German Green Minister President Blasts Own Party’s E-Car Target As “Nonsense”… “You Don’t Have a Clue!”

The following German Green Party national convention video is very amusing.

It shows a highly agitated Minister President of the state Baden Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, very angrily blasting his own Green Party’s “radical” call to eliminate fossil fuel cars in Germany by 2030 at a recent Green Party convention.

Kretschmann is clearly fed up with his party’s radical, ideological ideas.

Kretschmann today is one of the Green Party’s most prolific figures – the first Green Party member ever to become a state Minister, and that in a state that is considered a rather conservative one.

Ban fossil fuel cars by 2030

The video first features Green Party Chairperson Anton Hofreiter, a radical Green in just about every sense of the word, raging about the government protecting the evil auto industry, calling for radical measures against it and the elimination of fossil fuel cars by 2030.

At 0:32 we then see Kretschmann reacting in disbelief to the absurd demands made Hofreiter and the Green Party, and we see Kretschamnn explaining to a fellow Green Party Parliamentarian Matthias Gastel why the demand is so ridiculous.

As usual now comes Hofreiter with his wonderful story about Tesla. […] But just think about it for a moment. Imagine 5 million electric cars driving around. Where are they supposed to charge up?”

Then he explains to Parliamentarian Gastel how Germany is not even anywhere close to having enough charging stations to handle 5 millions electric cars.

At 1:18 he asks, becoming very agitated:

How is that supposed to work? You guys don’t have a clue!

Yet the people say that beginning in the year 2030, we can do all this. Those are idiotic target dates. If some asks: Explain to me how we are supposed to do this by this date, I can’t even begin to answer that. […]

We indeed have to figure out how it should work before spouting off radical statements. You can go ahead and do it. Do it! I don’t care! But then simply be happy with 6 or 8% [at the polls]. I used to be on the Party Advisory Board. I said it ten times: Okay, you can agree on that. But then be happy with 8 percent.” And then don’t go around complaining, and leave me alone! And do your campaign yourselves!

You guys always have something crazy in your head, without seeing the whole process. You can do what you want, but with myself as Minister President, I’m not playing along.”

Gastel ‘s resposnse to Kretschmann’s rant was almost as classic, and he let’s slip the true plot of the Green Party.

Winfried, the different roles at play here are clear to me. But we as a fraction in the German Parliament are serving our own clientel, and we are trying to expand it.”

At 2:37 the film switches to Green Party head Cem Özdemir, who claims the party is as unified as ever.

Expect the German Greens to remain at between 6 and 8 percent.

 

109 responses to “German Green Minister President Blasts Own Party’s E-Car Target As “Nonsense”… “You Don’t Have a Clue!””

  1. RAH

    I spent 3 years at Flint Kaserne, Bad Tolz and including TDY add close to another 2 years to that in Germany. The “greens” I remember are those that came out in force when R. Reagan deployed Pershing II missiles to the country and occasional encounters with individuals or small groups when out and about that usually said or did stupid stuff when they saw the uniform.

    I loved my time the Germany and was treated quite well by the general population and that was especially true in Bavaria.

    I get the impression that Germany today is not the same Germany that I and my family knew and loved back in the 80’s. But then again neither is the US.

    1. clivehoskin

      There is a paper whichcame out last week which said that just to produce ONE battery for the Tesla took 9 years worth of CO2,just for the BATTERY.That doesn’t take into account making the rest of the car or recharging it(with fossil fuels of course)

  2. John F. Hultquist

    Children learn to add, subtract, and then multiply.
    At this point — multiplication — one can show with simple calculations on a single sheet of paper why these great green schemes are stupendously stupid.
    Matt Ridley, among others, have shown these calculations.

    1. SebastianH

      I am interested in that calculation. Can you do it here in the comment section?

      1. Kenneth Richard

        http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
        Even put together, wind and photovoltaic solar are supplying less than 1 per cent of global energy demand. From the International Energy Agency’s 2016 Key Renewables Trends, we can see that wind provided 0.46 per cent of global energy consumption in 2014, and solar and tide combined provided 0.35 per cent. Remember this is total energy, not just electricity, which is less than a fifth of all final energy, the rest being the solid, gaseous, and liquid fuels that do the heavy lifting for heat, transport and industry.

        [One critic suggested I should have used the BP numbers instead, which show wind achieving 1.2% in 2014 rather than 0.46%. I chose not to do so mainly because that number is arrived at by falsely exaggerating the actual output of wind farms threefold in order to take into account that wind farms do not waste two-thirds of their energy as heat; also the source is an oil company, which would have given green blobbers a excuse to dismiss it, whereas the IEA is unimpeachable But it’s still a very small number, so it makes little difference.]

        Such numbers are not hard to find, but they don’t figure prominently in reports on energy derived from the unreliables lobby (solar and wind). Their trick is to hide behind the statement that close to 14 per cent of the world’s energy is renewable, with the implication that this is wind and solar. In fact the vast majority — three quarters — is biomass (mainly wood), and a very large part of that is ‘traditional biomass’; sticks and logs and dung burned by the poor in their homes to cook with. Those people need that energy, but they pay a big price in health problems caused by smoke inhalation.

        Even in rich countries playing with subsidised wind and solar, a huge slug of their renewable energy comes from wood and hydro, the reliable renewables. Meanwhile, world energy demand has been growing at about 2 per cent a year for nearly 40 years. Between 2013 and 2014, again using International Energy Agency data, it grew by just under 2,000 terawatt-hours.

        If wind turbines were to supply all of that growth but no more, how many would need to be built each year? The answer is nearly 350,000, since a two-megawatt turbine can produce about 0.005 terawatt-hours per annum. That’s one-and-a-half times as many as have been built in the world since governments started pouring consumer funds into this so-called industry in the early 2000s.

        At a density of, very roughly, 50 acres per megawatt, typical for wind farms, that many turbines would require a land area [half the size of] the British Isles, including Ireland. Every year. If we kept this up for 50 years, we would have covered every square mile of a land area [half] the size of Russia with wind farms. Remember, this would be just to fulfil the new demand for energy, not to displace the vast existing supply of energy from fossil fuels, which currently supply 80 per cent of global energy needs.

        Do not take refuge in the idea that wind turbines could become more efficient. There is a limit to how much energy you can extract from a moving fluid, the Betz limit, and wind turbines are already close to it. Their effectiveness (the load factor, to use the engineering term) is determined by the wind that is available, and that varies at its own sweet will from second to second, day to day, year to year.

