Up! Up! And Away! Leading Daily Die Welt Reports: “Electricity In Germany More Expensive Than Ever”

Electricity Prices GermanyThe online German national daily Die Welt has a piece by business journalist Holger Zschäpitz on Germany’s sky-high, ever climbing electricity prices.

Hat-tip: Reader Stefan B.

Awhile ago it looked as if prices had finally stabilized. But now Zschäpitz writes that German electricity prices, already among the highest in the world, have jumped once again.

To put the situation in perspective he writes: “Power consumers are now more burdened than automobile drivers” — who are brutally taxed to begin with. In Germany, even in these times of rock-bottom petroleum prices, motorists still cough up some 5 euros ($5.60) every single US gallon for gasoline they buy. Recently, proposals have been made to tax large cars even more, and to massively subsidize electric cars (which would be forced to charge up on the exorbitantly expensive electricity).

According to a recent analysis, writes Zschäpitz, “Consumers are now paying more for their power than ever before” — some 30.27 euro cents per kilowatt hour. Families today are paying 21% more for electricity than they did 5 years ago.

So what is driving the rapid upward price spiral?

Zschäpitz reports that it’s due mostly to the “Energiewende” – Germany’s push away from nuclear and fossil generated power to renewables such as wind, solar and biogas. Also driving the price are the energy price breaks that are granted to big power consumers, and liability costs for offshore wind parks. Moreover Zschäpitz reports that consumers are also forced to pick up the tab for upgrading the power grid so that it is able to handle the wildly fluctuating power supply from wind and sun.

In the meantime, Germany’s CO2 emissions have been rising, and thus consumers are not really getting anything for the massive amounts of money.

To illustrate the distortion gripping the German power market, Zschäpitz tells readers that today only 27% of the power price is made up of “pure raw material costs”. The electricity production cost by itself has in fact “fallen by 25% over the past few years“. However this cost reduction has been offset and more by other feed-in and grid operating surcharges levied as a result of the Energiewende. This leads Die Welt’s Zschäpitz to conclude:

Thus power consumers are now more burdened with state taxes and fees than automobile drivers.”

For relief, power consumers do have the option of switching to private power providers, and doing so is non-problematic, Zschäpitz writes. However one thing is sure: Electricity prices are expected to keep rising.

 

60 responses to “Up! Up! And Away! Leading Daily Die Welt Reports: “Electricity In Germany More Expensive Than Ever””

  1. Dave Ward

    Cue “sod” dropping by to tell us it’s all perfectly reasonable, in 3-2-1…..

  2. Mike Haseler (Scottish Sceptic)

    When you’ve got bird-mincers that don’t actually produce more energy in their life-time than it takes to build and install them, then roughly the energy price is cost / (1-fraction-wind) so as the fraction of wind and other crazy power sources tends to 1, the energy price tends toward infinity.

  3. sod

    I am sorry, but this is an incredible amount of confusion and a total misunderstanding of basic facts.

    The important basic facts are:

    1. use of electricity is declining. we use less. That for, comparing costs of a fixed amount is a trick!

    2. The market price of electricity is falling. It is a problem of the EEG (fixed prices show an increased “cost” when market prices fall, a statistical artefact caused by unfair distribution of the costs ), that this seems to increase the costs of renewable energies and of electricity in general. because it actually is the opposite.

    3. German CO2 output has to be seen in the context of increasing electricity exports. Using these numbers is a trick.

    4. as the article shows, there are plenty of offers of cheaper electricity. people still do not change. Obviously electricity prices are not a real problem for the majority.

    1. Walter H. Schneider

      My, oh my, sod, are you ever tricky!

    2. David Johnson

      Ha ha ha. Try telling that to a poor person

      1. sod

        “Ha ha ha. Try telling that to a poor person”

        funny combination of the “ha ha” while talking about poor people.

        As we saw in the recent past that poor people are forced to pay MORE for electricity via pre paid meters than anyone else does.

        https://notrickszone.com/2016/03/29/europe-lets-its-citizens-to-freeze-to-death-40000-dead-in-winter-2014-as-energy-poverty-explodes/

        At the same time, we learn in this article, that the majority of people does not change to cheaper suppliers.

        http://www.welt.de/finanzen/article154788688/Strom-ist-teuer-wie-nie-Wie-es-dazu-kam.html

        So the problem are not high electricity prices. The problem is being poor.

        1. Colorado Wellington

          An excellent analysis, sod. When people are starving because they can’t afford to buy enough food, the problem is not that subsidized ethanol production drove food prices up but because the are poor.

          It’s also easy to fix. We just give them money and they’ll be poor no more.

        2. DirkH

          “So the problem are not high electricity prices. The problem is being poor.”

          And ruinous deficit-making and market destruction by Green central planning is supposed to make us rich HOW?

