Posted on 07/31/2022 5:16:27 AM PDT by MtnClimber
As readers here well know, Germany has long sought the mantle of world leader in the march to save the planet by eliminating fossil fuels from the production of energy. This has been the strategy: induce, via large government subsidies and tax credits, the construction of vast amounts of wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity; and as more of those come online, gradually phase out facilities that use fossil fuels, and also phase out nuclear.
Unfortunately, the Germans have been so blinded by their religious fervor to save the planet that nobody bothered to figure out how much energy storage would be needed to back up these intermittent technologies and keep the grid functioning 24/365 in the absence of fossil fuels and nuclear. Now Germany has an excess of wind and solar facilities that, however, are incapable of providing reliable power on their own; and it has inadequate back-up other than natural gas from Russia. Thus Germany is facing an imminent energy disaster.
Meanwhile, back here in the U.S., the word is that the Senate Democrats have finally gotten their black sheep Joe Manchin on board with a big “green energy” bill to take the U.S. to its own energy nirvana via a big reduction in carbon emissions. And how will that be done? Basically, we’re now going to follow the strategy of Germany! Lots and lots of tax credits and subsidies to build more and more wind turbines and solar panels, without any serious consideration of what will be needed in the way of storage to provide back-up for the intermittency and build a fossil-fuel-free grid. Is anybody around here paying attention to what is going on in the world?
Let’s check out the latest news from Germany on the energy front. On Wednesday, July 27, the Guardian reported that Russia had reduced the flow of natural gas to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline to 20% of capacity. It’s still July, and we’re several months from heating season, but Germany is rapidly realizing that its energy jig is up. Just one day later, on July 28, the Guardian had another article reporting that the energy rationing in Germany has already begun:
Cities in Germany are switching off spotlights on public monuments, turning off fountains, and imposing cold showers on municipal swimming pools and sports halls, as the country races to reduce its energy consumption in the face of a looming Russian gas crisis.
Meanwhile, Germany in June adopted an “energy emergency plan” that involves jacking up consumer prices to force less usage:
[A]n energy emergency plan initiated in June enables utility firms to pass on high gas prices to customers. . . . On Thursday, Germany’s government confirmed that a planned gas surcharge on customers could be much higher than previously expected, to save energy companies from going bankrupt in the coming months.
And Spiked on July 27 reports on various other energy rationing measures that Germany is adopting, well in advance of peak energy usage in the winter:
Germany is already having to make drastic cutbacks to energy use. Town councils are dimming or turning off street lights and even traffic lights. Large landlords and housing associations have started turning down the heating on their residents and rationing their hot water. Some local authorities are considering setting up ‘warm rooms’ for elderly people to gather in the winter.
But hang on a second. After more than a decade of a crash program to build wind turbines and solar panels, doesn’t Germany have more than enough of them to supply all of the electricity it could ever possibly use? You would think so, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, in 2020 (latest year given) Germany used 500,000 GWh of electricity, which would mean that its average usage (divide by 8760) was about 57 GW. Its peak usage (according to Montel) is about 100 GW. So if it had dispatchable generation resources (fossil fuel, nuclear, hydro) of about 120 GW, Germany should have a more than sufficient 20% margin and plenty of electricity. Instead Germany has vastly more generation capacity, 248 GW (again from the U.S. EIA for 2020). Of that, 54 GW is solar and 62 GW is wind, a total of 116 GW between those two, well more than its entire peak usage, and more than double average usage. But you can’t count on any of it when you need it. The small amount of nuclear (8 GW) is on the way out. So they can’t get rid of the natural gas as backup, and with fracking banned in their own country and also throughout Western Europe, they are left completely dependent on natural gas from Russia.
The price to German households for electricity at the end of 2021 stood at an average of 32.16 cent per KWh, which is before any further recent increases. That is about triple the average U.S. consumer electricity price. For that you get shortages and rationing.
