Speech by Scientists for Future

at the climate strike on 24.04.2026

Hello everyone, it’s great to see you all here!

My name is Michaela Reim from S4F. I’m standing here trying to put my speechlessness into words. To express my helplessness and at the same time my anger—without letting myself slip into inappropriate outbursts.

I am a physicist with a PhD. I have been researching in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency for 27 years. I am a scientist. Right now, it feels like this is the most pointless and unnecessary profession one could have. It is frustrating as a scientist to provide data and facts and then see them being ignored.

Why on earth does our federal government want to steer us into the next energy crisis with expensive, dirty gas power plants, even though we have had better solutions for a long time?

We have made such a mistake in the past before. We were once the global market leader in the solar industry, we held half of the market, but political missteps—ignoring science—led to us losing jobs, disappearing from the market, and creating massive dependencies (especially on China!).

And exactly the same thing is happening again right now!

435 billion euros! That’s how much the planned capacity market is expected to cost us by 2050—a subsidy extravaganza for gas corporations, paid by all of us through our electricity bills. 435 billion! That’s almost the entire federal budget—and for what? So that EnBW, RWE & co. can build new gas power plants that we do not need, that destroy the climate, and make us dependent!

And who is behind this? Our Minister for Economic Affairs, Katharina Reiche—the former CEO of Westenergie AG—who now sits in the ministry and orders arguments for gas power plants from the very corporations that benefit from them! This is no coincidence, this is blatant lobbying! While fossil energy companies profit from our electricity bills, Reiche is slowing down the expansion of wind, solar, and storage—even though over 500 gigawatts of battery storage projects are ready to go!

We are leaving the storage market to others, even though this is where the future lies! We are heading back to the Stone Age, and we will not be able to make up for this loss of market share and innovation for years if we do not invest massively in renewables and storage technologies now, but instead invest in new gas power plants—this will come at a high cost. Electricity from gas power plants is the most expensive option for ensuring supply security. According to a recent study, the levelized cost, including externalized costs, can reach over 35–70 cents per kWh. In addition, new gas power plants must be heavily subsidized to be economically viable. The first planned 10 GW alone will incur subsidy costs of nearly €7 billion! Germany imports almost all fossil fuels and spends around €80 billion annually (!) on them. With the expansion of renewables and a decentralized energy system, much of the value creation remains within the country! Instead of waiting years for new gas power plants, we can build enough storage within a few years to supply all of Germany with electricity for an entire day! 100 gigawatts of storage—that’s 200 gigawatt-hours, enough for 22 million households! This creates jobs and lowers energy costs. This is not only climate protection, but also future-proof jobs and export opportunities. We must not once again become dependent and allow ourselves to be blackmailed through gas imports.

It’s burning! Not only the climate crisis, not only exploding electricity bills—but also the anger that our future is being gambled away right now. That even though we already have better solutions, we are falling into the same trap again: dependency, expensive and dirty energy from the past.

Every euro that flows into storage instead of gas power plants is a euro for our future. Every new technology we develop is a step toward freedom—away from crises, away from dependencies, toward an energy system that serves us all.

We must recognize the opportunities in the transformation toward a better, more resilient future. Science has produced a wide range of solutions—even highly efficient ones—but the combustion engine is not one of them! And that’s not due to ill will, but physics—more precisely, thermodynamics, namely the Carnot process.

Physical laws cannot be changed by politics. The apple will not fall from the ground back into the tree. And here and now, hopefully, we will prevent a relapse into the Stone Age.

And finally: A huge thank you to everyone who is here today, who is fighting, who does not give up. To Fridays for Future, to all initiatives, to everyone who is committed. As a scientist, I can only say: we are so grateful for your work. You are the ones making the difference.

Thank you all!

Fridays For Future Würzburg

Speech by Scientists for Future

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