        3. M E

          Haha tell that to a poor person. The haha refers to the assertion and not to the poor person. Perhaps you could study English usage. English is a flexible idiomatic language and often uses irony or humour and in serious conversation.
          http://www.worldwidewords.org/
          This site will give you access to sites which relate to the English Language as it is used world wide.
          Also look for a site which gives you a link to Roget’s Thesaurus. (Look that up.) Unless you wish to purchase the book, of course. If not you may find you are often “talking at cross purposes” with the users of English on this site.

    3. DirkH

      “1. use of electricity is declining. we use less. That for, comparing costs of a fixed amount is a trick!”

      I hear that Venezuela has managed to reduce their use of toilet paper a large amount. They must be very wealthy by now.

      1. Colorado Wellington

        You are on thin ice, Dirk. These guys studied their Marx, Engels and Lenin.

        Buddy can show you on Bloomberg a Bolivarian proclamation of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela that state-controlled wholesale toilet paper prices have been falling ever since the Maduro government seized the toilet paper plants, imprisoned spies, hoarders and wreckers, and issued decrees on production quotas.

        The statistics of the Consejo de Administración de Papel Higiénico show that toilet paper usage in Venezuela dropped sharply and prices are not a real problem for the majority, which also supports sod’s claim.

        Freedom is the recognition of necessity. When something is unavailable it doesn’t bother you how much it costs.

    4. handjive

      sod.
      If ” use of electricity is declining”, then so is your quality of life:

      “The United Nations specifically links improvement in life expectancy, educational attainment and per capita income to energy use. ”

      https://www.advancedenergyforlife.com/article/energy-access-key-better-life

      “As for any politicians who have ever believed in global warming, or supported the carbon tax, or a carbon-constrained economy, there is no hope for them.

      They are either too stupid or incompetent to be taken seriously.

      Make their lives hell too, just as they wished a diminished life on you.”

      http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=5257

  4. Walter H. Schneider

    A price of Euro 0.3027 per kWh works out to Can$0.38 per kWh.
    The retail consumer price of a kWh in Alberta, Canada, is Can$0.0671 or 17.7 percent of what it is in Germany.

    1. sod

      “The retail consumer price of a kWh in Alberta, Canada, is Can$0.0671 or 17.7 percent of what it is in Germany.”

      And use per capita in Canada is 15500 kWh, while it is 7000 in Germany.

      http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC

      1. Hoi Polloi

        Can you imagine what fortune they would have to pay if it were German rates….

        1. sod

          “Can you imagine what fortune they would have to pay if it were German rates….”

          Can you imagine, what if there was some connection between price and demand?!?

          1. Analitik

            Germans must be really quite poor by your reasoning, sod.

            There must be large demand for German power and it must be cheap because so much of it is exported yet German citizens cannot afford to use much for themselves.

            Balderdash

          2. sod

            “There must be large demand for German power and it must be cheap because so much of it is exported yet German citizens cannot afford to use much for themselves.”

            you do not have any numbers to support your claims, do you?

            How many Germans are too poor to afford electricity and would not be poor if electricity price was lower?

          3. DirkH

            “Can you imagine, what if there was some connection between price and demand?!?”

            Well the state increases the price of electricity to the consumer about 3fold by slapping taxes, fees and the FIT fee of 6.5 cents on each kWh.

            It is therefore not a free market but a politically distorted market; as the SPD-CDU state needs billions and billions to pay for all kinds of unproductive endeavours of which the 31 bn EUR/year wind and solar waste is only a small part.

            A whole caste of useless eaters needs fed.

          4. sod

            “It is therefore not a free market but a politically distorted market;”

            That is perfectly fine. Nuclear just found out, that they can not afford the storage of their waste. Diesel companies found out, that only cheating allowed them to stick to the laws.

            The state intervenes to reduce damages to the public. That is fine.

          5. DirkH

            “Diesel companies found out, that only cheating allowed them to stick to the laws. ”

            Californians are as anyone knows the most complete eco-morons on planet Earth, worse than Freiburg citizens. And have a nitrous oxide limit 4 times less than even the EU politcommissars. *I* would have put a sticker on my cars saying, not legal to drive in the land of fruits and nuts and be done with it.

            What the stupidity of some managers at a mostly privately owned company has to do with politically rigged markets is only known to you. Probably even your *Brain* doesn’t know what you were thinking there.

      2. DirkH

        “And use per capita in Canada is 15500 kWh, while it is 7000 in Germany. ”

        You start with the CONSUMER prices, then you gives us non-consumer, but TOTAL electricity consumption? You didn’t even notice, right?
        A private consumer in Germany consumes about 2000 to 3000 kWh a year.

        So, you fetch SOME number , don’t even think about it, and throw it at the wall to see whether it sticks.

        This is the entirely careless attitude of Greens with numbers. Innumeracy. That’s why you promote ruinous policies.