        As machines, wind turbines are pretty good already; the problem is the wind resource itself, and we cannot change that. It’s a fluctuating stream of low–density energy. Mankind stopped using it for mission-critical transport and mechanical power long ago, for sound reasons. It’s just not very good.

        As for resource consumption and environmental impacts, the direct effects of wind turbines — killing birds and bats, sinking concrete foundations deep into wild lands — is bad enough. But out of sight and out of mind is the dirty pollution generated in Inner Mongolia by the mining of rare-earth metals for the magnets in the turbines. This generates toxic and radioactive waste on an epic scale, which is why the phrase ‘clean energy’ is such a sick joke and ministers should be ashamed every time it passes their lips.

        It gets worse. Wind turbines, apart from the fibreglass blades, are made mostly of steel, with concrete bases. They need about 200 times as much material per unit of capacity as a modern combined cycle gas turbine. Steel is made with coal, not just to provide the heat for smelting ore, but to supply the carbon in the alloy. Cement is also often made using coal. The machinery of ‘clean’ renewables is the output of the fossil fuel economy, and largely the coal economy.

        A two-megawatt wind turbine weighs about 250 tonnes, including the tower, nacelle, rotor and blades. Globally, it takes about half a tonne of coal to make a tonne of steel. Add another 25 tonnes of coal for making the cement and you’re talking 150 tonnes of coal per turbine. Now if we are to build 350,000 wind turbines a year (or a smaller number of bigger ones), just to keep up with increasing energy demand, that will require 50 million tonnes of coal a year. That’s about half the EU’s hard coal–mining output.

        Forgive me if you have heard this before, but I have a commercial interest in coal. Now it appears that the black stuff also gives me a commercial interest in ‘clean’, green wind power.

        The point of running through these numbers is to demonstrate that it is utterly futile, on a priori grounds, even to think that wind power can make any significant contribution to world energy supply, let alone to emissions reductions, without ruining the planet. As the late David MacKay pointed out years back, the arithmetic is against such unreliable renewables.

        1. SebastianH

          Copy and paste? Really? Doing that with an incorrect article doesn’t exactly increase confidence in you finally understanding your mistakes.

          Again, non-co2-emitting energy is already providing half of the annual increase in final energy consumption and those aren’t half of your quoted 350000 wind turbines. https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-new-bp-data-shows-emissions-flat-2016-record-rise-renewables

          Do you want to write something about expontential growth maybe and wind+solar still being around 1% despite exponential growth in the past? You didn’t notice your mistake with that conclusion, did you?

          Or maybe you want to write something about the difference between final energy consumption figures and primary energy consumption figures? I am not convinced you understand the difference and why renewables are under-represented in the later figure.

          It’s always when numbers are involved when problems with your argumentation occur.

          So please let’s here from John, what calculations he is talking about. I am still interested.

          1. Kenneth Richard

            John wrote:

            “Children learn to add, subtract, and then multiply. At this point — multiplication — one can show with simple calculations on a single sheet of paper why these great green schemes are stupendously stupid. Matt Ridley, among others, have shown these calculations.”

            John mentioned an analysis from Matt Ridley showing why the figures for wind don’t add up. So I copy/pasted from Dr. Ridley’s Wall Street Journal article, emboldening the relevant calculations as a means of supporting his statement. Then, in response, you called Dr. Ridley’s numbers “incorrect”, and proceeded to write…

            “So please let’s here from John, what calculations he is talking about. I am still interested.”

            It’s like trying to train a cat.

          2. AndyG55

            Actually Kenneth, cats can actually learn to do small things with persistent training.

            seb has no hope.

            All he has managed so far is to YAP on command.

        2. yonason (from my cell phone)

          And, worse still, the turbines catching the wind first produce the most power. The ones behind them catch the turbulent flow that passes them, producing even less, …etc for each succeeding turbine. Utter nonsense to think they are good for anything but bankrupting the citizens of the nations foolish enough to install them.

          1. richard verney

            Exactly. All of this is well known since anyone who has sailed knows all about wind shielding. It is one of the tactics used in racing and gives the windward boat a big advantage.

            Further, it is likely that we have already used the best sites for wind in the windfarms that have already been built. As new sits develop, they may be less ideally suited. This will probably mean that we will achieve an ever lower percentage of nameplate energy going forward. If so, the figures suggested by Keith will be on the low side.

            Yet further, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Extracting energy from wind has a knock on effect. As more and more energy is extracted from wind, the wind speed will reduce, and this may have a negative impact on climate. Indeed, there are studies which suggest that wind speed is presently reducing/weakening, and studies that suggest that there is more warming over windfarms. These might be simply micro-regional and micro-climatic, but then again, they may have larger import. Only time will tell.

            Materially, one tell when a technology has run its course. This is when miniaturization ceases. Look at computers, once they filled a room, now a laptop has the same processing power. Ditto valve amplifiers, the transistor, the IC chip. Look at mobile phones. Look at car engines and how these have developed these past 90 or so years.

            However, there is no miniaturization with wind turbines. We are not getting more power from ever small structures. If one wants more power, the only solution is to build a bigger turbine. Likewise there is no economy of scale, these turbines are individual units requiring individual siting and cannot be packed closer together because of wind shield. We cannot increase the density.

            We all know why our ancestors gave up the windmill, first for the water wheel, then for the steam engine etc. Wind turbines are a technology that past their zenith more than 400 years ago.

            Only the very stupid would think that the way to the future is to go back in time. Those that support the wind industry are simply plain dumb since the shortcomings with this technology are obvious to even a 13 year old school child.

        3. SebastianH

          John mentioned an analysis from Matt Ridley showing why the figures for wind don’t add up.

          I have to admit, I did not see that part of his comment. However, I was interested in whatever calculations he thought of and not a complete copy & paste that exceeds your usual barrage of quotes from papers, especially when the calculation is incorrect.

          Source: https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review-2017/bp-statistical-review-of-world-energy-2017-full-report.pdf

          Increase in primary power consumption from 2015 to 2016 was 1992.2 TWh. Renewables without hydro provided 615.2 TWh of that growth. According to page 6 of the report wind grew by 131 TWh (solar by 77 TWh). Converted into primary energy consumption figures (they use 38% as a conversion factor, which leads to renewables not being under-represented, similar to how it’s done for nuclear and hydro) this equals 344.7 TWh for wind (202.6 TWh for solar).

          So more than half of the growth in renewables was provided by wind power and 17.3% of the total growth in primary energy consumption (10.2% by solar).

