In the wake of the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, a tsunami of hysteria has swept the German Green Party to a stunning victory in elections in the state of Baden-Württemberg.The Greens also piled on in the Rhineland Palatinate elections as well. One thing is clear: Angela Merkel’s coalition government with the FDP liberal democrats were punished for their horrendous handling of energy policy in Germany.
One-year ago Merkel and her government approved operating lifetime extensions of nuclear power plants in Germany, giving 8 older reactors the seal approval, certifying they were safe and reliable. That, they were. Indeed German reactors and their management are among the best and safest in the world.
But then came Fukushima, followed by the tsunami of panic generated by an irresponsible media, anti-nuclear activists and opportunistic Greens, who fanned the flames of hysteria with vigor.
But rather than standing up and putting her full faith in German nuclear reactor technology and management, Angela Merkel panicked, blinked and turned her back on the industry, ordering the shutdown of the 8 nuclear reactors that were built before 1981. By turning her back on the nuclear industry, she in the end will have turned her back on the country. The days of cheap, competitive and reliable energy are coming to an end in Germany.
Turning her back on the nuclear industry also made her government’s earlier approval of the reactors appear like a farce. Angela Merkel only succeeded in showing where her priorities are – political survival. Her stance with regards to the Libya war was also pure political calculation.
Now it’s time to pay the piper. Angela Merkel’s government is now collapsing faster than Japan did under it’s 9.0 March 11 earthquake. Rarely does anyone witness ineptitude of this magnitude. She deserved to fail. All of this now clears the way for the SPD socialists and environmental Greens to sweep into power in 2013 in the national elections.
This all clears the way for the German renewable energy experiment, as the reds and the greens are eager to go full throttle with the renewable energy madness, which in the end will make Germany vulnerable and dependent on its neighours. Thanks in part to Merkel, the way is clear to embark on something that has never been tried: an experiment to see if it is possible to power an industrialised and developed country without nuclear and carbon-based energy.
It’s already happening. Read the following which is about how Scotland this past winter.
See also:
I hope that people don’t die before these insane people realise the folly of their ways.
Germany’s next exports are likely to be baskets woven from reed and twigs. Deliveries might take a while as the carbon-neutral sailing ships need favourable winds and tides. On land, the electrically-powered trains also need the winds to generate electricity and the electric delivery vans negotiate crumbling (low carbon) roads between night-long recharges every 15 kilometres. Should winds be favourable during the night.
Maybe an exodus of manufacturing from B-W is just the jolt that the German public need to wake to the nonsense being preached by the delusional greens and their malicious red backers. Bosch, Porsche and Mercedes have been in the process of moving production elsewhere for the past decade. When electricity supply becomes unreliable, high-tech manufacturing stops.
Dr Merkel deserves to not just be stripped of office for lack of leadership and resolve, but also her PhD and degree in physics. Thsoe who refuse to use the benefits of an education, have no right to claim to have had such an education.
You will love this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12879566
Oh dear! Three years from now France will be the biggest supplier of reliable electricity in Europe. With German industry not producing the money for the Euro bail outs what then for European unity.
VW has its own power plants.
http://www.vw-kraftwerk.de/
Other big companies as well, or if they don’t have one by now they will get themselves one. All microgeneration businesses are thriving.
The EU is based on corporatism/fascism – it’s the proles who will be told what (not) to consume. Industry is excempt.
It’s a very ominous post PG, why are the greens so seemingly strong in Germany?
They do seem to have a ‘hold’ over many people, in a country of such great technological prowess, it is a deep mystery to me.
As I said on a previous post – I was torn between cheering Angie’s imminent demise but chillingly sobered by the prospect of the green party making further advances, dunno what to think.
Good and bad.