        1. Analitik

          It’s not careless at all. The brandishing of related but uncorrelated figures by Greens is all designed to deflect from the lack of substance the their arguements. Their policies are ruinous by intent because they have an underlying disdain for industrialized civilisation.

        2. sod

          “So, you fetch SOME number , don’t even think about it, and throw it at the wall to see whether it sticks.”

          Yes, i am really sorry.

          http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/household1.gif

          so, households in Canada use over 3 times as much electricity as the average German household. so the real cost comparison is even worse than i thought.

          Thanks for pointing this out!

          1. Analitik

            WTF are you driving at, sod?

            Canadian households use 3 times as much electrical power as German ones. What does that have to do with German residential power rates being 5 times that of Canada?

            The basic fact is that electricity costs German residents much more than Canadians (and most of the industrialized world). The household bill is an irrelevancy you greenwash use to try and distract from this basic fact.

            The really stupid thing about your arguement is that even after you factor in the usage, the average household power bill is still cheaper in Canada than Germany. The greater “efficiency” of German households actually makes your position worse.

          2. DirkH

            I still find it amusing that sod claimed a German consumer uses 7000 kWh. He never even read his own electricity bill! Meaning, he lives in a care home, or he is a kid living in the basement of his parents who pay for him! Hey sod, your policies are ruining your poor father! You hate him right? Why do you hate your father?

      3. Dave Ward

        It’s hardly surprising German per capita usage is lower. When you have to pay over 5 times as much per unit, of course you will try hard to use less! But this is exactly what you Greens want, isn’t it? Push up costs so much that we all go back to living in huts with none of the facilities and benefits we have now.

        1. DirkH

          Two reasons for lower German consumption:
          a) Next to zero German households have A/C. We don’t need to, 90% of the year – in the North, 99% of the year.
          b) Politicians have meddled with taxation and subsidies forever to chase people into installing the heating systems the politicians want. From time to time it changes its flavor but discouraging electric heating has been a constant for the past 40 years or so. Currently it’s the wood pellet heater, district heating, and gas heaters, often as micro-combined cycle, i.e. producing heat and electricity, for multi apartment units; there’s a subsidy for that.

          So, electric heating is mostly nonexistent here. Places like Washington or Norway brimming with hydropower have different priorities.

  5. Mcguintylies

    Subject: Gangsters in our house. Our Provincial House of Parliament that is.

    Yes something stinks in Denmark and that stink has permeated the hearts and minds of democratic populations world wide.

    No, I am not talking about third world countries. I am talking about Ontario Canada and our legislative assembly. The quest for money and power has grown and become so strong that our own provincial government and governments through out the free world have slithered in bed with a very popular industry. Their pet industry. An industry that has used fear mongering tactics to scare us into submission. An industry that played on our desire to protect the future for our grandchildren. An industry that has gained trillions of dollars from our public purses. We have been sold a pig in a poke. This industry, no matter the trillions of dollars thrown at it, has failed miserably in Europe. Even worse is that now there is not even a nickel left to spend to develop better solutions.

    Now we can not even admit that we were sold a pig in a poke. Too much money has been invested. We are now in the position of having to protect our vested interest. And what rings true is that pride will always come before the fall.

    In desperation to our perception of the need to save our planet, we have blindly jumped on board a runaway train. We became the whipping post for blame. We feel guilty and to ease our collective conscience we clung to the notion that our government could embrace an ideology and embrace it with religious fervor not seen since the dark ages.

    Bigger than a gold rush, a wild west free for all exploded and exploited at break neck speed. Developers jumped on the band wagon and have been free to rape and plunder our lands, our wildlife and our economy. Money was donated to the provincial party in power to grant approvals. Especially if opposition to the project caused a slow down in the application of the project. Freedom of information requested by opposition was stalled or then trickled through having been heavily redacted with black marker.
    Back room deals were made. A former leader of their party was given a 1.8 billion dollar wind facility contract. In rural municipalities, mayors and councilors did not admit they had signed up to host wind projects on their own personal farm land. They did not step aside from the discussion and they vehemently rebuffed local opposition.

    Before long 91 rural municipalities would declare themselves as “not a willing host” because our Premier promised not to force wind projects on unwilling hosts. She lied. They have been forced on unwilling rural municipalities.

    The current government does not need the sparse amount of votes that would have come from rural Ontario. So they choose to ignore us completely.
    Opposition parties in our government were at first reluctant to speak out against the popularity of our current governments seemingly green solutions to combat climate change. This would cost them party support. Such was the fervor.

    Economies the world over have suffered. They have had to cut essential services in order to support this Energy Revolution. I am talking about the Green Revolution backed by the richest Green lobby groups in the world, the Green boots came marching, marching marching. We welcomed them with open arms.

