Posted on 09/07/2013 6:34:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
Edited on 09/07/2013 7:03:32 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
I’ve written before that Obama’s Solyndra-style handouts have been a grotesque waste of tax dollars.
I’ve argued that they destroy jobs rather than create jobs.
I’ve gone on TV to explain why government intervention in energy creates a cesspool of cronyism.
I’ve even shared a column from Obama’s hometown newspaper that criticizes the rank corruption in green-energy programs.
And it goes without saying that I’ve disseminated some good cartoons on the issue.
But even though green-energy programs are a disgusting boondoggle, American taxpayers and consumers should be thankful they’re not in Germany.
Our programs may be wasteful and corrupt, but we’re amateurs compared to what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic.
Here are some passages from a must-read story in Der Spiegel.
The government predicts that the renewable energy surcharge added to every consumer’s electricity bill will increase from 5.3 cents today to between 6.2 and 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour — a 20-percent price hike. German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energy policy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany.
As is so often the case with government intervention, the promises from politicians about low costs were a mirage.
Even well-informed citizens can no longer keep track of all the additional costs being imposed on them. According to government sources, the surcharge to finance the power grids will increase by 0.2 to 0.4 cents per kilowatt hour next year. On top of that, consumers pay a host of taxes, surcharges and fees that would make any consumer’s head spin. Former Environment Minister Jürgen Tritten of the Green Party once claimed that switching Germany to renewable energy wasn’t going to cost citizens more than one scoop of ice cream. Today his successor Altmaier admits consumers are paying enough to “eat everything on the ice cream menu.”
Perhaps the most shocking part of the story is that Germans are being forced to pay $26 billion in subsidies to get less than $4 billion of green energy.
For society as a whole, the costs have reached levels comparable only to the euro-zone bailouts. This year, German consumers will be forced to pay €20 billion ($26 billion) for electricity from solar, wind and biogas plants — electricity with a market price of just over €3 billion. Even the figure of €20 billion is disputable if you include all the unintended costs and collateral damage associated with the project. …On Thursday, a government-sanctioned commission plans to submit a special report called “Competition in Times of the Energy Transition.” The report is sharply critical, arguing that Germany’s current system actually rewards the most inefficient plants, doesn’t contribute to protecting the climate, jeopardizes the energy supply and puts the poor at a disadvantage.
Here’s what it means for ordinary people.
In the near future, an average three-person household will spend about €90 a month for electricity. That’s about twice as much as in 2000. Two-thirds of the price increase is due to new government fees, surcharges and taxes. …Today, more than 300,000 households a year are seeing their power shut off because of unpaid bills. Caritas and other charity groups call it “energy poverty.”
Not surprisingly, politically well-connected interest groups are the ones reaping the benefits.
…the renewable energy subsidies redistribute money from the poor to the more affluent, like when someone living in small rental apartment subsidizes a homeowner’s roof-mounted solar panels through his electricity bill. The SPD, which sees itself as the party of the working class, long ignored this regressive aspect of the system. The Greens, the party of higher earners, continue to do so. Germany’s renewable energy policy is particularly unfair with respect to the economy. About 2,300 businesses have managed to largely exempt themselves from the green energy surcharge by claiming, often with little justification, that they face tough international competition. Companies with less lobbying power, however, are required to pay the surcharge.
Let’s conclude with an ominous excerpt from the article. Even though prices already are very high, energy will get even more expensive in the future.
If the government sticks to its plans, the price of electricity will literally explode in the coming years. According to a current study for the federal government, electricity will cost up to 40 cents a kilowatt-hour by 2020, a 40-percent increase over today’s prices.
And isn’t it nice to know that Obama is doing everything he can to impose these policies in the United States?
This cartoon from Michael Ramirez is a perfect summary of Obama’s policy.
You can see why Ramirez won my political cartoonist contest.
P.S. I don’t like being the bearer of bad news, but green-energy subsidies are just one part of the statist/green agenda. The IMF, for instance, hasrecommended a huge carbon tax (about $5,500 per year for a family of four!) for the United States. A few gullible folks think this might not be a bad idea if the money gets used to lower other taxes, but they’re the same people who get suckered into buying oceanfront property in Kansas.
P.P.S. Germany may be more responsible (less irresponsible) than certain other European nations, but the country’s political elite is hopelessly statist. Even the supposedly pro-liberty political party tilts left and wants bigger government. Yet the Washington Post still thought it was appropriate and accurate to declare that Germany is “fiscally conservative.” Sure, and I’m a socialist.
P.P.P.S. But at least the mess in Europe has generated some amusing videos (here, here, and here), as well as a very funny set of maps.
This is not the first time the Germans have made a massive strategic blunder. Once again their standard of living will decline. It will be up to a reinvigorated US after the 2014 and 2016 elections to revitalize the world.
When I lived in Germany, I had a dream. The see the windmills cut from scrape and their weight taken of the backs of regular people.
When were you in Germany? The only windmills I am aware of are those in the Netherlands. It must be something new. I was born and raised in Germany and there sure weren’t any
Green energy boondoggle bookmark. Good information thanks for posting.
This is close to my posted calculations yesterday, 36 cents.
Here in rural Colorado we pay an exorbitant level of 11.4 cents. Most city folks pay less, but in this case it matters little.