Most of their members are teachers – who usually are tenured officials, Beamte, in Germany who know nothing about capitalism or competition because they never came in touch with it – and don’t teach anything about it; most of their voters are people who like protecting the environment, who don’t see them as just another party but as honest protectors of the environment, much like they would see Greenpeace or the WWF as apolitical. So basically for a lot of people it is the “honest” movement, the one that doesn’t do dirty Realpolitik tricks.
This is of course an illusion; during the Kosovo war Joschka Fischer, ex communist streetfighter and later Green top honcho and minister for foreign affairs, covered war propaganda by NATO (they dragged some bodies together and pointed to it and said “mass grave! illegal mass executions! Fischer covered the story and assured German approval of the war – public opinion would have turned against the war if Fischer had not done this).
But people have a short memory, and they don’t know or don’t care for the very (communist) political biography of some top Greens.
NATO were very satisfied with Fischer. He was considered a risk due to his past before he proved his usefulness.
Oh, and i know this sounds crazy, but a lot of good engineers i worked with are left-leaning; some extremely so.
This must be by some definition of “good engineer” of which I was previously unaware.
A good Engineer keeps a sense of proportion and a broad perspective; instead of obsessing, focused with tunnel vision on only the one thing.
A good Engineer FIRST ensures that the reported “problem” is real and that it can be solved by viable technical measures.
I share this question, why is this happening in Germany? I always thought the Germans to be pragmatic, sensible folks, but is the reality really that all they want is to have someone tell them what to do?
That’s what they’re going to get. In Spades.
I’m loving Australia right now. While we have a Federal Government that’s addicted to the Green vote, we have States that are booting the bastards out. Victoria a few months ago with no growth in Green. New South Wales last weekend, with no Green vote growth – The Shooters and Fishers with the Christian Democrats hold the Senatorial Balance – no more bloody MArine Parks!!! Soon Queensland will tumble, and there will be nowhere for the Greens to hide in Qld, as there is only one Parliamentary House. They went West last year in Western Australia, so soon it will only be little old South Australia and the Territiories. How much do they matter?
Bye Bye Greenies, slain on the Altar of Pragmatism, in Australia, at least. We HATE having anyone tell us what to do…
rant /off
Here in Luxembourg, the media + green reactions were close to the German hysteria, the official being somewhat more muted. You might read this commentary I wrote in the “Luxemburger Wort”, the nations largest (so to speak) national newspaper:
Profit aus forcierter Angst”
The Greens, if they can find bass to govern will be voted out the next time.
“There is nothing ’smart’ about rationing electricity”
http://jamesdelingpole.com/blog/there-is-nothing-smart-about-rationing-electricity-1337/
Man made global warming and Eugenics. One sentence, seems to have got away with it.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/civilization-is-the-west-history/episode-guide/series-1/episode-4
Delingpole says this about this green UK MP:
“She is, after all, the leader of a party ideologically committed in its manifesto to raising taxes, destroying economic growth and restricting personal freedoms.”
That’s true of the German greens as well, of course. And what would their voters make out of it?
Raising taxes: They are FOR it – they want “the rich” to pay more taxes. Of course, to get enough money, you have to define “rich” somewhat like beginning at 50,000 Euro per year income so your tax increase catches the 15% of the workforce that are in this class, including practically all engineers. Funnily, it doesn’t disturb left-leaning engineers – they say they can afford it – no wonder, most of them have no children (yes you read that right).
Destroying economic growth: They would be for it. Growth, has been hammered into them, destroys the environment. Whether that’s true is another matter, but they believe it.
Restricting personal freedom: I never hear left-leaning people or green followers utter the word freedom. I think they don’t know the concept. What they know is the common cause and social justice.
The continent is truly f*cked IMHO…
For my 60+ years of living and working in Europe I have seen many stages of wonderful development for the better well-being of the citizens. However that development has now morphed into political intrigue and finally into utter nonsense.
The EU is in my eyes should be regarded by all its members as an unfriendly alien foreign nation.
The ability to compete has, and always will, provide the nurture that allows nations to develop. The EU is basically an anti-competitive establishment reducing all to the lowest common denominator.
