Catching Up To Germany, The "Climate Leader"

Manhattan Contrarian ^ | 15 Jun, 2024 | Francis Menton

[MtnClimber]

Here in New York, our leaders fancy us to be the “climate leader.” After all, our legislature has enacted the “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” of 2019, setting out the most aggressive mandatory emissions-reduction targets of all the U.S. states. Allegedly, 70% of our electricity will come from “renewables” by 2030. Nobody can top us!

But can we really catch up to Germany? Germany was in the “climate leadership” game before almost anybody else had even heard of it. It was all the way back in 1990 that Germany adopted its first emissions-reduction target — 25 to 30 percent fewer CO₂ emissions by 2005, compared to 1987 levels. In 2000, while New York was still in its climate diapers, Germany passed its Renewable Energy Act, granting large subsidies for the development of wind farms. In 2010 Germany adopted its “Energiewende” legislation with mandatory emissions-reductions targets of 80-95% by 2050. All along, the country has been on a crash program to build wind turbines and solar panels for well over 30 years.

So sorry, New York. Germany is the true “climate leader.” Perhaps we should check in on how it is going over there.

In a piece on January 3, Reuters provided the statistics from Germany for the most recent full year, 2023. The headline is “Renewable energy's share on German power grids reaches 55% in 2023.”

The share of renewables on Germany's power grids rose by 6.6 percentage points to 55% of the total last year, the sector's regulator said on Wednesday, as Europe's largest economy moves closer to its 2030 target. . . . [of] 80% of its [electricity generation].

The achievement elicited some self-congratulatory happy talk from Environment Minister (and Green Party member) Robert Habeck:

"We have broken the 50% mark for renewables for the first time," Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement. "Our measures to simplify planning and approvals are starting to take effect."

Read a little farther, though, and you find out that only 43.2% of the 55% came from wind and solar generators. Most of the rest (8.4%) came from “biomass,” otherwise known as wood chips imported from the U.S. — probably not what you were thinking of as the supposedly emissions-free “renewables.” (The remaining 3+% consists of hydro and some unspecified “other renewables.”).

Perhaps you are wondering, despite Habeck’s happy talk, how can it be that after 30+ years of a crash program, with enormous subsidies, to build wind and solar generators to provide electricity, Germany is only up to getting 43% of its electricity from those sources? Is there maybe some problem? If you are wondering about those things, you will not find the answer here.

And then there’s the question of whether a huge build-out of wind and solar electricity generation might have any collateral consequences for a modern industrial economy. For example, might wind and solar generation be more expensive than electricity generation by fossil fuels? Here are the latest consumer electricity price data from Eurostat, covering the second half of 2023. Key quote:

For household consumers in the EU (defined for the purpose of this article as medium-sized consumers with an annual consumption between 2 500 Kilowatt hours (KWh) and 5 000 KWh), electricity prices in the second half of 2023 were highest in Germany (€0.4020 per KWh), Ireland (€0.3794 per KWh), Belgium (€0.3778 per KWh) and Denmark (€0.3554 per KWh).

Somehow, great “climate leader” Germany has the very highest consumer electricity prices in all the EU. The 40.2 euro cents per kWh is equivalent to 43 U.S. cents at the recent exchange rate of 1.07. The latest data from the U.S. EIA gives the average U.S. consumer electricity price as 16.68 cents per kWh for March 2024. That makes the German electricity price more than two and a half times the U.S. price.

Aren’t wind and solar generation supposed to be cheaper than fossil fuels? Somehow that doesn’t seem to be working out. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that no matter how much wind and solar you build, you can’t get rid of any of the fossil fuel generators, because you need them all for backup of intermittency. So you end up paying for two redundant systems.

Then there is the effect of high energy prices on economic growth. How’s that going in Germany? Here’s a February 23 report from Euronews, with the statistics from Germany for the 2023 year:

Year-on-year GDP growth was -0.2% in Q4 2023, a notch better than Q3 2023’s -0.3% and also in line with market expectations. For the full year 2023, Germany’s GDP shrank 0.3%.

U.S. GDP growth for 2023 was reported as 2.5% by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

A guy named Theodor Weimer, head of the Deutsche Börse, gave a speech in April to a group of Bavarian business leaders. The speech became public when it was released on YouTube last week, and it was then covered by the Telegraph. Key quote:

The coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz was, [Weimer] argued, a “catastrophe,” Germany was “economically on the way to becoming a developing country” and “one thing is clear: our reputation in the world has never been so bad.”

And finally, in the European elections just held last week, the German Green Party has been reported one of the biggest losers, going from 21 seats to just 12, a loss of 9, or almost half of the prior total.

Well, maybe being the “climate leader” is not so great after all. At least, maybe, the people are starting to catch on. Here in New York, it will take a while longer.

[MtnClimber]

The left is comitting suicide in Europe with their energy and immigration policies. Why are we copying what they do?

[MtnClimber]

Manhattan Contrarian ping.

[zeestephen]

Re: "U.S. GDP growth for 2023 was reported as 2.5%..."

Most of that was probably borrowed money that paid the free rent, free food, free medical care, and free education for 10 million immigrants fraudulently claiming asylum status.

[politicianslie]

Why would anyone be dumb enough to copy Europe?

Leftists are VERY ignorant. It’s been shown numerous times that NOAA, NASA etc. are changing temperature historical data to fit the climate nutcases predictions and conclusions

For example, last Summer was the hottest summer in thousands of years. Really? There were no US state records set last summer so the US did not have a record summer to beat out the 1930’s, ever read the Grapes of Wrath?

The US has the best temperature records in the world. In fact, most of the rest of the worlds data is computer generated which of course uses CO2 predictions NOT actual temperature data.

Every prediction by the climate wackos has been wrong. So every 10 years they tell us we have 10 years to save the planet. This silliness started with Richard Mann in the 1980’s and his lies to Congress that every DimWIT worships. His hockey stick graph borders on stupidity and the real climate experts know it.

Gore and many other climate psychos said Arctic ice free by 2013 or so. Arctic ice is still there every summer at historical averages

China and India continue to build coal plants at a fanatical pace while the west adds frequently useless wind and solar. The sun and wind do NOT blow 24/7/365. When those don’t supply, manufacturing shuts down and people DIE.

Never forget Brandon took $millions in bribes from China. And China benefits the most from the west destroying its energy generation for a made up CO2 scam.

[mfish13]

The large chemical companies are moving production to Asia. Just moving any pollution to over there.

[Nateman]

He wrote this in 1917. Nothing has changed except for the particular scams being pushed.

[metmom]

My first thought as well.