担将无法再承受”。据彭博社报道，这一切仅仅是个开始。联邦政府650亿欧元的财政援助计划将无法阻止即将到来的经济衰退。

Commerzbank economist Jörg Krämer meanwhile warned that the announced steps only “create the illusion that large parts of the population can be protected from the consequences of rising energy prices”.

与此同时，德国商业银行经济学家Jörg Krämer警告称，已宣布的措施只“制造了一种错觉，即大部分人可以免受能源价格上涨的影响”。

What happens if the lights go out?

如果灯灭了会发生什么?

In the event of a widespread power failure, nothing works anymore. Internet, landline telephony and heating systems would fail first, followed closely by mobile communications and digital radio. Gas stations would run out of petrol, electronic money and payment systems would fail, food could no longer be cooled. Clinics, care facilities and water suppliers and disposal companies depend on their respective equipment to outlast the blackout. Rossel made it clear that the district could not ensure the power supply. Like Landsberg, he advised citizens to stock up on food and drinking water for 14 days.

在大范围停电的情况下，一切都无法运转。互联网、座机电话和供暖系统将首先失效，紧随其后的是移动通信和数字无线电。加油站将耗尽汽油，电子货币和支付系统将失灵，食物将无法再冷藏。诊所、护理设施、水供应商和污水处理公司依靠各自的设备度过停电。罗塞尔明确表示，该地区无法保证电力供应。和兰茨伯格一样，他建议市民储备14天的食物和饮用水。

The district will ensure that administration and civil protection work so that emergency aid can be coordinated. For this, the “equipment security” has to ensure electricity for servers and satellite-supported communication systems for the crisis management teams. The current emergency generator can run continuously for 16 hours. However, since the police, fire brigades and rescue workers would also need several 10 000 liters per day, negotiations are being held with heating oil suppliers.

该地区将确保行政和民防工作，以便协调紧急援助。为此，必须确保“设备安全”，为危机管理团队的服务器和卫星支持的通信系统供电。目前的应急发电机可连续运行16小时。但是，由于警察、消防队和救援人员每天也需要1万升的燃料油，因此正在与燃料油供应商进行协商。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


All of these scenarios show a country that is on the brink of complete collapse in an emergency due to ideology-driven politics and decades of neglect of important infrastructure.

所有这些情景都表明，由于意识形态驱动的政治和几十年来对重要基础设施的忽视，一个国家正处于紧急情况下完全崩溃的边缘。

In addition, there is a risk of “load undersupply” due to the planned shutdown of the last three nuclear power plants, so that in certain areas the entire electricity demand of Germany can no longer be covered. Then large electricity consumers such as industrial companies would have to be switched off voluntarily or by force.

此外，由于计划关闭最后三座核电站，存在“负荷不足”的风险，因此在某些地区，德国的整个电力需求无法再得到满足。那么，工业企业等大型用电企业将不得不自愿或强行切断电源。

Moreover, the population hardly follows the recommendations of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK). As recently as July, the ill-informed German Minister of Economics Robert Habeck declared: “The fact is: we currently have a gas problem, not an electricity problem.” At the time, the statement was part of his propaganda strategy to prevent the continued operation of the three remaining German nuclear power plants.

此外，人们几乎不会遵守联邦民防和灾害援助办公室(BBK)的建议。就在今年7月，消息不灵通的德国经济部长罗伯特·哈贝克宣称:“事实是：我们目前面临的是天然气问题，而不是电力问题。”当时，这一声明是他阻止德国其余三座核电站继续运行的宣传策略的一部分。

Thus, Habeck pushed hundreds of thousands of citizens to buy fan heaters, which DStGB boss Landsberg now fears will finish off the German power grid. The nationwide “Warning Day”, on which the functioning of the civil protection measures is to be tested by means of a test alarm, will take place this year on December 8 – although it is actually scheduled for the second Thursday in September every year.

因此，哈贝克推动数十万市民购买暖风机，DStGB老板兰德斯伯格现在担心这将终结德国电网。今年的全国“预警日”将在12月8日举行，以测试警报的方式测试民防措施的功能，但实际上定于每年9月的第二个星期四。

Civil protection failing

民防失败

The last attempt two years ago, on September 10, 2020, failed miserably because not even the warning apps worked. In the event of an actual catastrophe, many citizens were not warned at all (similar to what happened three quarters of a year later in the Ahr Valley and in southern North Rhine-Westphalia during the flood of the century).

上一次尝试是在两年前的2020年9月10日，失败得一塌糊涂，因为连预警APP都不管用。在真正发生灾难的情况下，许多市民根本没有得到警告(类似于四分之三年后发生在阿尔河谷，以及世纪大洪水期间发生在北莱茵-威斯特法伦州南部的情况)。

The Ministry of the Interior had described the test alarm as “failed”. A spokesman for the Munich fire department said at the time that there had been no sirens in the city for years because they had been removed after the end of the Cold War. The same applies to large parts of Berlin.

内政部称这个测试警报“失败了”。慕尼黑消防部门的一名发言人当时表示，这座城市已经多年没有警报器了，因为它们在冷战结束后被拆除了。柏林的大部分地区也是如此。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


In 2021, the warning day was completely dispensed with because the BBK was supposed to set up a “comprehensive test landscape” beforehand . This year’s warning day has been moved to December to accommodate Cell Broadcast testing. This is a system in which all mobile phone users who are in the area of ​​a radio cell at a certain time receive a message that looks like an SMS. Unlike the warning apps “Nina” and “Katwarn”, which failed in 2020, people without smartphones are also reached.

2021年，因为人们以为BBK提前设置了“综合测试形势”，因此该警告日完全取消了。今年的警告日已移至12月，以适应手机广播测试。在这个系统中，所有在特定时间处于无线蜂窝区域内的手机用户都会收到一条类似短信的信息。与2020年失败的预警应用“Nina”和“Katwarn”不同，没有智能手机的人也能收到警告。

Given the current situation in Germany, one can only hope that at least this system will work.

考虑到德国目前的情况，我们只能希望至少这个体系能发挥作用。