          Increase in wind power was 15.6% from 2015 and solar 29.6%, so total wind power was 2209.6 TWh or 1.43% of total primary energy consumption. Solar power was 684.5 TWh or 0.44% of total primary energy consumption. Solar growth is faster than wind growth (in 10 years solar will provide the same amount of power as wind does by then, ~11000 TWh each or together 12% of the worlds primary energy consumption).

          Getting back to the yearly increase of 1992.2 TWh it seems unrealistic to want to cover it only with wind power, because solar is growing faster. There was also 315.2 TWh of growth in hydro power last year and biomass, geothermal and waste (67.9 TWh of the growth) wont stand still either. So 1061.8 TWh of growth (1992.2-615.2-315.2) need to be covered by both wind and solar, let’s say by equal parts. So additional 530.9 TWh of primary energy consumption or 201.7 TWh of final energy usage.

          So we have to increase yearly installed wind power by a factor of ~2.5 and solar power by a factor of ~3.6.

          At Germany’s wind capacity factor (17.9%) and average turbine size (2.7 MW) that’s around 47600 additional wind turbines per year to the current 31000 per year.

          I chose not to do so mainly because that number is arrived at by falsely exaggerating the actual output of wind farms threefold in order to take into account that wind farms do not waste two-thirds of their energy as heat

          Converting final energy usage to primary energy consumption by a factor is necessary to be able to compare the numbers. But then, you have a tendency to compare numbers which aren’t comparable, right?

          P.S.: Hydro and nuclear power also have a conversion factor in the BP report. They could also compare final energy usage, but they (and you or the article you copied) didn’t.

          1. Kenneth Richard

            “So we have to increase yearly installed wind power by a factor of ~2.5 and solar power by a factor of ~3.6. At Germany’s wind capacity factor (17.9%) and average turbine size (2.7 MW) that’s around 47600 additional wind turbines per year to the current 31000 per year.”

            In another world (in a peer-reviewed scientific paper), your factor of 2.5 is a factor of 37. So you’re a little off. Again.
            ————————–
            https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160323152508.htm#.VvkQjt-fbkw.twitter
            Efforts to curtail world temps will almost surely fail
            The Texas A&M researchers modelled the projected growth in global population and per capita energy consumption, as well as the size of known reserves of oil, coal and natural gas, and greenhouse gas emissions to determine just how difficult it will be to achieve the less-than-2 degree Celsius warming goal. “It would require rates of change in our energy infrastructure and energy mix that have never happened in world history and that are extremely unlikely to be achieved,” explains Jones.

            Just considering wind power, we found that it would take an annual installation of 485,000 5-megawatt wind turbines by 2028. The equivalent of about 13,000 were installed in 2015. That’s a 37-fold increase in the annual installation rate in only 13 years to achieve just the wind power goal,” adds Jones. Similar expansion rates are needed for other renewable energy sources. “To even come close to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, 50 percent of our energy will need to come from renewable sources by 2028, and today it is only 9 percent, including hydropower. For a world that wants to fight climate change, the numbers just don’t add up to do it.”
            —————————
            Dr. Ridley’s assessment is actually conservative (350,000 wind turbines per year) compared to Jones and Warner, 2016 (485,000/year). How many is too many to you, SebastianH? Do you concern yourself at all with the land clearing and habitat destruction (and ruined landscapes)? Or does that not matter to you either?
            —————————————————————–
            Dr. Ridley:
            If wind turbines were to supply all of that growth but no more, how many would need to be built each year? The answer is nearly 350,000, since a two-megawatt turbine can produce about 0.005 terawatt-hours per annum. That’s one-and-a-half times as many as have been built in the world since governments started pouring consumer funds into this so-called industry in the early 2000s.

            At a density of, very roughly, 50 acres per megawatt, typical for wind farms, that many turbines would require a land area [half the size of] the British Isles, including Ireland. Every year. If we kept this up for 50 years, we would have covered every square mile of a land area [half] the size of Russia with wind farms. Remember, this would be just to fulfil the new demand for energy, not to displace the vast existing supply of energy from fossil fuels, which currently supply 80 per cent of global energy needs.

            A two-megawatt wind turbine weighs about 250 tonnes, including the tower, nacelle, rotor and blades. Globally, it takes about half a tonne of coal to make a tonne of steel. Add another 25 tonnes of coal for making the cement and you’re talking 150 tonnes of coal per turbine. Now if we are to build 350,000 wind turbines a year (or a smaller number of bigger ones), just to keep up with increasing energy demand, that will require 50 million tonnes of coal a year. That’s about half the EU’s hard coal–mining output.
            —————————————————————-
            Care to address the last paragraph? 50 million tonnes of coal a year has to be burned to make the wind turbines necessary just to keep up with the growth in demand — not even to BEGIN to displace fossil fuels.

            The fact that you actually believe you can persuade us that wind energy is a good investment (and good for the Earth and her inhabitants) is the height of arrogance. Your beliefs are anathema here. At some point does it occur to you that your contributions here are hurting your cause more than helping? We’re not buying what you’re selling, SebastianH.

          2. SebastianH

            Kenneth, my English must be really bad for you to not understand a word.

            1) why would you “just conside wind power” to provide all energy (your first citation) or all annual growth (your second citation)?

            2) why do you think that 2.5 should be 37? Those two figures don’t compare … like most of the time you invent comparisons to make things look like they are impossible.

            3) why didn’t you address that one third of the yearly growth is already being provided by renewables and together with hydro it’s almost half of the growth?

            4) Why didn’t you address that wind+solar are already at 1.87% of world primary energy consumption? Continuing their growth they will be at 4% in 2021 and 8% in 2025. Both would be able to cover the complete increase in energy usage beginning with the year 2027 if you ignore hydro, biomass, geothermal, waste growth.

            5)

            50 million tonnes of coal a year has to be burned to make the wind turbines necessary just to keep up with the growth in demand

            Total world coal consumption in 2016 was 5331.4 millon tonnes (3732 million tonnes oil equivalent). That covered 28.1% of primary energy consumption. So 50 million tonnes of coal would cover 0.26% of the primary energy consumption. And you are telling me now that this is enough to build wind turbines that would cover the annual growth in demand which averaged 1.8% over the last 10 years? I’d say that this is a pretty good deal then … getting 6.8 more energy from the same amount of coal as before.

          3. Juergen Uhlemann

            Thanks SebastianH for the link to the BP report. Interesting reading.