    Do we need to do everything in our power to arrest climate change? Yes,most definitely. But that is only IF it is in our control. There is much debate on this.

    Will huge wind turbines and solar farms arrest climate change? Most definitely not. Our expensive experiment of plastering rural country sides with wind turbines and solar farms for over thirty years has failed. Their total supply to our grids world wide have been less that Net 0 %. We have not reduced emissions anywhere in the world. In fact, emissions have increased due to their very intermittent nature and reliance on fossil fuel back up. Gas plants and coal plants have to run hot and at the ready to kick in when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. This contributes to even more emissions. This on and off, up and down destabilizes the grid as well.

    Germany has had to install 26 new coal plants to back up their wind turbines. Germany has to import gas from Russia. China is building new coal plants at break neck speed and has admitted that they hope to supply Europe with energy. ( Shocked? ) Look at a globe of our planet and use a string to mark the distance from Northern China to Europe. Scary huh?

    Most fervent supporters of wind and solar in governments throughout Europe have admitted defeat. They are pulling the plug on these forms of so called green energy. They are cutting subsidies to the wind industry and solar farms and hoping to starve them out. Hoping that they will fade into a bad memory and over time be forgotten by the public or at the very least be forgiven by the public and written off as good intentions that just didn’t work. Jobs lost and lives destroyed, scenic tourist sites and historic landscapes ruined. Raptors and bats slaughtered by the millions are all that will remain of the biggest boondoggle in history of mankind.

    Not in our province though. Like a headstrong teenager, we continue to forge ahead, hell bent for self destruction and let our provincial government approve thousands more wind turbines. The green boots still come marching , marching marching. Our government deceives us by boasting that we no longer use coal as a source of energy. That is lying by omission. Our government omits telling us that we no longer use coal because we now use gas and have to build new gas plants to back up our wind turbines. Our gas plants have to run constantly at the ready to kick in when the blades of wind turbines stand idle. Both wind, solar and gas plants must be paid dearly, regardless of whether they produce or not.

    Our provincial government has spent so much of our tax dollars on this folly that we can not pay off our 300 billion dollar deficit. In fact our provincial government is in a state of panic and as all decisions made in a panic, the decision to sell off our valuable asset of our publicly owned Hydro |One is pure lunacy. Making cuts to our hospitals and schools is sheer lunacy too.

    Due to the depleted auto sector, Ontario has a lower demand for electricity in recent years and we actually have a surplus of electricity. Adding expensive wind power to that surplus and having no way to store that wind power is forcing us to sell our excess energy to US markets at a huge loss. At times we even have to pay US jurisdictions to take our excess power. In fact we have so much surplus power that we have to dump or spill off water at Niagara to avoid making more unneeded power. This has to be paid for too! We also have to steam off our gas plants to reduce power. We also have to power down our nuclear plants.

    In Ontario the wind blows more often at night when we are sleeping and not using as much power. I have read reports that 87% of the 3% wind turbines contribute to the Ontario grid is produced at night.

    On our hot sticky summer days when power demand is up because we need our air conditioners to cool us, the wind does not blow, yet we pay for wind turbines to sit idle while we also pay gas and nuclear to supply us with the power we need.

    On our coldest days of winter when power demand is up and we need our furnaces to run steady to keep us warm, the wind does not blow. Yet we pay for wind turbines to stand still while we also pay for gas and nuclear to supply us with the power we need. In the spring and fall time when the wind blows the most, we do not need as much power so we dump power.

    No one wants to like Nuclear power. We are afraid of a nuclear disaster.

    Proponents of wind power say to opponents of wind power.” Would you like a nuclear facility beside your house instead of a wind turbine?”
    What utter nonsense.
    It would take millions of 50 story wind turbines and still they would not be able to produce the green emission free power that a relative few nuclear plants produce. In fact there is not enough space on our planet to replace nuclear plants with wind turbines. This has been extrapolated by mathematicians.

    Can wind power ever work in an efficient and profitable way? Yes, a smaller one in my rural back yard or on a urban rooftop may on a windy days give you enough juice to run you clothes dryer or refrigerator for a while as long as the wind kept blowing.

    Can solar panels ever work in an efficient and profitable way? Yes, in summer months when there is more sunshine, if they are placed on rooftops of all government buildings but solar power has not done too well in Spain or Germany. Perhaps in Africa and in deserts. However, huge mirrored solar facilities in California have proven to attract birds to reflections of the sky and ignite them in flight. The dead birds are referred to as “streamers” when they evaporate in a stream of smoke. Did I read that streamers are observed at 3 streamers a minute or 1 streamer every three minutes? What difference? This is abhorrent to me.

    Is green, emission free nuclear power as dangerous as we think it is. Maybe but it sure has a good track record. Ontario is not at risk for a sunammi as was Japan. Poor siting of the nuclear facility is what caused the Fukishima disaster.

