Germany’s largest circulation daily, BILD, recently wrote an article titled: The Multibillion Euro Madness With The Energiewende, which looks at the profound failure of Germany’s transition to renewable energies and the government bowing to the green energy lobby.
The BILD article refers to a recent German ARD public television documentary.
“Exploding costs”
BILD begins by bringing up the fact that many wind parks are built in places where there really isn’t that much wind to start with, and that in general “costs for the Energiewende are exploding” and it’s the landowners where the turbines are sited who are making money hand over fist. In the end the consumer picks up the tab for what many see as a rampant, crony-capitalist scheme that is benefitting only a select and elite few (who are already well off).
The result for the rest of the people are huge costs and no benefit of any type.
Bild writes:
Indeed what the lobby sold as a contribution to the rescue of the climate is foremost one thing: a multibillion-euro business!”
Bild also cites examples of how the industry is corrupt to the very core, citing internal e-mails from Germany’s number 1 environmentalist group BUND and showing how the activist organization “is doing the lobbying work for the wind industry. Of bird species that are chopped up by rotating blades, it is best not to speak about it.”
Even the BUND director admits that many of its members are active in the wind industry.
Bild writes in bold letters:
Single mother Nina Albig has two jobs, her power bill has double since 2008: 90 euros.”
Nina Albig tells BILD that she’s desperate and has no idea where to get the money to pay for the high costs. BILD writes that the government’s idea to revamp the country’s spiralling-out-of-control Energiewende is a good first step, but that there’s one obstacle: “The Lobby”. BILD quotes a top Green party official Anton Hofreiter, who shouted at a demonstration that was in large part attended by employees of the green energy industry who were bussed in free of charge: “We need wind turbines to rescue or planet.”
In the end BILD reports that the government bowed to The Lobby and decided to further expand wind energy, thus ratcheting up the pain consumers are having to endure. BILD summarizes:
The consumers will be asked to cough it up. That means all of us.”
Is democracy dead in Germany, or is there something in the water that has numbed people’s brains?
Judging from sod’s reactions, I’d say the latter.
It has to be said that the area where sod hails from – the SouthWest with its low-lying Rhine valley – is the region with the least clouds, and due to latitude, lapse rate and insolation the hottest area in Germany. So they became SO warmunist that they VOLUNTARILY voted a Green ex-commie, Kretschmann, into office – because they have been so stupefied that they believe the hot climate they have (and ALWAYS had) is a punishment for their carbon-burning sins.
So the more tupid the Leftgreen teachers manage to make the population, the bigger their success at the polls.
And yes, I worked there and everywhere else – the only True Believers in Warmunism in Germany I found in leftgreen Hamburg – and down in the Rhine area starting at Frankfurt and from there southwards.
Unfortunately these areas are also population-rich (as humans THRIVE in warm climates – or in mild coastal climates like in the case of Hamburg) – so they have a disproportionate influence on national policy.
Educate people and the Leftgreenism goes away. The state schools don’t educate: They disinform. (Gramscian strategy: March through the institutions: The leftgreens have overtaken the institutions.)
Well it’s easy. For the last 40 years the Left has successfully overtaken the public schools. They relentlessly drill socialism, environmentalism, genderism, islamophilia and all other SJW causes into pupil’s heads.
I experienced that during *MY* schooldays and that was 1980. So I stuck to STEM because they can’t so easily push their agenda there.
This relentless push towards insanity of course took its toll on the reasoning skills of the Germans – while the few logicians like me keep the wheels turning and for the moment keep this economy going – to the chagrin of the Leftists who’d rather see their glorious utopia emerge – whatever they think their world will look like – the Phalanx, More’s Utopia, unicorns, whatever – you and I know it’d be Maduro’s Venezuela.
“Or is there something in the water that has numbed people’s brains?”
There must be, judging by the comments that “sod” makes!
I just came back from Germany. Idle turbines line the A9 (highway). It’s a blight; ugly idle towers as far as the eye can see. So much for a beautiful green Germany.
“I just came back from Germany. Idle turbines line the A9 (highway). It’s a blight; ugly idle towers as far as the eye can see. So much for a beautiful green Germany.”
yeah, those ugly wind powers were obviously blocking your view of the beautiful highway. And did yoiu notice the noise of those bird shredders, while all those cars raced past you? It is horrible, horrible i say!
Complete waste of time http://euanmearns.com/an-update-on-the-energiewende/
“ugly highway”
“beautiful wind farm”
sod
Well, we’ve got one out of 3, anyway.
