Europe Lets Its Citizens Freeze To Death …40,000 Dead In Winter 2014 As “Energy Poverty” Explodes!

UPDATE:

http://www.breitbart.com/killing-40000-poor-people-a-year/
==========================================

The latest story on “green energy” here at the German online FOCUS weekly news magazine actually shocked me.

Europe’s energy policy is, under the bottom line, costing the lives of tens of thousands of citizens – all at the holy altar of “climate protection”. The title of the FOCUS article:

“The grand electricity lie”: Why electricity is becoming a luxury

One of the sickest things about Europe and its disconnected leaders is that often it takes a full-scale disaster to happen before policy gets corrected. Often the scale of the death and devastation becomes known only after the clean-up crews have come in and sifted through the rubble. Think, for example, of Nazism, the Holocaust – or Soviet communism.

In the above named examples the true scale of devastation left behind became clear only after the drunk-on-ideology tyrants were defeated and their legacy finally put in the spotlight.

FOCUS now cites a documentary film which is set to be broadcast this evening on European television station ARTE. The documentary presents how Europe’s electricity prices are spiraling out of control, and the horrible consequences this is having on the continent’s citizens.

40,000 dead from power being shut off

The situation, we are discovering, is far more disturbing than even the earlier worst case scenarios every imagined. FOCUS reports (emphasis added):

In 2014 in Europe there were about 40,000 winter deaths because millions of people were unable to pay for their electric bills – the so-called energy poverty currently impacts about ten percent of all Europeans. In the past 8 years the price of electricity in Europe has climbed by an average of 42 percent.”

7 million German households in energy poverty

FOCUS writes that the poor are the real victims of “socialist” Europe’s clean energy drive. In Bulgaria people see half of their income gobbled up by energy costs alone. In Spain 28 percent of the citizens live in “energy poverty”. In Germany, FOCUS writes, 7 million households are considered to be living in “energy poverty”.

The consequences of energy poverty are profound: tens of thousands of deaths every year, as millions lose their power.

Coming energy-caused mass die-off

Of course one needs to be very careful when describing disasters involving mass-death and bad science. History has seen so many over the 20th century alone. In the current century we have seen already tens of thousands die because they have been denied affordable energy, a product which in any advanced society is (or used to be) considered a fundamental human right, just as is clean water.

How much more unaffordable must energy become, and many more tens of thousands of wintertime deaths does Europe have to witness before the continent’s leaders wake up to the “green energy” folly? There are no longer any excuses. The facts and data are out there, and leaders need to take life-saving action. Refusing to do so at this point borders on gross negligence.

Rising tide of anger

The ARTE documentary reportedly shows how Europe’s citizens, including environmental activists, are becoming more worried and that electricity is now increasingly being called a “luxury product”. FOCUS adds:

Their anger is clearly palpable as indeed governments have deceived and disappointed many citizens, and they cannot cope with the protests.”

As electricity prices spiral out of control and mass, uncontrolled immigration of Arabians continues, Europe is keeping its social power kegs especially dry.

UPDATE: Price development of Germany power prices:

strompreis-entwicklung-haushalt-bdew

After the German market liberalization of the 1990s, electricity prices for consumers fell and became affordable. But after the enactment of the feed-in act prices rose strongly and now 7 million households are in “energy poverty”. Source: BDEW.

111 responses to “Europe Lets Its Citizens Freeze To Death …40,000 Dead In Winter 2014 As “Energy Poverty” Explodes!”

  1. Green Europe Lets Its Poor Freeze To Death | The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

    […] Full post […]

  2. sod

    The problem is them being poor, not el3ectricity prices or renewable energy.

    There are real problems, like this report about the UK shows:

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35862763

    Or this devastating video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDEp2ePXPLM

    But the problem, is, that these people are poor and not cheaper electricity prices for everyone and everything.

    1. yonason

      “But the problem, is, that these people are poor…” – sod

      The “greener” Germany becomes, the poorer it’s natives will get.
      https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/4/005/04e/132/226d043.jpg

      And the more “compassionate” Germany becomes, the less help her natives will receive.
      http://www.barenakedislam.com/2015/10/26/islamic-army-invasion-muslim-parasites-and-jihadists-marching-into-slovenia-on-their-way-to-the-best-of-all-eu-welfare-states-germany/

      Squandering ever more resources isn’t going to help poor people, but it will increase their numbers.

      1. David Appell

        yonason wrote:
        “The “greener” Germany becomes, the poorer it’s natives will get.
        https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/4/005/04e/132/226d043.jpg

        Have you ever heard of sourcing your claimns?
        With links to the actual data?

        Or is that above you?

    2. Walter H. Schneider

      Poor sod, are you really waiting with baited breath for Pierre Gosselin to post his articles, so that you don’t lose any time to let loose with your drivel?

      Don’t try so hard to always be the first to comment. That makes your fanaticism a bit too apparent.

      You need a change of perspective. Come out of your ivory tower and look around at the real world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nsU_DaIZE

  3. sod

    Please look at the video, to understand what is really going wrong:

    The committee on fuel poverty is filled with people from the energy industry, and with basically no one who has any experience with fuel poverty. 50% of the committee are filled with people from the energy business:

    https://youtu.be/nDEp2ePXPLM?t=815

    1. Roger Cole

      So what, sod? I really don’t understand the relevance. Of course it is not a wind energy presentation, please criticise the content, not the presenter, that would be relevant, though much more difficult. I think you just stupidly hate the traditional power industry. Are you one of those who bang on about the “subsidies big oil gets?” (It doesn’t, btw)

  4. sod

    I really urge everyone to watch the video. For example talking about energy companies not passing on price reductions in electricity and gas markets to the customers.