    Let’s talk about dangerous accidents.

    I have sharp dangerous knives in my kitchen. I keep them out of reach of children.
    I have dangerous medications in my medicine cabinet. I keep them away from children.
    Ontarians, by law must keep dangerous hunting rifles and shells under lock and key.
    I have dangerous anti freeze and paint thinners and such in my garage. I keep them up high out of reach of children and pets.

    Living in rural Ontario, I have a gas furnace converted to use dangerous propane because equally dangerous gas is not available in most rural areas.
    We have regulations and rules for the safe operation of propane and gas

    As a child I grew up with a wood burning cook stove that burned buckets of coal all night long and kept us warm when the temperature occasionally dipped to 20 and 30 below zero. Sometimes the cast iron belly of that cook stove glowed red in the dark but my grandfather made sure he placed the stove out from the wall and the wall behind the stove had a panel of steel on it. Our stove pipes were taken outside and taken apart each spring and the soot and flammable creosote was cleaned out.

    The stovepipe extended through the bedroom upstairs and kept the bedroom toasty warm. Now of course there are new fireproof stove and fireplace chimney liners required by law that are much safer.

    Driving a vehicle especially on slippery roads is very dangerous. By law we are required to wear seat belts and most cars have air bags to help keep us safer. We pay taxes for our roads to be sanded and use salt to melt the ice and snow. They are still dangerous but we have to use caution.

    My point here is that many things we need and use are very dangerous.

    Nuclear power is not perfect but it has provided the world with the most reliable and constant base load power with safety mechanisms to prevent a melt down or nuclear disaster. However, IF we spent the money on investigating newer and better forms of emission free power production that we are now spending on wind and solar power, I believe that mankind would come up with an even better source of power. Not long ago it was seen as impossible to land on the moon but we did it.

    Cheap and affordable power is what provided the prosperous and healthy lifestyles that we have been blessed with. It allowed us to refrigerate food. Cook our meals in safe ovens. It allowed us to manufacture goods and create jobs.

    The reverse happens when you make electricity so expensive and so unaffordable that manufacturing plants close up and move to jurisdictions that use cheaper rates. This has happened in Germany. It has happened in Ontario. We have lost 300 thousand jobs in Ontario because companies couldn’t afford their power bills. The US invited them and seduced them to move their operations to the US where electricity prices are much lower. Some manufacturing plants in Germany have switched over to diesel powered generators and are off grid. How does that stop emissions? Spain was caught in a scandal because they used gas powered generators to power solar farms at night!

    Yes crooks will always try and beat the system when they can make a profit.

    Gangsters in Italy were arrested and all their opulent booty confiscated when they were caught terrorizing local farmers to sign up for wind projects and give most of their profit to the mob.

    We have a different kind of gangster in our House of Parliament.

    Aside from possible pay offs and back room deals or bum kissing for popularity votes to keep them in power. These elected officials are very cunning. They have the power to change the rules of law.

    They created an Act. Acts are usually only used in a state of emergency such as the War Measures Act. You know, such as rationing sugar or fuel consumption or having a night time curfew to be off the streets.

    This government decided to halt the growing opposition in rural Ontario to wind and solar projects that are devastating rural Ontario’s communities.

    Our government decided to create the Green Energy and Economy Act that came into law in 2009.

    They simply declared in this Act that all municipalities would no longer have any planning authority for their land use when it pertains to green energy.

    There should have been an uproar. People gave up their right to lower tier government planning without a squawk! Why? Partly because rural
    municipalities depend on being given money from the Province so they did not want to rock the boat.

    Lower tier government is the backbone of any sustainable society. To give this right up is to expose yourself to fascism. It allows for a totalitarian system. It defeats democracy. For us to have allowed this Act to become law is a very slippery slope indeed. Only your municipality knows where the shoe pinches. Your municipality knows where and how it needs growth or needs to stop growth.

    Municipalities get elected to represent the people. We place trust that the constituents and taxpayers will be listened to by the municipality.

    The provincial government that once swore into law to the protection of wildlife has now been issuing permits to harass, harm and kill wildlife to make way for not only the wind turbines and solar farms but also all the miles of roadways into the wind turbines that will enable servicing. The clear cutting of forests has been allowed to accommodate the building of wind turbines projects.

    A very serious matter is that bats have been seriously threatened to extinction first by white nose syndrome which caused them to be listed as an endangered species that they urgently need to be protected and yet now are allowed to be slaughtered by having their lungs exploded by the pressure drop behind the whirling turbine blades. It seems that insects are drawn to the lights on the tall towers and bats follow to eat the insects. No bats means more insects and the need for our crops to be sprayed with stronger pesticides.

    Even our bird migratory flight paths have not been protected from the onslaught of wind turbines. This is shocking.