“yeah, those ugly wind powers were obviously blocking your view of the beautiful highway. And did yoiu notice the noise of those bird shredders, while all those cars raced past you? It is horrible, horrible i say!”
Well as opposed to the subsidy pumps, the highway is actually a necessary part of our infrastructure. Are you proposing a return to oxcarts? Well of course you do – you are a Green.
BTW: Traffic killed way more people when horse buggies were still in use. Not to speak of the huge inner city fires caused by burning horse feed. Read up on the NYC horse manure crisis ca. 1900. They were so desperate for any non horse based transportation they even had steam lokomotives on elevated tracks! And later, even electric cars – before something better got invented.
The exact meaning of the redistribution of wealth: from the poor to the rich. Here via electricity bills.
“The exact meaning of the redistribution of wealth: from the poor to the rich. Here via electricity bills.”
No. Look, i am all for redistribution the other way round 8and i am really surprised that my opinion gets so much support from the political right here!).
But your conclusion is too simple. In the real world, the once who really made money from the poor are the old energy giants. They had monopolitic positions and abused them to the maximum.
In the medium and long run, the poor will profit the most from these changes.
Oh you mean the state controlled energy generating monopolies we used to have in the UK fleeced the poor. At last you admit something worthwhile!! What is a monopolitic when it is at home? lol It appears you do not know what a monoply is either.
If your stated goals include depopulation of the planet, and all environmental groups desire to “manage human population”, somebody has to die, “saving lives” will not accomplish this goal. If policies seem odd, remember their goal, it explains everything they do.
The German economy is so strong that throwing money away on funding the Greeks and dumb energy policies is tolerable.
Your example may save many other nations from repeating your follies.
Curious George,
Wind and solar farms are examples of the “Reverse Robin Hood Principle” that robs the poor (via higher energy prices) to feed the rich (who receive government subsidies).
In the USA our energy scams are on a relatively small scale (e.g. Solyndra)but here is one that amounts to $1.9 billion, more than four times the size of Solyndra:
https://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/electric-power-in-florida/#comment-5507
This is just another thing that we’ve “unlearned” over time. Adam Smith (1723-90) on subsidies to the British herring fishing industry:
…it has, I am afraid, been too common for vessels to fit out for the sole purpose of catching, not the fish, but the bounty. (Bounty being 18th c. word for subsidy.)
Is it really true that the British subsidized their herring fishing industry in the eighteenth century? The citation may apply at the practice of privateering, in which ships got military personnel on board and some cannons and were allowed to hijack ships from the enemy, bring them to England and sell them for the best price. I found on the internet as meaning for ‘bounty’ money paid as reward.
Does the citation come from the Wealth of Nations, published 1776? I found on page 302 that the British indeed subsidized the herring fishery. See Google books.
“The losers are people who have little money. Single mother Nina Albig has two jobs, her power bill has double since 2008: 90 euros.””
If BILD is writing something in big letters, it is false.
Electricity prices simply have not doubled since 2008.
http://strom-report.de/strompreise/#strompreisentwicklung
neither has the cost per household (graph starts in 2010, but you can see the developments):
http://strom-report.de/strompreise/#stromrechnung-durchschnitt
The market price and prices for producing electricity are falling. But this is not directly passed on to private consumers (though they might benefit via cheaper products or jobs):
http://strom-report.de/strompreise/#strompreise-stromerzeugung
The whole article does completely ignore all facts (that is the reason why the only number cited is false), so it is obvious that people here will love it and endorse every single sentence of it. It is written in BILD, so it must be true! Next week in british tabloid The Sun: “The Sun is driving climate”. hold your breath!
“Next week in british tabloid The Sun: “The Sun is driving climate”. hold your breath!”
So if that is false , explain how the LIA came about. Did the medieval knights abandon their SUV fleets?
I see the German government is recommending that people stock pile food and water.
The 69-page report said an armed attack on Germany was unlikely. However, as a precaution people should “prepare appropriately for a development that could threaten our existence and cannot be categorically ruled out in the future,” FAS quoted the report as saying.
The civil defense strategy was originally commissioned by a parliamentary committee in 2012, but its release comes amid a raft of new security measures in the country.
Now this is supposedly about terrorist attacks but “prepare appropriately for a development that could threaten our existence …” surely includes extreme winter weather and the timing would be about correct to initialize action.
http://www.dw.com/en/report-germany-to-require-citizens-to-stockpile-supplies-in-case-of-catastrophe/a-19491176