So what is the U.S. energy strategy going to be under the new Senate bill just negotiatied by Manchin and Majority Leader Schumer? The answer is, it’s basically the same as the German strategy. In a few words, massive subsidies and tax breaks to incentivize the construction of vast amounts of wind turbines and solar panels. From E&E Daily, July 28:
Huge win for clean energy. . . . Clean energy tax credits are the centerpiece. Under the deal, existing renewable credits would be extended. After 2025, they would become technology neutral and based on greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
Is there any deeper thinking behind this than just that wind and solar are “clean” so we should build more of them? Doesn’t look like it. So give us a few years of this, and we’ll be right where Germany is: vast excess capacity of wind and solar panels, none of which is there when you need it, and electricity rates tripled to pay for the redundant excess capacity and subsidies to the people who built it. At least so far we have our own natural gas for the backup, but they’re trying to shut that down too.
And when our coal technology for scrubbers that remove particulate and sulfur emissions to make coal a fairly clean power source are working well, just then, the left declares that we have to shut it all down.
And oh yeah, Biden and congress lied about who pays for their new spending legislation, that being couples earning less than $200K on the hook for 2/3 of the price tag in New taxes.
“..And when our coal technology for scrubbers that remove particulate and sulfur emissions to make coal a fairly clean power source are working well, just then, the left declares that we have to shut it all down....”
Exactly.
We should completely shut down the “left” instead and run these AINO-communist bassturds right out of the country on a rail....never to return under the threat of a public hanging. The insane POSs should be nowhere near any kind of power whatsoever. They belong either in an insane asylum or shipped off to some third world communist country....NOT the USA.
It’s hard to overstate just how utterly stupid the climate Nazis and politicians who push their agenda are. There is no climate crisis. This is obviously being used as a political tool to push the insidious WEF reset.
In the old days they hung traitors instead of kowtowing to them.
The people destroying America under the ruse of Green Energy are traitors and need to be hung.
How about going back to what makes the most sense & worked for many years & it worked well. We have lots of coal, just as a start. With current technology on scrubbing emissions, it would seem to work well. Natural gas works well, to my knowledge. Nuclear is good. If we use these resources according to our abilities, we don’t need the “green energy”. If we attempt to maximize the “green energy” we still need the old resources as backup anyway. Why pay for both if there is no need? If we attempt to go all-electric on our vehicles, “green energy” will likely never even come come close to supplying all our needs & is unreliable at best. How about getting people in our government that will use their heads on energy policy? It’s not all that hard to figure out.
With all of the government subsidies and tax exemptions, how much of this “renewable” energy will the government own? Government is never free. They are destroying private energy production and transforming it into something that government controls - like your 401K “retirement”.
“Some local authorities are considering setting up ‘warm rooms’ for elderly people to gather in the winter.”
I knew this was coming, and it will drive people to reasonably ask whether they can EVER live in their own, private, housing unit again.
And this starts giving credibility to the WEF when they say “you will own nothing”.
ALWAYS REMEMBER that our enemies (the Globalists, in this case) are VERY SMART, none of this is surprising them - it’s all per plan. The only tricky part for them is being able to carry it out without a public uprising or significant election defeat.
“It’s hard to overstate just how utterly stupid the climate Nazis and politicians who push their agenda are.”
What makes you think they’re stupid? They’re BRILLIANT - they’re doing this right under our noses and we’re too dumb to effectively fight it. We run around yelling RINO, RINO, RINO, Putin is Bad, I’ll never trust the media (and then parrot them), etc.
...while they quietly move forward. AOC gets laughed at with her Green New Deal. Now everything in it (and more) is about to become the law of the land.
They have people with big money, we have people with big money. Their big money people use it to buy and steal elections, our big money people (other than Trump) use it to buy Rembrandts and Guccis.
...so who’s stupid?
Actually, the Ruhr Valley was German territory that Frenchmen invaded and looted the coal from. The German miners refused to cooperate, starting a passive resistance protest. Hitler, not then in power, was deeply upset that Germany was saving itself without him being able to take credit for it. Per Conrad Heiden’s Der Fuhrer, Houghton Miflin, published 1944
NYS has been doing this for years.
Check out our economic growth stats.
Nuff said.
I saw a bumper sticker which I agree with, “I ‘heart’ Carbon Dioxide”. Although it comprises only .03% of our atmosphere, it feeds every plant on earth, and perhaps us as well. We cannot live without C02, and the neat thing is that even a small rise in temperature seems to be the case, it is allowing plants to thrive, which in turn throw off Oxygen, which WE need to survive. Therefore, I believe that we should convert all of our EVs to gas hog SUVs for the sake of the environment and the greening of ‘Mother Earth’....(sarc)
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Hmmm...
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