    This is how far we have come from reason in a knee jerk reaction to the fear of climate change.

    Yes we do need to make sure we have a cleaner and greener planet. that is why we work so hard to recycle garbage. That is why we have catalytic converters on our automobiles. That is why we had such efficient scrubbers on our coal plants.
    That is how we have had the good quality of air that we have enjoyed in Ontario since the 1980’s.

    The only thing that the proliferation of wind turbines has accomplished for Ontario is the wealth transfer out of the public coffers to the wind industry most of whom are foreign owned companies.

    Our government continues to foster the perception that our government is helping to stop climate change by lowering emissions and therefore enabling our current government to garner votes from the uninformed and urban population that will keep them in power while the runaway train picks up speed.

    This self interest by the government and in collusion with the wind industry not only defies logic but is criminal.

    Let me conclude with a wise quote from the wisdom of long ago.

    In an address on curbing monopolies to Congress on April 29, ,1938.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt said:

    Quote: ” The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power, to the point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism. Ownership of government by an individual, a group or any controlling power. ” End Quote.

    May I suggest that the green movement has become stronger than our state.

    Our liberty and democracy is no longer safe. What is happening in Ontario is fascism. It is criminal. The wind industry has taken over our government.

    Will voters see that the Emperor has no clothes before it is too late for Ontario?

    We can not rely on hope. We must take action.

    1. DirkH

      “In an address on curbing monopolies to Congress on April 29, ,1938.
      Franklin D. Roosevelt said:[…]”

      …and replaced them with the biggest monopoly of all, his central-planning government…

      1. Colorado Wellington

        Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato.

        -Franklin Benito Roosevelt

      2. Colorado Wellington

        The atmosphere in Washington is] “strangely reminiscent of Rome in the first weeks after the march of the Blackshirts, of Moscow at the beginning of the Five-Year Plan… America today literally asks for orders.”

        [The Roosevelt administration] “envisages a federation of industry, labor and government after the fashion of the corporative State as it exists in Italy.”

        — Anne O’Hare McCormick, New York Times, May 7, 1933

        ———-
        Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933–1939, by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, New York: Metropolitan Books, 242 pages, $26

        Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt, Reason Magazine, October 2007

        1. DirkH

          Well the NYT would write that, wouldn’t she.

        2. yonason

          Have I posted this here before?
          http://jonjayray.tripod.com/amerfasc.html

          There’s a strong fascist element in American politics, and has been probably long before it had that name. And, yes, Roosevelt was one, as was Wilson, btw.
          https://conservativecolloquium.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/woodrow-wilson-americas-worst-and-first-fascist-president/

          …connecting the dots…
          http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1223

    2. yonason

      “…something stinks in Denmark…” –

      And they themselves are beginning to smell it’s overpoweringly foul odor.
      https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/denmark-slashes-wind-power-subsidies-to-curb-runaway-power-costs/

      Given that Germany is figuratively speaking downwind of them, and in possession of even vaster quantities of the same rotting , it won’t be long before she also realizes that such a stench is not something they should be renewing.

  6. Buddy

    Rising prices of electricity in Germany…REALLY?

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-25/why-do-germany-s-electricity-prices-keep-falling-

    And because of the falling prices of electricity…more good news for the fossil fuel companies:

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/28/3773396/germany-ev-announcement/

    So let me get this straight: Germany will have lower electricity costs, and lower “fuel bills”…and fewer toxic chemicals in the land/air/water.

    I think you guys should be working on a way to get those toxic chemicals back in the land/air/water now that we are moving away from fossil fuels. Then we won’t know the difference…..:)

    Cheers as always….your Buddy

    1. DirkH

      “So let me get this straight: Germany will have lower electricity costs”

      Nope.
      Not gonna happen.
      Maybe stop reading Bloomberg. It makes you stupider.

  7. Big Al Z

    The Bloomberg article shows a chart that begins in 2008. Talk about “cherry picking” a start date. Of course electricity prices dropped since then. Oil was $140 a barrel in April 2008 and oil is still a large factor in producing electricity.

    1. sod

      “oil is still a large factor in producing electricity.”

      No, it is not.

      1. AndyG55

        oops. dumb s.o.b. stuffs up ie WRONG, yet again

        There are still many countries that get a significant % of their electricity from oil

        http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.PETR.ZS

        1. sod

          “oops. dumb s.o.b. stuffs up ie WRONG, yet again

          There are still many countries that get a significant % of their electricity from oil”

          we are talking about Germany here.

          http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-25/why-do-germany-s-electricity-prices-keep-falling-

          Oil, even if added as transport costs and stuff, will not be a huge part in German electricity prices.

          1. AndyG55

            With lots of cheap coal..

            of course not.

