---
title: "Finland versus Germany in the Energy Crisis | Minna Korkeaoja and Elina Seppä | Negotiator 153"
titleOriginal: "Suomi vs Saksa energiakriisissä | Minna Korkeaoja Elina Seppa | Neuvottelija 153"
episodeNumber: "153"
guest: "Minna Korkeaoja, Elina Seppä"
datePublished: 2022-09-18
duration: "33:59"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgc4n2uyLMM"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["geopolitics","finnish_economy_policy"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. No chapter marks are published here: the publisher's list holds only two marks, at 0:00 and 0:40, and it is a split of the show-note text rather than a chapter list, so republishing it would assert timestamps that do not hold. No transcript is published either — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. This episode is a commercial collaboration with Korkia, and both guests work for Korkia, which develops and finances renewable generation; the episode says so and this page repeats it. The gas, price and capacity figures are those of September 2022."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/217-suomi-vs-saksa-energiakriisissa-minna-korkeaoja-elina-seppa"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep153-suomi-vastaan-saksa-energiakriisissa-korkeaoja-seppa/
---
# Finland versus Germany in the Energy Crisis | Minna Korkeaoja and Elina Seppä | Negotiator 153

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Summary

Germany built its energy system on Russian natural gas and phased out nuclear power; Finland diversified and spent seventeen years building Olkiluoto. Minna Korkeaoja and Elina Seppä of Korkia compare two very different electricity systems and explain how Finland halved its use of natural gas in a remarkably short time. The conversation covers the International Energy Agency's net zero scenario, storage from water to sand to batteries, the modest round-trip efficiency of hydrogen, and the fact that something like 1.7 million electric saunas have helped make the Finnish grid unusually robust. It closes on faster permitting, negawatts, and whether the world's mineral reserves are sufficient.

## Two countries, opposite bets

Germany and Finland wanted broadly the same things and chose opposite means: one built on imported gas and closed its reactors, the other diversified supply and spent seventeen years finishing a reactor. The 2022 crisis is what settled the comparison, which is why this episode is more useful than an argument about either country alone.

## The hydrogen number

Round-trip efficiency is the one figure that decides where hydrogen makes sense. It is low enough to disqualify most of the applications it gets proposed for, and high enough to matter in the few where nothing else works. Stating it plainly is the episode's most useful service.

## Saunas as grid infrastructure

A large, flexible, electrically heated load spread across households is exactly what a grid operator wants for demand response. It sounds like a joke and is a genuine structural advantage, and it explains part of why the Finnish system absorbed the shock as well as it did.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Suomi vs Saksa energiakriisissä | Minna Korkeaoja Elina Seppa | Neuvottelija 153](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgc4n2uyLMM).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/217-suomi-vs-saksa-energiakriisissa-minna-korkeaoja-elina-seppa).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep153-suomi-vastaan-saksa-energiakriisissa-korkeaoja-seppa/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep153-suomi-vastaan-saksa-energiakriisissa-korkeaoja-seppa/).

## Explore the ideas in depth

- [Negotiation Strategy, Leverage and Power: Reading the Counterparty You Actually Have](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/negotiation-strategy-leverage-and-power/): A negotiation guide from the co-author of Neuvotteluvalta — the sources of leverage, BATNA and anchoring in practice, using information asymmetry, breaking deadlocks, and what to do when the counterparty negotiates on power rather than consensus. Grounded in Neuvottelija conversations and two decades of negotiation writing.

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Finland versus Germany in the Energy Crisis | Minna Korkeaoja and Elina Seppä | Negotiator 153, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep153-suomi-vastaan-saksa-energiakriisissa-korkeaoja-seppa/, 2022-09-18. For quotes include episode 153 and timestamp.