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Green Germany: Half A Million Families Sitting In The Dark [translation]
Die Welt ^ | 21 Feb 2012 | Philipp Mueller (tran.)

Posted on 02/23/2012 7:09:16 AM PST by AFPhys

Many households in Germany are no longer able to pay their electricity bills. As a result, around half a million households are sitting in the dark.

The sharp price increases for electricity and gas is leading to serious payment problems for more and more consumers – even to dark apartments. Because of unpaid bills an estimated 600,000 households in Germany had their power cut off in 2010, said the consumer watch dog Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen which is based in Düsseldorf. This estimate is based on a survey of local energy providers in Germany’s most populous state.

"Price increases of around 15 percent for electricity and gas in the past two years have made energy for many households unaffordable", said CEO Klaus Mueller. The increasing fuel poverty is alarming. What is more, ever tighter household budgets and regularly lacking competence in keeping personal finances in check are turning claims arising from unpaid energy bills quickly into an insurmountable cost trap.

Three-quarters of the 58 companies that responded to questions from the NRW consumer group reported growing problems related to energy debt and power outages. In 2010, the surveyed utilities in North Rhine-Westphalia alone sent out three million reminders for unpaid electricity bill. They issued 340,000 blocking threats and cut off power to 62,000 customers.

According to extrapolations by consumer protection groups, power has been cut off to about 120,000 households in NRW alone and to about 600,000 households nationwide. The estimates of the energy companies are consistent with the experience of the consumer advocates. A spokeswoman from the NRW consumer watch dog added that their consumer advice increasingly focuses on the question of how to comply with payment obligations towards energy suppliers.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: climatechange; climategate; climategate2; electricbills; electricity; failedgreen; germanyelectricity; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax
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To: blueunicorn6
Shut down your nuclear plants and sit in the dark. That’s what they voted for.

Not just that. Then they took all their energy investment capital and put it into solar, with a negative financial return and negligible energy return.

21 posted on 02/23/2012 7:34:03 AM PST by AZLiberty (No tag today.)
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To: GonzoGOP

Nice stats posted!


22 posted on 02/23/2012 7:34:24 AM PST by AFPhys ((Praying for our troops, our citizens, that the Bible and Freedom become basis of the US law again))
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

and they expect us to fall on our faces in gratefulness to them for it!


23 posted on 02/23/2012 7:34:43 AM PST by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: AFPhys

Coming soon to an electric bill near you.


24 posted on 02/23/2012 7:34:57 AM PST by bgill (Romney & Obama are both ineligible. A non-NBC GOP prez shuts down all ?s on Obama's admin)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

no one in power wants more economical electric service, they want “green” and “sustainable” electric service which is much more expensive even with massive subsidies.


25 posted on 02/23/2012 7:35:59 AM PST by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

Indeed, the German power management is so ridiculous. I was paying back then electricity that I was not even using. It was like a straight up fee of $50 a month and then usage was added on top of that. Never told me why or why not, I had no clue at what they were doing. I just stopped paying and used candles and firewood in my appartment.


26 posted on 02/23/2012 7:37:24 AM PST by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security Whorocracy & hate:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: bgill

It’s already here in Texas, we spent billions and billions on wind turbines and new power lines to the wind farms....

we had coal power plants shut down....

Oh, and when its hottest here, in August.... the wind doesn’t blow.

I think we are looking at rolling blackouts this summer.


27 posted on 02/23/2012 7:41:09 AM PST by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: brownsfan

“The commies love this. They will be happy when people everywhere live in mud huts, and survive on berries and other assorted wild plants.”

*

That’s their intention...and they call us conservatives “anti-science”. They’re the ones who want to us go back to the stone age in order to worship mother Gaia. Why can’t these libtards just kill themselves and offer their worthless bodies as fertilizer to help their god?


28 posted on 02/23/2012 7:41:33 AM PST by max americana (Buttcrack Obama is an idiot)
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To: AFPhys
The more radical Greens (all over the world) believe we have too many people on the planet.
They would like to see half or more of humans eradicated. They view human life as a parasite. Many Nazi parallels in my opinion
29 posted on 02/23/2012 7:44:23 AM PST by HereInTheHeartland (I love how the FR spellchecker doesn't recognize the word "Obama")
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To: tflabo

If we’d get our elected off their stumps, we’d have oil and natural gas flowing. But NO, they stand by nobama’s vetos to stop our off shore drilling, and drilling on land too. We’d have cheap gas for us and cheap gas for the world. THAT’S WHAT the arabs are paying our elected and former elected for. Keep our oil fields from operating to keep the arab sheiks and royals wealthy.