      2. DirkH

        sod, the German government takes a tax share of 70% of the price at the pump (It varies and is currently larger – as the “Energiesteuer”, formerly known as “Mineraloelsteuer”, “Rock Oil tax” is a fixed amount per liter, i.e. the percentage of tax take becomes larger as oil price drops).

        Not all countries finance a huge bureaucracy with fuel sales. In those countries, burning dirt-cheap petroleum for electricity is easily profitable (Meaning: The produced electricity creates more wealth than the oil costs).

        And why shouldn’t they? Oil has never been as abundant as today. Can we continue that forever? Well who knows? If oil is abiogenic, maybe. Personally I find it IMPOSSIBLE that ancient algae have stayed unocidized for millions of years EXACTLY WHERE THE FAULT LINES of the Earth’s crust are! That’s a RIDICULOUS theory!

        1. sod

          “In those countries, burning dirt-cheap petroleum for electricity is easily profitable (Meaning: The produced electricity creates more wealth than the oil costs).”

          It does not. you stuck on a primary school understanding of economics.

          Most places have to import oil. Paying countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia for oil, with money from a poor country, is plain out moronic.

          The places that are burning oil for electricity without having access to own oil (mostly islands) are going to be the first places to switch to renewables, which provide electricity at a much lower price.
          But rejoice, they might need a little bit of diesel backup for some time still.

          1. Dave Ward

            “But rejoice, they might need a little bit of diesel backup for some time still”

            Wrong (again). You know damn well that renewables can NEVER be relied on to provide power 24/7/365, so there will always be a requirement for full back-up (unless consumers are happy to have the lights go out). I know you follow Euan Mearns blog, so don’t try and pretend this is only a minor problem which will soon be solved…

          2. Graeme No.3

            Dave Ward:

            Actually there is a grain of truth in what sod says, despite him trying to change the question, as usual. ( Mark the day as special if you feel like it ).
            Importing oil for diesel to isolated islands is expensive, and there is the question of the quality supplied. Simply put, when the cost of diesel is higher than the cost of wind (and associated costs), then isolated sites will switch to wind. It is simple economics, although sod shows small understanding of that.
            The outstanding example I am aware of is the Falkland Islands. There is a diesel power station supplying (mostly) the capital Stanley where much of the population live. The head of the power station (a qualified electrical engineer and a very smart chap) fought a bureaucratic battle but brought the initial wind farm under the control of the power station. The second wind farm followed.
            The wind farms are similar and 3 small turbines each, and the power station has 8 diesel generators.
            As I am sure you know wind turbines have motors which control the angle of the blades, so the angle can be made more INEFFICIENT as the wind speed increases until the turbines stops generating at the maximum wind speed it can tolerate.
            By using this feedback the power station could “throttle back” the wind turbines, and then make minor adjustments as the wind speed changed. The effect was that the turbines delivered less than their theoretical amount, but what they delivered was more constant, hence the diesels could run more efficiently without constant speed changes.
            There was another gain in efficiency made by utilising some of the wast heat of the turbines to supply area hot water heating to the capital Stanley. The net result was a reduction in diesel usage of 30% per annum, and it might have been slightly more but for the low quality of the last annual delivery.
            I am told that this idea is being implemented in other islands in the South Atlantic, and maybe elsewhere.
            The other example I raise is Shetland. There the electricity is diesel generated but the wind farm output is directed into heating a large tank of water. This hot water is circulated as an area heating arangement in Lerwick, the capital and location of 70% of the population. I am sure you, unlike sod, will see the advantages of having the variable wind generation dumped into a storage system. That the use of this storage can be “averaged out” and utilised as a way of reducing electricity demand (for heating) and reducing emissions from peat fires is only possible because the Shetlands require heating 12 months a year. (If sod ever had to rely on ‘renewable’ and very smokey peat for heating, he would soon endorse clean electricity). Again there are plans to extend this to other parts of Shetland, but having visited those islands I am unsure how economic it will be outside of Lerwick. But it will be an advantage as a way of reducing the disruption of wind to conventional generators.

          3. DirkH

            ““In those countries, burning dirt-cheap petroleum for electricity is easily profitable (Meaning: The produced electricity creates more wealth than the oil costs).”

            It does not. you stuck on a primary school understanding of economics. ”

            Except for cases where it does, which depends on the NUMBERS. I hope that word doesn’t trigger you.

          4. Colorado Wellington

            “It is simple economics, although sod shows small understanding of that.”

            Graeme,

            I appreciate your real life case report but the above sentence is a gross overstatement and I think you know it.

            I know quite a few people on the North American mainland who made similarly competent decisions because they chose to live in places where connecting to the grid was either uneconomical or outright impossible and transporting other sources of energy difficult and expensive. All of them understand the economics and the technical parameters and limitations of their installations in a way sod does not because he’s applying ideological rather than economical and operational criteria.