    And look at that horrible pre paid meters pressed onto poor people.

    I did not know that something like this exists in europe.

    You pay a higher price and they are also used to collect old debt from you. This is the real travesty of this subject!

    https://youtu.be/nDEp2ePXPLM?t=965

    1. roger

      You did not know that something like this exists in Europe? Yet you persist in advocating the flawed science and consequential policies inflicted upon society by the equally ignorant political class across Europe?
      Then you are a fool and a dangerous one at that, pushing as you have for the idiotic remedies for a non problem that have engendered this appalling pass.
      Would it be too much to ask for a reduction in the quantity of your posts, or at the very least for a more thoughtful approach in the future?

      1. yonason

        How shocked he must be to discover that!
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME

        Riiiight.

      2. Leonard Lane

        Thank you, needed comment.

      3. sod

        “You did not know that something like this exists in Europe?”

        I am sorry for admitting not knowing about it. But i am glad that i only find obscure references when i google the German term (strom, Münzzähler), so it seems to be at least rare in Germany.

        so you did know that in the UK poor people are enforced to use pre paid meters which charge a higher rate and even deduct part of your debt from every “coin” you put into it?

        Do you like the concept?

        Do you think it is a good idea that poor people pay more for electricity than rich people?

        1. John F. Hultquist

          It is very, repeat -very, common that poor people pay a higher rate for their needs than those better off. A simple example: I have a large freezer and when butter goes on sale, I buy several packages. The freezer was purchased in 1973 at a yard sale for $15 USD. Last week, prior to Easter, eggs were sold at 50% off. I bought 6 dozen. Poor folks cannot do such things.
          Lots more here.

          That is a 2009 article in the Washington Post.

        2. lemiere jacques

          “do you think it is a good idea…”
          the price of electricity is not an idea..it is economy…

          most of the time it is logical…may be shocking but logical…

          pauperty ( absolute one) is the number one pollution in the world… and almost each time you manage to make all stuffs around more expensive to save the planet, you re making people poorer….except if you imagine some crazy externalities.

    2. yonason

      “I did not know that something like this exists in europe.” – sod

      But sod, it’s “green!”

      “The Smart Grid will create a new energy frontier with renewable energy, smart meters and two-way information.”
      https://www.consumersenergy.com/content.aspx?id=3243

      Little do you know, less do you understand, and not at all do you really care.

    3. Bernd Felsche

      What about the “EEG-Umlage”; a direct surcharge to electricity prices for consumers that stands at €0.06354/kWh ; more than the wholesale price of electricity when it’s being dumped because the unreliables are being given priority?

      Indeed, the surcharge is higher than the retail price of electricity in some parts of the USA; in places where consumers aren’t required to finance sustained failure to produce electrical power when required.

      That surcharge is only a fraction of the costs that consumers have to bear to sustain the Energiewunde. Reliable generators are required to maintain spinning reserves; which costs them fuel but for which they are not compensated by those who create the need for a spinning reserve (aka shadow capacity) of such a proportion and of such flexibility (GW/min). This means that electrical power that can be sold, will have to be sold at a higher price, to recover the costs of fuel and maintenance for the spinning reserve.

      In industrial-scale power generation, highly-responsive power generators will unavoidably be significantly more expensive at generating electrical power than those that provide quasi-constant electrical power. Raw baseload power costs are of the order of €0.05/kWh; perhaps as low as €0.03/kWh with the latest coal-fired, USC steam plant.

      German electricity consumers also have to pay “Fukushima costs” for the arbitrary, forced, premature shutdown of nuclear power plants in Germany. Operators of nuclear plants have to be compensated for the loss of income due to the government arbitrarily revoking permits to operate.

      Consumers are also paying for a duplication of the high-voltage transmission grid to try to provide the South of the country with electrical power from the North; because rapidly-changing wind power doesn’t mix with stable power distribution grids.

      The result is that Germans are paying the highest prices for electricity in all of the EU, when adjusted for buying power (EuroStat figures).

      Consumers in Germany ought to be able to buy electrical power at about €0.12/kWh. Typical cost-makeup is shown in the pie chart here. More than half of the price of electrical power is taxes of one form or another; with more than half the taxes directly due to Energiewunde and nuclear power policy.

      1. Walter H. Schneider

        Thanks for the level-headed explanation of the make-up of the price of electricity. Yes, and taxes comprise the lion’s share of that price. The higher the price of electricity, the greater the tax revenues collected, tax revenues that require neither public nor legislative scrutiny. Most importantly, those taxes do not require approval by any legislative body.

        All that is required for the scam to be effective is to convince the people to shell out and buy into it because the planet requires saving from humanity.

        The people in households with incomes in the lowest percentiles hurt the most. They can only pick from two alternatives, starve or freeze to death. Climate alarmists like sod make the scam workable.

        Cheep, affordable energy will lift people out of poverty and make economies flourish. Expensive energy kills people and destroys economies.

      2. sod

        thanks for this long reply. I sort of missed it and will try to reply later.

      3. sod

        Thanks again for the long reply. I am sorry, i could not reply when i read it the first time and then it got lost in this long discussion somehow.

        Several of the points you make are right. (1) The EEG is indeed around 6ct per kWh. (2) We pay more than people pay in the US. (3) And renewables cause changes to other power plants, which even might increase their running costs.

        (1) We obviously disagree about the EEG. i think it is a good thing and worth having, you think it is useless. I think that there are benefits to renewables (health, environment) you do not (or you even think they cause health and environmental problems). We will keep disagreeing about this aspect, so i will have to accept the extra 6ct as a problematic additional cost caused by political decisions of my side.
        BUT, there are two aspects that could easily be changed: A lot of industries does not pay the EEG and this puts extra burden on private users and small businesses. this could be changed immediately. And another problematic design decision causes the EEG to increase when market prices shrink. This could also be changed rather easily.

