Need due to low water levels: "We are the systemically important giant"

In Orsoy, just behind Duisburg, where the Ruhr area suddenly turns to country life, the barges, pushed and coupled trains move up and down the Rhine in a calm but rapid succession, as always.

Sunlight sparkles like diamonds on the waves, which this summer has been far too glaring for the perfect idyll for too long.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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Sefan Pelz stands at the quay wall of the Rhine port of Orsoy and points across.

He is not concerned with the cooling tower of the Walsum 10 coal-fired power plant, which is pushing its way into the faded blue heat of the sky, but with the dry shoreline in front of it.

“Can you see the embankment?” asks the head of logistics at the port operator Niederrheinische Verkehrsbetriebe (NIAG).

Massive mud-grey basalt chunks, which otherwise keep the river in check, show how dramatically far the water has already retreated.