            Particular the following section:
            “One noticeable weak spot last year was the EU,
            where renewable power barely grew as load
            factors fell back from unusually high levels in
            2015. This is a reminder of the variability that
            weather conditions can inject into renewable
            generation from year to year. For example, the
            decline in Denmark’s wind power last year was
            almost 5% of its total power generation.”

            The table with the primary energy consumption is also quite interesting. as it shows a reduction for Ireland after the financial crash in 2008 and it started to increase in 2015 again. However, it has not reached the consumption before the crash.
            The funny thing is that even Germany has not gone back to the consumption in 2008. which is quite amazing.
            Did the people really saved energy to reduce their CO2 footprint or was it a financial reason? Considering, the recent increase, the financial reason is more likely.

          4. SebastianH
      2. AndyG55

        “I am interested in that calculation. ”

        You haven’t reached that mathematical development stage yet, seb.

        No boring, pointless irrelevant analogies there.

        And your moronic exponential growth fairy tale…

        … just HILARIOUSLY DUMB.

        1. yonason (from my cell phone)

          Wind “power” = phenomenally wasteful folly

  3. SebastianH

    Some corrections for the article:

    calling for radical measures against it and the elimination of fossil fuel cars by 2030.</blockquotE<

    Hofreiter doesn't say anything like that in the video. That's something you invented. The green party itself has included in their manifest that beginning with the year 2030 only electric cars should be allowed to get a new registration. That's a little bit different from "elimation of fossil fuel cars by 2030", isn't it?

    Imagine 5 million electric cars driving around. Where are they supposed to charge up?

    … and the following explanation by Kretschmann. Not a correction of your article per se, but Kretschmann clearly has no clue how charging electric vehicles compares to filling up gasoline vehicles, especially for the first 5 million cars which would most likely be cars owned by garage owners. Electric vehicles do not need petrol stations for daily usage, they charge at night. For long distance travel they need charge stations and they can look like normal parking spots. A “Raststätte” at the Autobahn which can serve 20 gasoline cars today, can easily accommodate hundreds of parked cars charging their batteries. Charging for the first leg of such a journey would still happen “at home”. So frequency of visiting charging stations is far below the frequency petrol cars visit petrol stations today.

    With 45 million eletric vehicle the story is a littlebit different as all the cars not having the possibility to charge whereever they park (at home or at work or while shopping groceries) need to charge somewhere. That’s a problem for the year 2050 and I am confident that enough charging stations will exist by then or maybe cars can even drive themselves to a charging station (like a Roomba) by then.

    tl;dr: Kretschmann should educate himself about eletric cars.

    Expect the German Greens to remain at between 6 and 8 percent.

    That is probably true. But not for the reason that greens are too radical. The reason is that nearly all green talking points have been adopted by the big parties (SPD and CDU). There is a big consensus that getting rid of nuclear energy is something we need to do and everyone is for the Energiewende and electric cars. Mr. Gastel is completely right in mentioning that the Green party has to position themselves like they do, otherwise they are just not different enough from the big parties. Kretschmann is one of those green politicians that could easily be a member of the CDU and that very likely the reason he is the state minister of Baden-Württemberg.

    1. SebastianH

      Oops, messed up the first blockquote tag … maybe a moderator could correct that?

    2. Colorado Wellington

      Electric vehicles do not need petrol stations for daily usage, they charge at night.

      You’re gonna need a bigger boat more solar panels for the night charging.

      You’re gonna need …

      1. RAH

        Kind of hard to charge your car when you can’t even afford to keep the lights on.

        1. AndyG55

          Seb doesn’t give stuff about the 100’s of thousand of families in Germany unable to keep the lights on.

          He has made that patently clear in previous posts.

          1. SebastianH

            Don’t pretend that the percentage of German households in energy poverty is especially high. Look at statistics from other countries … with lower energy costs.

            Stop posting nonsense.

          2. Kenneth Richard

            6.9 million Germans are living in energy poverty. 330,000 Germans have to have their power shut off each year because they can’t afford to pay their bills. Why? Significantly because Germans have to pay 3 times more for their energy than US citizens do. Do you care? It doesn’t seem like it. You even denied that energy poverty even exists in Germany. Now you’re saying that, well, it exists, but energy poverty isn’t “especially high”. Do you ever stop and think about what you’re defending here, SebastianH?

          3. SebastianH

            Comparing energy poverty with other countries:
            https://energytransition.org/2016/08/comparing-energy-poverty-in-germany-with-other-countries/

            Do you never stop to make up straw man arguments? What about the poor? What about bats? What about birds? What about rotor blade waste? What about rare earth mining? Etc …

            Being so poor that you can’t afford energy sucks, but it is a problem lots of countries have and even more so than Germany. The solution to the problem is make sure the poor don’t stay poor, not reducing energy prices and stopping the conversion to sustainable energy.

            On a side note: are you also against space exploration and other things not exactly “helping the poor”, because that money could have been spent on them?

          4. Kenneth Richard

            “Do you never stop to make up straw man arguments? What about the poor? What about bats? What about birds? What about rotor blade waste? What about rare earth mining? Etc”

            Apparently you don’t know what a straw man argument is.

            A straw man argument is when someone makes up a false or ridiculous statement based upon implication or a partial interpretation of what someone has said or written, and then he proceeds to destroy that argument that he made up himself so he can make it appear that he has debated what his opponent actually said. An example: “SebastianH thinks that the Sun has no influence on the Earth’s climate. He believes that only CO2 causes warming.” Obviously, you’ve never written that. You agree that natural factors play a role in climate change. That would be a straw man argument.

            Pointing out that 6.9 million people are living in energy poverty in Germany is not a straw man argument. Pointing out that about 4 million bats are killed per year by wind turbines, which are now the leading cause of their death and populations face extinction if installed wind capacity increases at the pace hoped for by people like you…is not a straw man argument. Landfilling blades will become unsustainable within about 20 years if we continue to add turbines at the pace you’re hoping for. Again, that is not a straw man argument.

            “The solution to the problem is make sure the poor don’t stay poor, not reducing energy prices and stopping the conversion to sustainable energy.”

            Wind energy is not sustainable. It will require 50 million tonnes of coal consumption just to make the new turbines to keep up with the increase in energy demand.

            “A two-megawatt wind turbine weighs about 250 tonnes, including the tower, nacelle, rotor and blades. Globally, it takes about half a tonne of coal to make a tonne of steel. Add another 25 tonnes of coal for making the cement and you’re talking 150 tonnes of coal per turbine. Now if we are to build 350,000 wind turbines a year (or a smaller number of bigger ones), just to keep up with increasing energy demand, that will require 50 million tonnes of coal a year. That’s about half the EU’s hard coal–mining output.” — Dr. Matt Ridley

          5. AndyG55

            I told you that seb couldn’t give a stuff about people in energy poverty in Germany.