        (2) comparison with the USA is difficult, as energy consumption is so much bigger there. If you use about double the energy at half the price with similar life standard, you end up paying exactly the same. I would stick to europe for this comparison as this is what the ARTE film is about.

        (3) Additional costs for other power plants might be a real issue, but they are included in the prices that we are talking about. They are not an extra aspect.

        “Raw baseload power costs are of the order of €0.05/kWh; perhaps as low as €0.03/kWh with the latest coal-fired, USC steam plant.”

        I always here this numbers, but we can simply look at the graph added by Pierre to the end of the original post above. When Germany was that wonderful country with lots of cheap nuclear and coal plants producing at 3ct per kWh we were still paying about 20ct.
        Now after we changed to about 1/3 renewables in electricity, and about 20 years later, we pay about 30ct. and that is including the EEG and all those other negative effects of the renewables AND the horrible high prices we paid for the first systems AND we have a much “younger” energy system now.

        http://www.agora-energiewende.de/de/presse/agoranews/news-detail/news/2015-war-rekordjahr-fuer-erneuerbare-energien-stromerzeugung-und-stromexport/News/detail/

        So a household (according to Pierre s graph) now pays 68% more. BUT is uses less electricity (about 5%, as you can see in this stats:

        https://www.bdew.de/internet.nsf/id/76A71AB150313BB7C1257E26002AE5EB/$file/150306-BDEW-Energieinfo%20Entwicklung%20Stromverbrauch_final.pdf
        (page 15 household use)

        And households are using even less if we control for household size (following pages).

        At the same time, the energy debate caused changes to electronic devices and made an analysis of electricity use possible, that makes it easy to have big additional savings with actually little effort. so with even moderate help (changes to EEG and saving measures in the household) it should be possible for even a poor a household have the same electricity bill it had in 1998.

    4. David Johnson

      And all in the name of GREEN policies.

  5. Mikky

    A recent BBC TV programme on fuel poverty (and fuel debt, which adds further cost to bill payers) MADE NO MENTION WHATSOEVER about the high price of electricity, it was a typical lefty-green piece of propaganda, blaming it all on a heartless govt forcing people to pay their bills.

    The wingman of the AGW agenda has been the shameless promotion by lefty/green media and most political parties of renewable energy, often attacking anyone who dares to question the politburo.

  6. Newsel

    “It is the cold not global warming we should be worried about.”

    From the DT in 2013: “Fuel prices have doubled over seven years, forcing millions to choose between heat and food – and government has found itself a major part of the problem. This is slowly beginning to dawn on Ed Davey, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. He has tried to point the finger at energy companies, but his own department let the truth slip out in the small print of a report released on Wednesday. The average annual fuel bill is expected to have risen by £76 by 2020, it says. But take out Davey’s hidden taxes (carbon price floor, emissions trading scheme, etc) and we’d be paying an average £123 less. His department has been trying to make homes cheaper to heat, and in a saner world this would be his only remit: to secure not the greenest energy, but the most affordable energy.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/elder/9959856/Its-the-cold-not-global-warming-that-we-should-be-worried-about.html

  7. Robert Fairless

    The Germans are noted for their lack of humour but they also suffer from a strong streak of stupidity as is evidenced by their energy policy. Unfortunately they infected us with their ‘renewable nonsense’ and they had a ready and willing convert in the form of one, Ed Miliband, Energy Secretary, who has effectively also destroyed the UK Energy Industry with his pernicious Climate Change Act, 2008.
    In the meantime, in the Americas, hundreds of thousands of acres of forest are being destroyed, factories have been built to process timber into wood pellets, 60,000 tons ships built to transport millions of tons of pellets across the Atlantic.
    Every household in the UK and no doubt in Germany too, whether rich or poor has been financially penalised to support this monstrous folly.

  8. yonason

    I wonder why Europe, and especially Germany, doesn’t have money to help their native indigents?

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-21/germany-can-t-bear-32-billion-a-year-green-costs-minister-says

    https://muslimstatistics.wordpress.com/2015/03/19/germany-80-percent-of-turkish-muslim-settlers-claim-welfare-payments/

    $32 Billion a year for renewables, and massive welfare to foreign invaders, but none to help poor Germans pay for food and heat? Naw, that couldn’t possibly be a big part of the problem. It must be “evil capitalism!” And as “hot” as it’s been, what do they need heat for, anyway? Right, sod?

    1. Leonard Lane

      yonason said $32 Billion a year for renewables, and massive welfare to foreign invaders, but none to help poor Germans pay for food and heat? Naw, that couldn’t possibly be a big part of the problem. It must be “evil capitalism!” And as “hot” as it’s been, what do they need heat for, anyway? Right, sod? – See more at: https://notrickszone.com/2016/03/29/europe-lets-its-citizens-to-freeze-to-death-40000-dead-in-winter-2014-as-energy-poverty-explodes/comment-page-1/#comment-1094959

      One good paragraph shows how evil the greens and their government is to the poor in Germany. Thanks, yonason.

  9. Paul Dodgshun

    There is a new source of energy for electricity production. The transmutation of Nickel and Lithium Aluminium Hydride. A one-year run of a 1MW demonstration plant has just completed and there are hopes of a public announcement in April.

    Search on ‘Nickel Lithium Aluminium Hydride’.
    Things should look a bit brighter after a good read.

    1. yonason
      1. DirkH

        Of course his patent application is rejected. Patent offices reject everything that is outside the accepted physics, and LENR is outside accepted physics for now. You have to wait til university inmates manage again to produce it and then some. Oh and once they eventually do they will make sure that *they* get the patent.