Imagine your electric bill at 4 or 5 times what it is now. See where that leads you. That's where Germany is headed. We are 10 years behind them.
Now imagine a country where "The China Syndrome" movie was never made.
Many of you are too young to remember that movie, which destroyed a safe, practical, electrical energy policy for the rest of our lives. Nuclear power would be the norm, at somewhere around 4 cent per KWH, less that half of what you are now paying, and 10% of Germany's price.
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a ball of fire that controls our climates.
3. The earth is a rock.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
I don't know about him, but I was there about 5 years ago.
There are plenty of them in the Eifel, especially north of Trier and south of Bitburg. Huge ones. They were in other places as well, but I remember those especially. The beautiful countryside is trashed by these monsters.
They are in Bavaria, too. I have seen them the last couple times I have been back. Awful. I was also partially raised there (70’s and 80’s) and now go back to visit relatives. The windmills are new.
I have the homepage of the town I was born and raised and thank God they don’t have any there. I have not been back to Germany since we left for good on May 31, 1979 for my husband’s retirement at Fort Campbell, KY the next day. Next time I talk to my brother or my cousins I will I will ask them If there are any in their area. My brother lives in the Ulm area and my cousin in Jena
The EPA is destroying power plants here and will destroy "Green Energy" is not now and will never be cost effective. And this is coming to the USA brought to you by the Progressives.
our nation with the propellers and unicorns of so-called "green energy".
There is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a significant impact on carbon emissions. The European experience is instructive. Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).
I’m surprised reading the comments here that not one mentioned the shutdown of Germany’s nuclear power plants after Fukushima. That has a lot to do with the situation, and now Germany is importing French nuclear power.
If lower CO2 emissions are a goal, it can be accomplished cost-effectively with nuclear power. Other market based solutions like less expensive end-point solar may come along as well...
Furthermore, what has really happened is that they have expanded their coal based power usage and will do so even more in the future. Some of this coal is shipped across the oceans from as far away as Australia.
At the end of the day, don't let anyone tell you otherwise, there are only two alternatives: Fossil fuels (coal/natural gas) or nuclear. What's your pick? When they start talking about some new hypothetical nonsense, or conspiracy, always bring the little child back to reality, fossil fuels or nuclear, and often you'll find that they pick nuclear.
The rest is all political smoke and mirrors. BS in front of a camera that looks good but isn't the reality of what is going on. For example, the US is also pushing more and more into coal, since we haven't expanded our nuclear capacity in a long time. It's not advertised, but that is the simple truth of the matter, over the last 30 years we have massively increased our coal power production. These things make good photo ops: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/imagecache/embedded_img_full/image/image_file/p032112lj-0275.jpg?itok=B6QDkJJx, they help political careers because they delve into the realm of “feel good” politics.
On one hand that is true: Because we are generating a lot more power we increased that by burning more coal.
On the other hand that is not true: Over the last 30 years we have gradually replaced coal and fuel oil with natural gas.
And that replacement with natural gas has not been uniform through-out the US. Some states still use 80-90% coal and some states like Texas use coal for less than 40% and produce more from gas than coal.
The conventional wisdom through-out the 90s was that even though the US domestic supply of natural gas was more than adequate for traditional needs, as we gradually used more and more nat gas to generate, we would eventually have to import nat gas.
So the first nat gas shortages hit us in 2000-2001. That pulled the trigger.
Plans were made for nat gas import terminals and the Alaska gas pipeline. But, the shale revolution kicked in and now nat gas is cheaper than dirt
Plans are being made to export nat gas and nobody is building coal plants. Almost all new generating capacity being added is nat gas with wind and coal in a distant 2nd and 3rd.
If a state is using majority coal or coal and nukes for base load with nat gas for peak load, you can't substitute wind for base load or peak load.
But if the state is using a lot of nat gas for base load and peak load, then wind can be substituted for both base load and peak load.
Those are the options. I used coal and then also used coal instead of fossil fuels in general.
I don't hear or see Exxon using that phrase, fossil fuel. And I don't see many nuke plants being built.
The burning question, or glowing question, is will those rate payers in Japan who were buying that nuke power have to pay for the clean up?
The answer is no, those costs will be socialized.
“The beautiful countryside is trashed by these monsters. “
There are windmills and there are windmills.
The huge white wind energy windmills are indeed an atrocity and menace to birds.
The Dutch windmills - Windmolen - for draining lowland waters are sights to withhold. Kinderdijk in the Nederlands is a great place to tour their insides and see how families lived in them.
It's simple fossil fuels or nuclear. The green babble is all BS because the law of diminishing returns works against them, while economy of scale works for fossil and nuclear power sources. Green or alternative power sources actually become less cost effective the more you try to use them because may that be wind, light or water, the more you build the less suited and less ideal locations need to be developed since the best spaces are already used. The more you build, the longer distances you need to transport the power over. The more you build, the more expensive it will become for the energy storage options feasible today. Not even discussing the nasty and not so environmental aspects of “green” power, it is too expensive (take out the subsidies). What we are left with is fossil fuel or nuclear.
Back to my original point. When having an argument with one of these green, biodegradable, organic, holistic, recyclable, natural and regenerative types, force them to make a decision between fossil and nuclear. Don't allow them to go into their make belief world of the hypothetical and conspiracies. Bring the argument back to fossil fuel and/or nuclear, what will it be?
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