            What a SLIMY little piece of human excrement he truly is.

            That sort of UTTER DISDAIN can only come from the sickest of mind.

            Seb shows that there really are people, like him, who have learnt nothing from Germany history.

          6. AndyG55

            “The solution to the problem is make sure the poor don’t stay poor”

            If Germany stopped WASTING money on destroying their once solid cheap energy supply system.. maybe they COULD help the poorer people…

            … if they actually cared, or wanted to…

            They are a socialist government, afterall. 😉

            How many of “the poor” have you helped today, seb, while driving around gloating and looking down your nose at them from your Mercedes?

          7. SebastianH

            So an example of a straw man argument would be what AndyG55 just posted here? Writing “couldn’t give a stuff about people in energy poverty in Germany.” and then argument against it and use it try to insult me? Understood.

            What I meant was that you always use numbers, sometimes trying to inflate them, and have no idea about the magnitudes.

            Like with your 50 million tonnes of coal example. If this figure is true, this coal would provide an average of 1.8% of the primary energy consumption (the yearly increase) while it only would provide 0.26% when used like coal normally gets used. You make 50 million tonnes of coal sound big and then fail to realize that it’s actually pretty low for the energy return you get.

            Same with carbon produced by termites. You quote the one study that over estimates the emissions by one order of magnitude and use that as an argument against human caused CO2 increase.

            Same with waste from rotor blades. You quote large numbers and fail to realize that those numbers equate to just a few percent of the total plastic waste (at least in Germany). But the numbers sound big when mentioned alone and that’s what you want to achieve.

            Same with energy poverty. You write 6.9 million people and fail to notice that this is actually a pretty low percentage for a western country. Yet you use it as an argument against renewables, because they caused the prices for energy to increase (nevermind that electricity accounts for only part of the energy usage).

            Could get on forever. Your arguments always follow this pattern.

            I am not saying that things couldn’t be better, but you are exaggerating at lot! Don’t you think?

          8. Kenneth Richard

            So I’ve been pointing out how you concoct straw man arguments routinely here, and all this time you had no idea what straw man arguments were? Wow.

            “Same with energy poverty. You write 6.9 million people and fail to notice that this is actually a pretty low percentage for a western country.”

            You denied that energy poverty even existed in Germany…because subsidies/welfare pays for heating. I was pointing out to you (the first time you heard of it?) that energy poverty is a real problem in Germany. 330,000 households have their power turned off each year. That may be a low number percentage-wise, but for the people who have it happen to them, it isn’t an insignificant that they can’t afford to heat their homes because of the energy costs where you are.

            “Like with your 50 million tonnes of coal example.”

            That’s the amount of coal that will have to be burned per year just to make the steel to produce the wind turbines to keep up with the increase in energy demand (only), not to even begin to displace coal or cut into its share. Where is the 50 million tonnes of coal per year going to come from?

            “Same with waste from rotor blades. You quote large numbers and fail to realize that those numbers equate to just a few percent of the total plastic waste”

            Wind turbine installation will need to increase by a factor of 37 to keep up with demand and to allegedly begin to displace fossil fuel consumption and reduce CO2 emissions at a Paris-pace. A 37-fold increase in blade waste for a product that doesn’t degrade for 100s of years (unlike plastic) is an environmental problem according to all those who are not blinded by their allegiance to wind energy.

          9. SebastianH

            Well the definition of “energy poverty” is that you have to spend more than 10% of your income to properly heat your household. That’s not exactly people not being able to afford buying energy. Turning of the power to households is also a last resort measure. Do we know the different reasons for doing so? Did the household not pay the bill because they can’t set priorities? If they can’t afford it, why didn’t they get help? We also have homeless people in Germany even though nobody has to sleep on the street in this country. A low percentage of citizens will always be either to proud to get help or just don’t know that they could.

            That may be a low number percentage-wise, but for the people who have it happen to them, it isn’t an insignificant

            It never is, but then again, they could get help. And it’s not caused by high energy prices, since other countries with lower prices have higher percentages. It’s a problem of people staying/becoming so poor that they can’t afford energy.

            Where is the 50 million tonnes of coal per year going to come from?

            I guess I really need to write that FAQ. How often do I need to answer this?

            Those 50 million tonnes buy us wind turbines to produce the annual increase of 2000 TWh in primary energy consumption. That’s what you have written. In 2016 (a year) 5331.4 million tonnes of coal were burnt which equals 43403 TWh in primary energy usage. 50 million tonnes are 0.94% of 5331.4 million tonnes or would equal 407 TWh of primary energy consumption if used in the normal way. This is a bit less than the 2000 TWh the wind turbines would generate, don’t you agree?

            A 37-fold increase in blade waste for a product that doesn’t degrade for 100s of years (unlike plastic) is an environmental problem according to all those who are not blinded by their allegiance to wind energy.

            I need that FAQ for you. Again: every waste is an environmental problem. According to this (https://www.ict.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ict/de/documents/ue_klw_Poster_Recycling%20von%20Windkraftanlagen.pdf) 40000 tonnes of waste will need to be dealt with in 2046/2047 or 30000 tonnes in the rest of the 50s … in Germany. That’s far less than the thousands of kilotonnes of plastic waste per year (in Germany).

            Problem? Yes. Big problem? Not so much.

      2. SebastianH

        Should have maybe written “while parking” instead of “at night” … but you swallowed the bait, so whatever 😉

        1. RAH

          I’m referring to the increasing number of Germans that having their power shut off as documented here and elsewhere:
          https://notrickszone.com/2014/04/19/more-germans-getting-their-power-cut-off-because-they-cant-afford-paying-sky-high-green-electric-bills/#sthash.hIdvOUC1.dpbs

          1. SebastianH

            How high is the percentage in other countries?

          2. RAH

            It doesn’t matter, this is about Germany and the Green plans THERE! It is about the fact that it is increasingly becoming evident that “sustainable” green energy is not economically sustainable.People aren’t going to charge their electric vehicles at home when they can’t afford the electric bill. BTW the price per barrel for oil is dropping through the floor if you hadn’t noticed and oil companies world wide have become more efficient so they can remain profitable at even $40.00 per barrel.
            https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/06/20/plunging-oil-prices-could-go-even-lower-even-longer/412830001/#

          3. SebastianH

            Can those who can’t afford the electric bill fill up their cars with gasoline today? Then they will be able to charge their cars. In the 2020 you’ll see the first electric cars that are cheaper than gasoline and if Tesla can really deliver hundred thousands of Model 3s, expect lots of cab companies to switch to these or similar cars, because they are cheaper to run for their driving profile than what they drive today.