        1. yonason

          Given the work load of the patent office, it’s occasionally possible to slip something goofy past them.
          http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1111_051111_junk_patent.html

          I’m sure one could find more, like this one
          https://www.google.com/patents/US3951134
          if one put one’s mind to it, but for some reason I don’t want to. Isn’t that strange!

          Hmm, what were we talking about, again? 😉

  10. Bobw in NC

    And then there’s this cogent explanation posted on Hot Air this morning which says it all:

    “Why “green energy” people actually mean “no energy””
    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/29/why-green-energy-people-actually-mean-no-energy/

    1. yonason

      Nice Find!

  11. Green Europe Lets Its Poor Freeze To Death | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
  12. sod

    So why can poor people not afford their gas or electricity bill?

    The simple truth is, that power companies are not passing on price drops to customers and instead make higher profits. This has been observed in the past:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/the-great-energy-rip-off-and-how-you-can-avoid-it-1798701.html

    and it is still observed now:

    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35601674

    But things are going to change. After years of watching power companies ripp off their customers, new rules will now enforce competition:

    http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35770754

    In the real world, the real problem is, that wages did not increase over the last 10 to 20 years. This is the main reason, why relatively small changes to a relatively small part of monthly costs are causing big trouble.

    http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

    1. DirkH

      sod 29. March 2016 at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Reply
      “So why can poor people not afford their gas or electricity bill?
      The simple truth is, that power companies are not passing on price drops to customers and instead make higher profits. This has been observed in the past:”
      (cites a UK newspaper)

      See, Sod, you and I are in Germany. Before the Red-Greens started the 28bn EUR a year rip-off renewables subsidies, first small, now grown to the GDP of Libya shortly before Gadafhi was murdered, there was ample competition between electricity providers IN GERMANY. There still is only that you gotta pay the giant subsidies so prices are 2.5 times what we paid in 2000.

      I know you never figured out what the effect of competition on prices is. I guess you also never figured out what the effect of state mandated taxes and fees amounting to 70% of the electricity price is.

      Hint: The latter does NOT make electricity cheaper.

      The ultrastate mandates ever higher prices and sod demands more state to fix the problems the state caused.

      You are a 100% statist. You are the problem.

      1. sod

        ” There still is only that you gotta pay the giant subsidies so prices are 2.5 times what we paid in 2000.”

        Come on, why not claim that people are paying 1000 times what they paid in 2000? your number is getting bigger and bigger!

        Every one can check the real numbers on the internet. Prices have nearly doubled says this article (not more than doubled):

        http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/kosten-fuer-energie-strompreis-hat-sich-seit-fast-verdoppelt-1.2166078

        and if we look at hard data, we see an increase of 68% since 1998.

        https://www.bdew.de/internet.nsf/id/9D1CF269C1282487C1257E22002BC8DD/$file/150409%20BDEW%20zum%20Strompreis%20der%20Haushalte%20Anhang.pdf

        The facts, they hurt.

        1. Analitik

          sod, all you stand for is hurting the German economy which hurts the people. Wise up.

          Oh, hang on, that would take accepting facts and you have demonstrated that you are unable to do this both here and even more clearly on Energy Matters (Euan Mearn site where sod tries to tell engineers how to make renewable systems work in the face of practical limitations)

          1. David Johnson

            Yes, it is nice to see SOD so completely out of his depth at Energy Matters. He really shows himself up there.

        2. gnomish

          i pay $0.11 per kWHr in Florida
          and you?
          i pay $1.75 a gallon for gasoline.
          and you?
          so tell me more about your brilliant economy
          it’s comedy gold.

        3. yonason

          I see what you are saying sod, “renewables” are competitive. Just look at the UK. Solar is so competitive, it’s driving itself out of business.
          https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/solar-firms-going-to-the-wall/

          Without subsidies, that whole house of cards comes tumbling down. And if you drive out nuclear and fossil fuels before the crash, you will have nothing to fall back on, and will be even more in the dark than you are now, literally as well as just mentally.

    2. Stephen Richards

      German power companies are going bust you bloody idiot SOD. The green energy harvesters are crippling conventional power producers because of the laws that support green energy first policies.
      Please learn to read more. Look at EON and RWE accounts. They are hiving off the conventional power from their green power for fear of the whole company going down with the conventional.
      The UK national grid CEO said a few years ago: We will all have to get used to not having power available when we need it and to paying a fortune for the privilege. That’s energy poverty.

      1. sod

        “German power companies are going bust you bloody idiot SOD.”

        No need for insults. It is not me, you have to argue with, it is reality.

        Just check this article:

        http://www.derwesten.de/staedte/essen/verbraucherzentrale-ruegt-stromkonzern-rwe-id10085597.html

        let me translate a little: consumer protection agency is demanding that RWE is reducing its electricity bills and passes on lower production prices.

        Why? because RWE is offering the highest price to consumers in the federal state of NRW. And so prices can be compared. RWE does not have the right to charge a higher price because they made false investment decisions in the past. They are supposed to pass on cheaper generation prices to their customers.

        To understand this, you have to know that before the liberation of the electricity market, (basically) everybody was a RWE customer. so the consumer protection agency is working on the behalf of those, who are simply stuck with RWE because they have not decided to switch to another (cheaper) supplier.

        RWE (and the other big power companies) are in trouble, because they have vastly underestimated the cost of getting rid of nuclear and vastly overestimated the value of their coal plants. These were just bad business decisions, that have to be corrected now. It is not a reason to charge an extra fee from customers that you only have because you had a monopoly in the past.