It is time for all of our own politicians to do what they were elected to do and represent their electorate instead of posing on the world stage. They still think that they can fix the world without sorting their own backyard.
I might add that in the UK with the wonderful misnomer of the Met Office claiming that it is developing an “outstanding skill” regarding the forecasting of Atlantic tropical hurricanes? Whilst in the UK we would be happy with just a normal (not outstanding) local weather prediction.
New World Order: EU to ban cars from cities by 2050
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8411336/EU-to-ban-cars-from-cities-by-2050.html
Time to ban the EU and the entire circus of green lunatics with it.
Reality:
Germany this year is forced to lend another 50 billion Euro.
The current tax revenues are 250 billion Euro, annual spending 300 billion.
No future Government and no future Canceler will be able to make a single positive decision. They will fail only because they will be forced to make unpopular decisions. And when we add the upcoming obligations of the EU bailout program, the green taxes etc. it will be clear that not only the German people are screwed but the next government too.
Revolution anyone?
The German State has unlimited debt liability.
If the German State is forced to reduce debt they will get it from it’s citizens
no matter what.
In order to secure your assets and your future there is only one way out.
Immigration, preferably to a country outside the Euro Zone.
“Thanks in part to Merkel, the way is clear to embark on something that has never been tried: an experiment to see if it is possible to power an industrialised and developed country without nuclear and carbon-based energy.”
Is it possible to power an industrialized nation without nuclear or fossil fuel based energy with current technologies? NO. What are the prospects for development of new technology that can achieve this goal in the foreseeable future? None.
Next question please?
I’ve found a site that provides balanced inside view of what’s going on at the Fukushima Nuclear Complex.
Just watch the video’s.
http://fairewinds.com/
The situation at Fukushima has gotten worse. But now, where’s the media?
Before they were screaming of meltdown before there were signs of any. And now that there are signs of a meltdown, they are busy with other topics. Gee, I wonder if this has to do with the election cycle.
@R. de Haan
Well increasingly I find Germany an interesting place to visit (all the more so from the obvious contradictions of technology, economy and ‘sustainability’), but wouldn’t want to live here.
Verity Jones
31. März 2011 at 23:22 | Permalink | Reply
@R. de Haan
Well increasingly I find Germany an interesting place to visit (all the more so from the obvious contradictions of technology, economy and ‘sustainability’), but wouldn’t want to live here.
The best way to visit the EU: as a tourist
P Gosselin
30. März 2011 at 07:15 | Permalink | Reply
“The situation at Fukushima has gotten worse. But now, where’s the media?
Before they were screaming of meltdown before there were signs of any. And now that there are signs of a meltdown, they are busy with other topics. Gee, I wonder if this has to do with the election cycle.”
Not only at the Fukushima location.
At this moment they are pumping 200 metric tons of water into the reactors.
This water is partially turned into radioactive steam and radio active water.
The steam is contaminating the surrounding area beyond the security zone and has reached a level 4 times higher than Chernobyl.
They should supply the population with iodine tablets and expand the safety zone to at least 50 miles.
In the mean time I have learned the biggest remote controlled concrete pump is shipped to Japan.
This means that they will burry the reactors with concrete.
One of the first jobs performed in Chernobyl was the digging of a tunnel under the reactor to make place for a thick concrete floor.
This floor had to prevent contact of the molten reactor core with the ground water.
A similar operation has to be undertaken at Fukushima.
As soon as the concrete floor is placed the reactors can be covered with concrete.
One of the big problems that have to be cleared first is the removal of thousands of tons of radioactive water which has accumulated in the reactor buildings. This is a huge problem because the level of radiation is too high for human presence and the pumps will become contaminated as well.
This is a titanic job which probably will take weeks to execute.
During this time the radioactive contamination will only rise.
So time is of the essence.
For the latest reliable information: http://www.fairewinds.com