            $40 per barrel instead of $100 almost three years ago. The price has been in the 40 to 50 dollar range for this whole time and yet electric vehicle sales are growing at an exponential rate. So why is this a problem?

            At the end, people will use whatever is cheaper or if money is no problem whatever gives them the best feeling. I doubt that both of these criterias will be met by fossil fuel cars in the future.

          4. AndyG55

            Now you have taken to LYING a massive FIB.

            The only thing you have left.

        2. Colorado Wellington

          … but Kretschmann clearly has no clue how charging electric vehicles compares to filling up gasoline vehicles, especially for the first 5 million cars which would most likely be cars owned by garage owners.

          Ah, so the first 5 million electric cars will be charged during the day “while parking” in the owners’ garages. That’s a great plan. Why didn’t you say it right away?

          1. Colorado Wellington

            I have to admit, Sebastian, you know how think out of the box. I’m really impressed by your plan:

            The 5 million electric cars will stay in the owners’ garages at home. On sunny days they will be all charged and ready to save the planet when the owners come home in the evening in their other cars. They will blink their lights in excitement. Next morning the owners will take them out and rest the other cars. The following morning they will have to take the rested other cars again and charge the electrical ones through the day.

            And so every other day the planet will be saved.

          2. AndyG55

            I’m guessing that is what seb does with his EV.

            Leaves it on charge in the garage all day…

            … while he drives around in his Mercedes.

            Is that how you use your EV, seb??

          3. SebastianH

            Forgot the irony tags?

          4. AndyG55

            Notice how seb evades answering how his EV is.

            Pathetic.. slimy and slippery like an eel.

          5. SebastianH

            My EV is perfectly fine, AndyG55 … I use it almost daily. The Mercedes barely drives 5000 km a year.

          6. AndyG55

            So, you can afford a Mercedes and a mythical EV.

            No wonder you don’t give a stuff about people with energy poverty.

            The renewable shill industry pays well, doesn’t it, hey seb. 😉

            All that subsidy money to hire weak-minded propagandists to troll realist sites.

          7. SebastianH

            Are you getting paid by big oil or the coal industry? I hope not. Why do you expect me to be a “paid troll”?

          8. AndyG55

            Certainly , you are not worth even a dime.

            Basically just an incompetent fool and a liar.

        3. AndyG55

          And after weeks and weeks of asking, a mythical EV sudden materialises.

          ROFLMAO…..

          You aren’t fooling ANYONE with such a BLATANT LIE, seb.

          1. SebastianH

            Prove that it’s a lie, like you have been providing proof for every single statement you made here … or not 😉

            I own an EV and I use it. So I can have an opinion about EVs and you don’t, right? That was your logic, wasn’t it?

          2. Kenneth Richard

            “I own an EV and I use it.”

            Just curious. How long have you owned an EV? And when you were specifically asked if you owned one about 2 months ago, why did you say you drive a Mercedes, but failed to mention that you owned an EV too? Wouldn’t that have been the time to mention that you own an EV rather than responding to that specific question by saying you drive a Mercedes, with no mention of your EV? Or did you just buy one recently? I would guess this incompatibility with your responses would be why AndyG55 might think it’s dubious that you own one (not to mention your track record of making stuff up). If you do own one, great. What electricity source is used to charge it?

          3. AndyG55

            Anyone can see, seb.. EXCEPT YOU. !

            You don’t even know when you are lying to yourself.

          4. Colorado Wellington

            Kenneth,

            Sebastian could be using night-optimized moonbeam panels to charge his EV.

          5. sod

            “Just curious. How long have you owned an EV? And when you were specifically asked if you owned one about 2 months ago, why did you say you drive a Mercedes, but failed to mention that you owned an EV too?”

            the problem is, that you folks know nothing about EVs. While most people in Germany have used one already and plenty already own one.

          6. Colorado Wellington

            Sod is right that Germans know their EVs and most have already driven them:

            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PO1XT_nRdn8

          7. AndyG55

            EV vehicle sales in Germany as a percentage of overall market = 0.7% in 2016

            You really are following that horse way too close sob-sob..

            … all you can produce is horse ***t !!

            How is YOUR EV going sob-sob??

            … or are you also going to suddenly fabricate one out your deceitful, lying ****

            It seems sob-sob knows ONLY what he has read in EV propaganda pap articles.

            GULLIBILITY rules his life.

          8. SebastianH

            The replies confirm what I thought about you believing that a true AGW proponent should own an EV now or would be a hypocrite.

            Does the mention of owning an EV increase the credibility of a person when talking about AGW, the climate or wind turbines? If so, shouldn’t you own one yourself to demonstrate that you know what you are talking about?

      3. Joe black

        More solar panels for charging at night, too funny

    3. AndyG55

      When even the most rabid SHILLS for EVs prefer to drive fossil fuel Mercedes, I really don’t see much hope for the future of the EV.

      Wouldn’t you agree , seb. !

      Did you know that last year in the US, a the Ford F-series outsold the sum total of all EVs by a factor of seven ?

      1. RAH

        And that is the massive subsidization and government incentives for electrics. Whenever one starts talking market share that has to be factored in.

  4. Sean

    Perhaps the Teslas can be fair weather cars. When the sun is shining and the wind is blowing they can be charged with excess renewable electricity being dumped in the Eurozone for negative prices. Of course consumers will still be charged €0.35/kW-hr for the free electricity. In the winter, just park the car and wait for spring.

    1. SebastianH

      Why do you think there isn’t renewable energy in winter? Here is the distribution of wind+solar in Germany in the year 2016: http://imgur.com/YCq7ZDS

      1. Sean

        Interesting charts. Look at the last 6 months of data on a month by month basis. In January and February there are weeks at a time where the bulk of electricity generation is conventional. Yes there are windy periods but few sonny ones. The increased power demand of electric vehicles in the winter will likely be met by more than half conventional power generation if the vehicle is used year round.

      2. RAH

        It is crazy. Using wind alone to supply the electrical generation demands of the NYC metropolitan area it would take an area equivalent to the entire state of Connecticut using the normal distribution of wind turbines.