        1. yonason

          sod, the Greenie talking points regurgitation machine, says it’s all their fault, because they made “bad investments.”

          If they stop producing because of their “bad investments,” your lights go out, because there isn’t sufficient supply from “renewables,” even if whatever excess they might generate could be stored, which it can’t. It is impossible.
          http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/

          Yeah, it just COULDN’T be the greenie fools in government setting bad policy and making bad laws. Oh, no, that just couldn’t be it at all. //s//

        2. Walter H. Schneider

          Sod, you react without thinking, and I cannot blame anyone for calling you a bloody idiot. It is a waste of effort to point out facts to you. You’ve got your mind firmly made up and don’t let any facts confuse you.

          1. sod

            “Sod, you react without thinking, and I cannot blame anyone for calling you a bloody idiot.”

            Again: the facts are simple. The consumer protection agency is attacking RWE for having the highest prices for private customers.

            http://www.derwesten.de/staedte/essen/verbraucherzentrale-ruegt-stromkonzern-rwe-id10085597.html

            They can do that, because a lot of people are customers of RWE, because RWE had a monopoly in the past (and they have not figured out to change provider yet).

            This will be your typical old widow, which does not know anything about electricity prices and that you can change providers and she also would not know how to do a price comparison on the internet. So again, the poorest pay higher prices.

            Somehow this fact seems to be lost on people here. So let me repeat again: The way the system works makes it more likely than not, that the poorest pay MORE (per kWh) for electricity than rich people do.

            And it is the responsibility of the state to fix such a problem (because the state will have to pay for the consequences later anyway).

          2. DirkH

            “And it is the responsibility of the state to fix such a problem (because the state will have to pay for the consequences later anyway).”

            It is the responsibility of the state to fix the problem of the old widow who doesn’t know she can change providers? Well, here I thought we pay 8 bn EUR a year for the upkeep of the glorious state media TV ARD, ZDF, ARTE etc… just so that the state can give “information” to his citizens?

            You mean they don’t do that? In other words, you say the state utterly fails in one of his roles, that he picked for himself, as an information provider, yet, at the same time you demand this obviously incapable state continues to rig energy prices upwards?

            Hey, but you Greens could do that. You Greens could tell all the old widows who are RWE customers that they can switch electricity providers. Wait. You even have your own energy provider.

            Greenpeace Energy.

            Which, as you can easily check, is *THE* *MOST* *EXPENSIVE* electricity provider on the market!!!

          3. yonason

            Sod just refuses to realize how “green” energy works.
            http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2015/11-overflow/20151128_green.jpg

            Trillions in dollars up for grabs, despite the destruction “renewables” leave in their wake.
            https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/green-energy-catastrophe/

            Keep marching on, good green soldier sod.
            http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/pixar/images/e/e6/SargeTS3.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110426135157

            Whataguy!

          4. sod

            “Which, as you can easily check, is *THE* *MOST* *EXPENSIVE* electricity provider on the market!!!”

            It obviously is not:

            “Greenpeace Energy eG
            Strommix 92,5% EE-Wasser, 7,5% Wind

            Preis 26,65 Cent pro Kilowattstunde (ab 01.01.2015)
            Grundgebühr 8,90 € monatlich”

            and:

            “LichtBlick GmbH
            Strommix 75% Wasser, 25% EEG Strom

            Preis 27,48 Cent pro Kilowattstunde
            Grundgebühr 8,95 € monatlich”

            http://www.oekostrom-vergleich.com/oekostromanbieter

          5. sod

            “Well, here I thought we pay 8 bn EUR a year for the upkeep of the glorious state media TV ARD, ZDF, ARTE etc… just so that the state can give “information” to his citizens?”

            Funny, that you would say this. Because ARTE is exactly doing that. Giving out the information about the real problems.

            http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/052400-000-A/die-grosse-stromluege?autoplay=1

            And the BBC piece i linked above also does. So state TV is doing fine.

        3. David Johnson

          SOD, the BBC is not state TV. It is taxpayer funded from a licence fee, not general taxation. There is NO government involvement or influence

          1. yonason

            “There is NO government involvement or influence”

            Actually, there is:
            http://bbcwatch.org/bbc-background/

            And there is supposed to be oversight to ensure the BBC is living up to it’s commitments under the charter, but alas there is none, as you can readily see here.
            http://bbcwatch.org/

            The BBC used to be the most reliable news outlet in the world. Now it’s often a cheap Goon Show skit.

  13. sod

    Just for pure curiosity:

    do you folks have any opinion on pre paid meters being enforced on the poor, forcing them to pay higher prices than other people have to pay?

    do you think that redefining the problem, so that 1 million people no longer are counted as “fuel poor” (including that elderly woman that moved her bed into her living room) no longer count as “fuel poor” is a good idea?

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/fuel-poverty-pledges-shattered-2million-7599215

    Do you not think that it would be a good idea if the state would simply help those families, that can t afford to heat their house properly? especially when the state has to pay the extra costs for sick children and a moulding house in the long run anyway?

    http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35834733

    1. Bernd Felsche

      The alternative to pre-paid meters, etc is for other consumers and taxpayers to pick up the tab.

      If there were no taxes of the price of electrical power, then the price would be less than half of what it is today. That would automatically reduce the number of people suffering from energy poverty; not by other people paying for it but by the government reducing its revenue take from the poor.

      Indeed, if all taxes/levies/surcharges, etc. on electrical power were removed for all consumers, more people could be employed and/or better paid; so there would be fewer “poor”.

      1. sod

        “If there were no taxes of the price of electrical power, then the price would be less than half of what it is today. That would automatically reduce the number of people suffering from energy poverty; not by other people paying for it but by the government reducing its revenue take from the poor.”