30 posted on 02/23/2012 7:46:30 AM PST by tillacum
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To: Rashputin

And it’s basically the same “patsy”. What ethnic - religious image springs to mind when you throw out the words “Rich, Wall Street, Bankers, Speculators ...”? The cartoon characters with large noses and Stars of David are already showing up on the OWS and other such brown shirt (although this time it’s the underwear that’s brown) protest signs.


31 posted on 02/23/2012 7:48:19 AM PST by katana (Just my opinions)
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To: HereInTheHeartland

I wonder if the radical greens have quit producing off-spring to help nature take care of those who produce off-spring? (incquiring minds would like to know)


32 posted on 02/23/2012 7:53:36 AM PST by tillacum
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To: silverleaf
Seriously 600,000 German households without power?????

That is 1.6% of German households. If we assume that they are the poorest, otherwise they would just pay the bill right, that probably means they are concentrated in the 2.4% of their population that is Turkish or the 6% from the Balkans. Do you honestly think Germans are going to get bent out of shape because some Turks or Greeks sit in the dark?
33 posted on 02/23/2012 7:55:52 AM PST by GonzoGOP (There are millions of paranoid people in the world and they are all out to get me.)
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To: tillacum
I wonder if the radical greens have quit producing off-spring to help nature take care of those who produce off-spring.

Well Germans in general have. Their population is shrinking (-0.208%) rather quickly despite immigration. And their average age is up to 44.9 years. In comparison the US population has an average age of 36.9 years and a growth rate of 0.963%. If you think we have a problem with social security the Germans are positively screwed. Bigger benefits, older population and no kids coming up to pay the bills.

You have to love the CIA World Factbook. Great data on the countries of the world. Just knowing about the place often explains why they do what they do. For example Germany needs a strong Euro, because a strong common currency allows them to invest in other economies and pay off their massive Social Security bills. No matter how strong they are today Germany needs the Euro or they are toast due to an aging population.
34 posted on 02/23/2012 8:04:44 AM PST by GonzoGOP (There are millions of paranoid people in the world and they are all out to get me.)
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To: AFPhys

I know of a country that has trillions of tons of cheap coal that it could sell them.

Oh, I forgot that is considered ‘dirty’ power.


35 posted on 02/23/2012 8:09:21 AM PST by Bob Buchholz
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To: AFPhys

“under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…”


36 posted on 02/23/2012 8:13:45 AM PST by null and void (Day 1129 of America's ObamaVacation from reality [Heroes aren't made, Frank, they're cornered...])
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To: AFPhys
Germany doing reasonably “Ok” equates to 2.7% growth in GDP, a per capita GDP nearly 20~25% lower than in the US and 7.1% unemployment, the normal mediocrity and malaise that is considered the good times in a pseudo socialist economy. 3% GDP growth and ~7% unemployed is the norm, not some recession where politicians get booted from office as Bush H., Bush W. and is even causing Obama trouble.

It's a matter of perspective.

37 posted on 02/23/2012 8:13:45 AM PST by Red6
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To: Bob Buchholz
If the US can not use coal why not sell it to Germany.

We would be rich while sitting in the dark.(/s)

38 posted on 02/23/2012 8:15:20 AM PST by TYVets (Pure-Gas.org ..... ethanol free gasoline by state and city)
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To: brownsfan
The commies love this. They will be happy when people everywhere live in mud huts, and survive on berries and other assorted wild plants.

Um. No. Harvesting wild berries and plants would be forbidden.

39 posted on 02/23/2012 8:15:35 AM PST by null and void (Day 1129 of America's ObamaVacation from reality [Heroes aren't made, Frank, they're cornered...])
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To: GonzoGOP

Thank you for providing good context. I wonder what the US percent without power is.


40 posted on 02/23/2012 8:16:36 AM PST by Mizpah ((Teach your children how to think, not what to think.))
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