        1. AndyG55

          Willing to bet that seb would NEVER go and live within a kilometre of a big wind turdine.

          Safe from the REALITY of the effect of these monstrosities in his inner city ghetto, aren’t you seb.

  5. Colorado Wellington

    You guys don’t have a clue! … Schwachsinn …

    And here come sod & seb, the dynamic duo …

    1. yonason (from my cell phone)

      Quick sod-boy, to the bat-Tesla! We must save the world!

      …What?! You just got back from a beer and schnitzel run, and it won’t be recharged for 6 hours?!!!

      …oh, well. Hopefully you at least got the right dipping sauce this time.

  6. Curious George

    Typical for the Geens – a half-baked idea battling another half-baked idea. Are gasoline-powered cars better than electric cars? Let’s ban them. But then, do we have enough charging stations (assuming that charging stations will be the same 12 years from now)?

  7. Juergen Uhlemann

    5 Million electric cars charging over night?
    I’m just using some data, which are in relation to the Tesla Model S for some indication. The real data depends on many factors.

    240-volt outlet up to 31 miles of range for each hour of charging. I guess many daily users would require the whole night to charge for the next day.

    Tesla supercharging stations, with a maximum of 120 kW per car, you get in 75 minutes a 100% charged car.

    If you use only one hour then you have about 90% charge.
    5 Million cars charged at the same time with 120 kWh = 600 GWh
    If you split it over 12 hours night time = 50 GWh

    Where is this electric power coming from?

    1. SebastianH

      I wonder where you learned to do proper research and math.

      Firstly, you confused the units (GWh and GW, etc). Secondly, it’s a maximum of 120 kW. Charging a 85 kWh battery with 120 kW for 75 minutes would result in 150 kWh of electricity and not 85 kWh. The losses while charging a battery aren’t that high.

      And finally, filling up 5 million Tesla cars from 0 to 90% (I am assuming the 85 kWh version here and 25 kWh per 100 km) equals 1.5 billion kilometers of range … per day or 547.5 billion kilometers if this charging orgy would happen every night of the year. That’s 109500 kilometers per year per car. Is that realistic?

      Doing it right you would assume that electric cars drive around the average kilometers per year that current cars drive (15000). Electric cars consume around 20 kWh (including losses) of electricity per 100 km. So 8.2 kWh have to be recharged every day on average. That’s ~1.7 GW of additional power that needs to be provided by power plants on average.

      1. AndyG55

        How’s your EV going, seb?

        Or are you STILL driving that fossil fuelled Merceeeedes.

        Still no EV to back up your ranting and yapping.

        Still the GULLIBLE BELIEF in all the EV propaganda.

        …or more likely, YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT EITHER, and are just play-acting as a child-minded troll.

      2. Juergen Uhlemann

        First of all, I used data from the Internet and I can not check them myself. I don’t have a Tesla car.

        I didn’t confused units, as I said “one hour”.
        1 car x 1 hour x 120 kW = 120 kWh
        5 Million cars x 1 hour x 120 kW = 600 GWh
        If you split the charging over 12 hours, then you have only 10 kWh per car and you charge for 12 hours.

        It was only an indication, as the real data depend on many factors.

        If you have real data then please calculate yourself and present it here.
        I would like to know how much energy is needed when most people charge their EV’s in the night, to see what the wind energy has to bring.

        1. SebastianH

          Why would most people charge at night? Do you own a car? When does it park and when do you drive? If any there will be only a slightly increased charge rate at night and for the time being the rest of the country is sleeping and using far less energy at night than during the day.

          5 million Tesla S driving an annual average of 15000 km and consuming 20,71 kWh per 100 km (https://www.spritmonitor.de/en/overview/198-Tesla_Motors/1315-Model_S.html?powerunit=2) or 25 kWh including charging and powergrid losses. Will need 18.75 TWh of electricity or continuous power generation of 2.14 GW.

          5 million Renault ZOE (https://www.spritmonitor.de/en/overview/41-Renault/1302-ZOE.html?powerunit=2) will result in 1.74 GW of continuous power generation for charging those cars.

          To sell 5 million electric cars in Germany takes about 2 years. Renewable power generation in Germany increased from 157.72 TWh in 2014 to 181.58 TWh in 2016, a difference of 23.86 TWh. So clearly renewables could keep up with the increased electricity usage from electric cars if every sold car would be electric from now on.

          1. Juergen Uhlemann

            You know why most people will charge by night? They sleep and don’t see a need to use the car at that time.
            In the day, people will most likely not put it on a charger, if there is one where they park their car anyway.
            People act that way. Just look around how many people fill their car when it has at least a quarter in the tank?
            It is amazing how many people actually wait for the warning signal.

          2. AndyG55

            No Juergen..

            What they will do, IF they ever get an EV, is leave it permanently in the garage as an ornament, while driving their fossil fueled Mercedes whenever they actually want to go anywhere.

            That’s right.. isn’t it seb. 😉

            Let us know how your EV is going.. once you get one.

          3. Colorado Wellington

            “You know why most people will charge by night? They sleep and don’t see a need to use the car at that time.”

            Juergen,

            You are wrong. People will not charge their EVs when they want or because it’s practical and convenient when they sleep.

            Once there are millions of EVs on the road under anything similar to the current government mandates and with individuals like Sebastian in positions of power, the authorities will also have the right to tell you when to charge your EV, when and where to drive it, and when to sleep.

            So stop being difficult and get on with it. You need to understand that the collective doesn’t have time for your obstructionism and its patience is limited.

    2. sod

      “240-volt outlet up to 31 miles of range for each hour of charging. I guess many daily users would require the whole night to charge for the next day.”

      one hour charge will be enough for most daily distances. you have the numbers wrong.

      1. Juergen Uhlemann

        True sod, a lot of people don’t drive that much in a day.

        If I consider the 40+ Million fuel cars in Germany being changed to EV’s at some stage then the electric energy for the charging would be at least what I said.
        Maybe adding buses and trucks, to get off fossil fuel completely, will increase the need for more electric energy.

        It was just a rough estimate, but a worse case scenario could come quite close to it. Just consider that many EV users actually are low in battery charge at the same time.

        1. SebastianH

          Are many gasoline vehicle drivers low on gas at the same time? Why would electric vehicles have that problem?