        I disagree. this would lead to less income for the state and less support for the poor.

        At the same time, electricity would be cheaper and there would be more use of it. Which would require investments, driving the prices up again. At the end, the poor would be worse of.

        by the way, why would you want to reduce the price for everyone, when the problem are the 40000 who “die” because of their electricity bill? Should we not simply focus on fixing the problem at hand?

        1. yonason

          Since “renewables” are self-sustaining, and require no subsidies, these companies obviously must have made “bad investments” or something, right sod?
          https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/solar-firms-going-to-the-wall/

  14. Jürgen Kieser

    I find all of this a bit bewildering.

    Excess deaths, what does that mean?
    Deaths in Germany 2013: 868,000
    Deaths in Germany 2014: 893,000
    That’s minus 25 thousand in 2014 compared to 2013. What excess deaths are these people talking about?
    Deaths number vary heavily from year to year depending on the age pyramid.

    Number of deaths in Germany 2004: 818,000
    Number of deaths in Germany: 2013: 893,000
    Number of deaths in Germany: 1991: 911,000

    Wait until my time has come. I was among the first baby boomer wave beginning in 1955. When all of us come to the end of our lives, the death rates will explode!

    The whole article is based on a college presentation? What kind of scientist come out of colleges?

    Sorry, but I don’t believe that, at all.

    1. yonason

      @Jürgen Kieser

      “I find all of this a bit bewildering. Excess deaths, what does that mean?”

      What “excess” deaths are YOU talking about? You are the only commenter to have used that term so far.

      Also, Pierre wrote:

      “In 2014 in Europe there were about 40,000 winter deaths because millions of people were unable to pay for their electric bills”

      He was quoting a source saying that there were 40,000 winter deaths from fuel poverty IN EUROPE, but you only give numbers from Germany, and with no indication of how they died.

      You misquote others, and falsify the issue. It’s no wonder you are “bewildered.”

      1. Jürgen Kieser

        @yonason
        sorry, I forgot to address sod – thought it not to be neccessary because I used the “reply” button near his post.

        If you read the link sod provided in his first response, you’ll understand my post.
        And if you read sod’s response to my post, you’ll see that he understood what I was referring to.

        As you can see I didn’t qote anything of Pierre’s post and therefore I couldn’t have misqoute anything in his post.

        I’m 59 years old and have survived several dooms days and all of Focus’, Spiegel’s or Arte’s doomsday lies so far. And I’ve seen a lot of plain lies printed in those outlets or shown in my telly from ARTE. Therefore I pretty much doubt those 7 million households below the poverty line. That’s just ridiculous and way beyond my personal everyday experience. 7 million households in energy poverty? This would be mainstream conversation – but I never heard anyone in my neighbourhood or of my colleagues complaining about his energy poverty. I never see poor people around me even if I go shopping at LIDL or ALDI.

        That poverty meme is going on for decades and in rare cases there was some poverty to see. But not at the moment.

        As long as Germany can feed a million refugees she can feed and warm their own people as well. Energy poverty is a nonsense term. I was living below the poverty line for twenty years (over all, not just energy poverty) and all of us (4 persons) did fine. We never had to freeze or hunger. Why? Because poverty line is a political construct and does not reflect reality. I know what poverty is, believe me.

        I don’t see any poverty at LIDL or ALDI. All people look fine and well, are pretty dressed and have big cars. I don’t see any poverty in my town.

        If 7 million households were poor, I would have seen some poor people even in my neighbourhood until now.

        Don’t you see how ridiculous a term like energy poverty is? Either I am poor or not. I can’t be just energy poor but drive an SUV.

        I’m just angry about those stupid statements. I believe that people who write such nonsens nowadays are way to young to even know what poverty even means.

        I wholeheartedly agree, that the “Energiepolitik” is nonsense and all of us have to pay way too much for electricity. But since most people don’t rely on electricity to heat their homes, they don’t suffer from high electricity prices but enjoy low oil prices and therefore can’t possibly be energy poor.

        I for one depend on electricity for heating. And I will be payed back about 400 Euros this year. And that’s the third year in a row that I get money back, mind you.

        So don’t cry energy poverty, if most of the needed energy for heating comes from oil and the oil prices are the lowest since 8.5 years.

        And all of this is my experience and observation and opinion.

        1. DirkH

          “Therefore I pretty much doubt those 7 million households below the poverty line. ”

          The poverty line is defined as half the average income. So 7 million is perfectly reasonable. This also means: Each time I get myself a better wage I make some other people poor even though they can still afford the same lifestyle.

          The poverty line has been defined this way by sociologists I guess so they can, united with their journalists ,continue their campaign for more income redistribution.

        2. yonason

          LOL – OK, that’s a bit clearer. Sorry I jumped on you when you.

          However, your explanation raises a few more questions than it answers.

          For example, you write…

          “So don’t cry energy poverty, if most of the needed energy for heating comes from oil and the oil prices are the lowest since 8.5 years.”

          If someone started with much cheaper electricity a decade and a half ago, and now can’t afford it, how is he supposed to afford converting his home to oil? It requires installation of an oil furnace, a storage tank and possibly hot air ducts, as well as a service contract for maintenance and routine cleaning of the system (not safe otherwise), and a separate contract for regular delivery of oil.

          The oil itself may be cheap, but being able to use it when you never have before isn’t. It’s like saying if they don’t have bread, then let them eat cake.

          Anyway, thanks again for making me feel bad about my initial response.

        3. yonason

          “I used the “reply” button near his [sod’s] post.” – Jürgen Kieser

          Yeah, I’ve noticed that doesn’t always work (probably a few ways to mess it up), but invariably when it’s least desirable that it doesn’t.