            I am not saying that these individuals are free of ideology or that they necessarily agree with my view of the world. They are mostly very determined and creative individuals and they have their own, sometimes peculiar views. It’s just that when it comes to generating electricity and producing heat to support their chosen lifestyles, there is no place for sod’s fudging. They know they can’t cheat physics or the purse.

            Now, I wonder what would happen to the urbanite green sods of the world if they were forced to live and make a living on any of the cold, remote islands you have mentioned. If they made it at all, I reckon they would wise up really fast or become very unpopular with their neighbors if they tried to force their “solutions” on them.

            I bet on the former. Reality has a way of intruding on silly theories and it’s not a good thing to be unpopular on a cold, remote island.

          5. sod

            ” The net result was a reduction in diesel usage of 30% per annum, ”

            30% per annum is nothing special and can be reached without any changes to every grid. each island will do this soon and this will be a heavy hit to whoever is selling diesel to them.

            but island can also get 60+% wind and solar, with a little storage (which can compete with diesel).

            and then the one year supply starts lasting for 3 years.

        2. Graeme No.3

          Colorado Wellington:

          where did I ever challenge the knowledge of the people you mention (except sod)? Renewables might well be the right answer when not connected to the grid, and I wrote about 2 cases where it applied to communities.
          As for sod’s lack of knowledge of economics I stand by my statement.

          1. Colorado Wellington

            “… where did I ever challenge the knowledge of the people you mention ..:?”

            You didn’t. I completely agree with you about the usage of the technologies under those conditions and I think the cases you brought up are good examples of solutions I’ve seen working well myself.

            I just thought it was “gross overstatement” to say that “sod shows small understanding of [economics]”. He shows none. Zero is much smaller than small. For people like sod it’s like a badge of honor to disregard economics. Progressive virtue signaling.

            Sorry for leading you afield—it was not my intent. I don’t like using /sarc tags but maybe I should have added a little nod behind the “gross overstatement”. 🙂

            I think if you re-read my comment with that in your mind it will all make perfect sense.

          2. sod

            “For people like sod it’s like a badge of honor to disregard economics. ”

            wind and solar are cheaper than diesel on most islands.

            They will reach 30% easily everywhere. That is pure economics.

          3. DirkH

            sod 3. May 2016 at 11:23 AM | Permalink
            “They will reach 30% easily everywhere. That is pure economics.”

            Well your economics are Marxism; we know that because you call the left-leaning CDU ( http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/parteien-waehler-sehen-cdu-erstmals-links-der-mitte_id_5133198.html ) “extremely far right”.

            So. Wind and Solar energy exist in Germany ONLY because the government FORCES us to subsidize them with 31 bn EUR a year.

            In other words, they are uncompetitive EVEN in a country that has next to no own energy resources it can mine.

            They will be far MORE uncompetitive in countries that have such resources.

            Nearly NO country but Germany can AFFORD to lose that much money with that sillyness. Therefore, nearly no other country will offer the Wind and Solar industry the profit margins it needs to exist.

            Marxism of course can enforce it, until it inevitably implodes like it currently does in Venezuela. Even though they managed to implode even in spite of their oil resources. Goes to tell you that Marxism is the very BEST at imploding.

  8. DirkH

    Surprised, baffled, stunned warmunists discover Liebig’s Law, say that CO2 AND warming (whichever was the limiting factor) served to increase vegetation globally. In a stunning parallel to Liebig’s Law, they also happen to recognize that this cannot continue forever in those cases where ground nutrient then become the limiting factor! One wonders- these are too many coincidences – maybe one of them actually googled Liebig?
    http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/co2-macht-die-welt-gruener-a-1089850.html
    SPIEGEL is a Bertelsmann publication. (Paderborn; oligarchic)
    Nature Climate Change is a von Holtzbrinck Group publication. (Stuttgart, arch-green)

    1. DirkH

      Wait I confused that. Bertelsmann is Guetersloh – which is right next to Paderborn. My bad.

  9. Green Energy Fiasco | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
  10. Dave Ward

    @ Graeme No.3 2. May 2016 at 1:58 PM

    Thanks for that information, Graeme. If only such an “inclusive” approach was applied everywhere. But it won’t as long as warmunist policy runs the show, instead of simple economics and experienced engineers! I wonder how the German system would be performing if excessive wind & solar were NOT paid for or dumped on neighbouring countries, even when they don’t want it. I suspect there would be only a fraction the number of turbines and panels despoiling the countryside…

    1. Analitik

      There would be none.

      Graeme described remote communities where fuel needed to be imported. These are the circumstances where some renewable generation can be used to lower fuel consumption in the manner he described. Germany has ample coal supplies, nuclear plants and only gas and oil need to be imported for transport and peaking.

      Renewables make no sense in Germany but the regulations and subsidies have distorted the economics enough to make them appear competitive and worthwhile.

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