        4. Walter H. Schneider

          Jürgen Kieser, okay, if you wish to narrow the scope of your comments in this discussion thread to focus on Germany, then there is a good article for you to read. The author, James Delingpole, is a reputable, credible journalist who presents facts that pertain to the energy crisis in Germany. His article may help you to find your way out of your bewilderment: http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/28/climate-change-the-biggest-conspiracy-against-the-taxpayer-in-history/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

  15. sod

    “Excess deaths, what does that mean?
    Deaths in Germany 2013: 868,000
    Deaths in Germany 2014: 893,000
    That’s minus 25 thousand in 2014 compared to 2013. What excess deaths are these people talking about?”

    Excess death in winter is the number of people that die more in winter than in summer months.

    http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/201415provisionaland201314final

    The reason behind this is simple: old people do not simply die because of their age. instead, often they die from a small infection, and these tend to happen more often in winter.

    basically if a person is on the brink of death in 2015, it is slightly more likely that that person will die in winter than in summer.

    (but i agree with you, the term “excess deaths” should be attacked here, as most people here also do not accept the concept of average temperature, which is basically exactly the same)

    What the popular right wind magazin focus made out of it, is false of course. The claim that these people die because they can not pay there electricity bill is obviously false and not supported by any data what so ever.

    1. DirkH

      “(but i agree with you, the term “excess deaths” should be attacked here, as most people here also do not accept the concept of average temperature, which is basically exactly the same)”

      You once boasted of your excellent maths education. Sue your university, they sold you a bridge. They did not tell you about the difference between a Cauchy-type distribution and a normal distribution. Also, they did not teach you about the Law Of Large Numbers. Whether you have any physical education I don’t know but it doesn’t look like it, as you also do not know that temperature is not proportional to energy content.

      1. sod

        ” They did not tell you about the difference between a Cauchy-type distribution and a normal distribution.”

        i wrote a longer reply to this at another topic. So just in short here:

        You are simply totally wrong. the mean of a probability distribution has nothing to do with the mean of a well defined set of data points.

        Temperature data from this globe will always be a finite set of numbers and every finite set of numbers has a mean. This mean or average can be calculated with math knowledge at about primary school level.

        It requires absolutely no knowledge about probability theory, the type of distribution or the existence of a “mean” in the underlying probability distribution. The all of this is utterly irrelevant to the number calculated.

  16. handjive

    “do you folks have any opinion on pre paid meters being enforced on the poor, forcing them to pay higher prices than other people have to pay?”

    Yes. but, my comment would never escape moderation.

    Here in Oz, riding the greasy pole of Doomsday Global Warming pays well:

    “THE introduction of smart meters in Victoria may have been a costly exercise for consumers but it has proven an impressive money spinner for a handful of Australian entrepreneurs.”

    http://www.theage.com.au/business/smart-meters-but-at-whose-expense-20121223-2btjd.html

    In a sane world this would be considered a crime.

  17. crosspatch

    Turn the reactors back on.

  18. bit chilly

    i agree with the comments relating to energy poverty above. it is a relative term that does a disservice to the genuinely poor.
    unfortunately for people like sod there will be an increasing number of genuinely poor people across europe as the energy intensive employment providers disappear one by one .

    the steel manufacturing sector and sintered product sectors like industrial ceramics and powder metal industries that provided many well paying jobs in the past are a shadow of their former selves .

    despite living in scotland, a country that can get cold in the winter,and being an ex employee of the industrial ceramics industry, i have no worries regarding this. fortunately if the occasion arises that i cannot afford to heat my home or feed my children i know where there are plenty resources i can burn for energy and food i can take.

    there are lots of combustible resources and food within the homes of the cagw lunatics of whom we have many 🙂

  19. StewGreen

    #1 No point in commenting on a Focus news article about a TV prog
    ..better to just wait for the prog (now broadcast last night)

    #2 Sod’s prepayment meter issue..He doesn’t know the UK market.

    SOD said “so you did know that in the UK poor people are enforced to use pre paid meters which charge a higher rate and even deduct part of your debt from every “coin” you put into it?
    Do you like the concept?”

    #1 Prepaid meters DOES NOT MEAN smart meter
    ..they are different.
    Yes I do like them ..reliable payers get a better deal than bad payers, bad payers get stuck on strict payment terms like smart meters.

    Here’s how the electric corps speak
    #1 “Hello Mr Rich customer with an excellent credit record, will you give me open access to your bank account to take $X/month out whether you have used that much electricity or not, so that you will often, be in credit ? And we will give you a discount rate for your electricity.”

    #2 “Hello Mr poor customer, with a terrible credit record, since we are scared of you running away without you paying your bill, we going to install a meter with prepayment card, so that you don’t get electricity before you have paid for it. Now this system costs extra money to run, so you are not going to get the same discount as people who give us direct access to their bank account.

  20. StewGreen

    Darn said “get stuck on strict payment terms like smart meters.”
    I meant “get stuck on strict payment terms like pre-payment meters.”

    1. yonason

      “#1 Prepaid meters DOES NOT MEAN smart meter” – StewGreen

      Thanks

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  23. Bitter&twisted

    The “architects” of this green nightmare have blood on their hands and they are clearly culpable.
    They should be prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter- or its nearest equivalent.
    If fact there should be “Climate” trials, like the Nuremberg
    war crimes trials for these criminals.

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  25. sod

    Thanks for adding the graph.

    The video is available online via the arte mediathek (“Die große Stromlüge “)

    http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/052400-000-A/die-grosse-stromluege?autoplay=1

  26. sod

    at minute 3, there is the part about 40000 dead and the claim made by Focus is simply false. The 40000 is the “extra winter dead” number and not 40000 extra dead killed by high energy prices.

    1. Mindert Eiting

      And to add something to Sod’s lonely struggle here, energy poverty is a sloppy concept. It is not only a matter of poverty but also of problematic debts. Thousands of people in the Netherlands but also in other Western countries have problematic debts and is known for years by professionals that it is seldom a matter of poverty. Actually, poor people often manage their finances better than these people whose numbers are still growing. Besides not being able to pay the electricity bill, they cannot pay their house rents or mortgages either. Important risk factors are divorce, losing a job, over consumption, reckless behavior (like giving a credit card to children), and dementia. As a rough estimate there may be one million of them in Germany and even more in the UK and USA. Statistics may exist in social health literature, kept a bit silent because it is a painful subject.

  27. sod

    I really urge everyone to watch the film. Everybody seemed to be happy about it, when there only was the Focus headline and some other misinformation about the film.

    http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/052400-000-A/die-grosse-stromluege?autoplay=1

    Now please face the real analysis that is done in this film. The main cause of price rises is not renewable energy.

    The real problem are big companies that have made bad business decision and that have distorted the market. Now these companies are in trouble and are supported by the politicians that often end up in goof jobs at the top of those companies after their careers. And they protect the companies from the consequences of their bad business decisions to keep the (national) huge energy companies alive.

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  29. David Appell

    40,000 dead?

    And what is the proof????????

    And why can’t European governments take care of their poor and elderly? This kind of thing doens’t happen in Canada or the US.

    Maybe we care about people more than do Europeans.

    1. David Johnson

      And where is your proof that recent heatwaves killed x )))s of people as claimed by the catastrophists? You can’t have it both ways

      1. Colorado Wellington

        Yes, he can. Inconsistency and unpredictability are Appell’s MO. Every now and then he will surprise you by making sense but there is no rhyme and reason to it.

  30. David Appell

    “In 2014 in Europe there were about 40,000 winter deaths because millions of people were unable to pay for their electric bills – the so-called energy poverty currently impacts about ten percent of all Europeans. In the past 8 years the price of electricity in Europe has climbed by an average of 42 percent.””

    Prove it.

    Then explain why European governments and (esp) European taxpayers are so callous and greedy that they can’t even give their poor and elderly decent heating.

    Apparently you are not such an advanced society after all….

    1. sod

      “Prove it.”

      The 40000 dead because of unaffordable electricity is simply false. It was made up by Focus and is repeated in the horrible Breitbart article now in the topic.

      The film does mention 40000 excess winter dead at about minute 3. But that is something completely different, as you would have the majority of those excess winter dead even if people were living in perfect conditions.

      Simply speaking, winter is the time of infections that have a high chance of killing elderly and sick, who are at the brink of death. Lack of heating and electricity will increase the probability, but will not explain 100% of that number.
      It was just a false claim.

  31. sod

    The important part starts at about Minute 2:50:

    “Miriam is part of the about 40000 who are called extra deaths in England”.

    http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/052400-000-A/die-grosse-stromluege?autoplay=1

    I accept that anyone who is not accustomed to the problem, might be confused by the example of the old lady given before the 40000 number and by the definition of energy poverty given directly after it. It is even possible to accuse the documentary for being misleading by this arrangement of text parts.

    But what the documentary says, is utterly correct. The 40000 number is correctly given as “extra dead” and is not linked directly to any form of energy poverty.

    The FOCUS article on the other hand got it totally wrong:

    “Im Jahr 2014 gab es in Europa etwa 40.000 Wintertote, weil Millionen von Menschen ihre Stromrechnungen nicht mehr bezahlen konnten”

    http://www.focus.de/immobilien/energiesparen/energie-die-grosse-stromluege-warum-strom-zum-luxus-wird_id_5388458.html?fbc=fb-shares

    It is moving the deaths from the UK to Europe and it is claiming a direct link (“caused”) between the winter death and fuel poverty, which is not present in the ARTE film (which the article is about).

    Here is a look at real numbers:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513719/Number-deaths-linked-freezing-winter-increases-30-31-000-temperatures-fell-record-lows.html

    The UK sees about 1200 deaths per day in summer and about 1600 deaths per day in winter. It is obvious, that not all that difference can come from bad heating. The majority of those dying are 85+ years old and it is obvious, that if bad heating was the main problem, we would see a different age structure among the dead.

    The article includes a lot of graphs and data worth a look!

    But we even have a scientific answer to our problem: A university took a look at the extra winter deaths and compared it to households with fuel poverty and they came up with a real number: about 9000 of those 40000 would be extra winter deaths that really were caused by fuel poverty.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35862763

    Still a bad number, but obviously it puts the problem on a completely different level.

    On a side note, we could have guessed that the 40000 number could not be right by simple math.

    Let us assume that about 1 Million people live in dire fuel poverty, badly effecting their health and about 50000 of them (just to keep the math simple) die each year. Then the government, which pledged in 2000 that it would solve the problem of fuel poverty till 2016 (20 years, for simple math again) would have been able to fullfil the pledge: because after 20 years, the whole million people would be dead, solving the problem (in a rather bitter way).

  32. sod

    Will really noone reply to the fact, that the Focus claim about 40000 deaths caused by lack of heating is false?

    1. yonason

      When will you realize that COOLING the planet, assuming we could do it (which we can’t), would result in even more deaths from cold, and so would be the stupidest thing to do?!

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  35. Hans

    The problem is them being poor, not electricity prices or renewable energy.For more information:http://www.stromgasdsl.de/stromrechner

  36. Hans

    The problem is them being poor, not electricity prices or renewable energy.For more information:http://stromgasdsl.com/stromanbieter-vergleich/

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