          A rough estimate is taking total driven kilometers by cars and multiply it with the usage per km (http://www.kba.de/DE/Statistik/Kraftverkehr/VerkehrKilometer/verkehr_in_kilometern_node.html). Cars drove 625.5 billion km in 2016, that’s 156.4 TWh at 25 kWh/100 km. Small trucks drove 44.7 billion km in 2016, that’s 22.4 TWh at 50 kWh/100 km (wild guess). Semi trucks drove 19.1 billion km in 2016, that’s 38.2 TWh at 200 kWh/100 km (wild guess). Buses drove 4.5 billion km in 2016, that’s 9 TWh at 200 kWh/100 km (again wild guess).

          So cars alone would need 17.9 GW on average (all cars charging equally distributed over the time). Total traffic would need 25.8 GW on average.

          That’s a rough estimate … not 5 million cars need 50 GW of power supplied to them over 12 hours to charge.

          If you think this capacity is big and would be a major problem to provide, just think about the current infrastructure. Apparently it is easily possible to get all vehicles filled up with liquid fuel that equals 50 to 70 GW with our inefficient car engines.

          1. AndyG55

            “Are many gasoline vehicle drivers low on gas at the same time?”

            Takes max 5 minutes to fill up a petrol car.

            You are still on a mindless yapping binge, seb.

            Try to engage your brain before your next post.

      2. John

        Funny how you can see into the future and dictate how people must use their cars.
        You have the future wrong.
        Its the past you are looking at.
        Like all the greens

  8. BoyfromTottenham

    Juergen, I guess the Greens would say the 50 GWh would come from a battery, a nice big battery, from new technology that hasn’t been invented yet…

    1. Juergen Uhlemann

      This “new technology” has to beat physics.
      The Tesla Powerwall has an usable Capacity 13.5 kWh and that’s it.
      When I read “can power an average two-bedroom home for a full day”, the I have to ask where the charging energy is coming from on the next day. This means that the energy for the average two-bedroom home for the next day and a surplus of the same amount has to come from renewable energy.

      1. SebastianH

        Another weird calculation?

        You don’t need twice the energy when using a battery as buffer. You charge the battery with roof solar or something similar during the day (with the surplus you are not using directly and if the battery is already full you feed into the power grid) and use the stored energy at night until the next day.

        13.5 kWh just for the night is a bit much for German households. We use an average of 8 kWh per 24 hours. So the marketing message “can power […] for a full day” is mostly correct. If the sun weren’t providing much power on the second day, you could still use the rest from you battery and then you’d have to get power from the grid.

        1. AndyG55

          “Another weird calculation?”

          Its good that you putting titles on your posts now.

          “and then you’d have to get power from the FOSSIL FUEL POWERED grid.”

          1. SebastianH

            Almost 40% renewable powered grid … https://energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm (Germany)

          2. AndyG55

            RELIABLITY.. at 95% level.. . around 3% nameplate in both 2015 and 2016.

            Producing less than 20% of nameplate over half of the time.

            You really should stay right away from that topic seb.. you only have two feet you can fit in your mouth at a time.

            I DARE you to take a basic test seb, turn off ALL your electricity when there is no sun and no wind.

            But your hypocritical yapping won’t let you do that, will it seb.

        2. Juergen Uhlemann

          I see SebastianH, you always look at the average.
          What’s about the time frame from the 16th of January and the 25th of January. Your system would have failed, as you would have no energy for days to charge the battery.

          1. SebastianH

            So what? It’s a household battery … you are still connected to the grid if you paid for that connection when building your house.

          2. Juergen Uhlemann

            I see SebastianH, you depend on the grid.

            That’s why even the Island Pellworm needs a power line to the grid.
            http://windenergiepark-westkueste.de/pellworm/pellworm

            E.on pulled out this year, as the could not get a reliable energy infrastructure. A triple over-production could not provide a 24/7/365 coverage. This is the German El Hierro or Tasmania.

          3. SebastianH

            If you want to seriously go off grid with your home, I’d suggest you wait a few years until battery storage is cheap enough. It will be much cheaper, but probably never as cheap as connecting to a 100% renewables grid. With scale come many efficiency improvements.

          4. AndyG55

            and seb wanders off into his FANTASY LAND.. yet again.

            Its daydreams are so hilariously STUPID. !!!

      2. yonason (from my cell phone)
    2. SebastianH

      No, the greens would say: watch your units and do the calculation properly. It’s 1.7 GW of power generation that is needed for 5 million electric cars or 15 TWh per year. That’s just a 3% increase in power generation.

  9. tom0mason

    Green Technologies Cannot Survive in the Marketplace without Subsidies

    Conclusion

    There are many lucrative subsidies and government programs for green technologies—several of which have been highlighted above. These programs cost consumers and taxpayers more than the alternatives available to the market place and often are regressive policies, particularly in the case of rooftop solar systems and electric vehicles which are purchased by higher income consumers, who can afford them.

    http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/green-technologies-cannot-survive-marketplace-without-subsidies/

    Green technology without subsidies are a failure in a real marketplace.

    Electric vehicles have gained the market share they have ONLY because of the subsidies. Currently EVs require an expensive subsidy as they are built on a technology that fails to be truly cost-effective.
    These subsidies are NOT government money but tax-payers’ money. So when were the public asked by political parties if they should pay out for these subsidies, and if asked when was the public asked at what level these subsidies should be leveled?
    Ans yes it is all about politics and control because if the technology was worth anything it would not require such an obscene level of subsidy (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/28/germany-subsidy-boost-electric-car-sales of an indication of the level of tax-payer money to be given to EV car buyers).

    And all this subsidy and removing of market place choice (restrictions on registration of none EVs) is because of the myth that CO2 causes the atmosphere to warm up. CO2 has never been shown to do such a thing to the atmosphere, therefore the retrograde step of using green technology is based on lies and misdirection by the rich and powerful, the political elites, and their foolish but useful followers.

  10. tom0mason

    Maybe the German public need to review their history, and note who and what politics was at work when the original Volkswagen Beetle was subsidized.
    Looking at the history of the politics of subsidy and crony capitalism, one would have thought Germany would eschew such methods of public control.

    1. AndyG55

      No tomo, We can clearly see from the like of seb and sob that those people who would like totalitarian socialist control , are very much still part of Germany culture.

      You only have to look at the politicians they elect, and the fact that they support the in-elected bureaucrats of the EU.

  11. Henning Nielsen

    Ach, it is no problem.Just close off the electricity for a sizeable chunk of Germany’s industry whenever there is too little power available for the electric cars. Lovely days off for the workers who can enjoy the sun and wind in their Teslas.

  12. sod

    Kretschmann is wrong. Loading will not be a big problem in every day live.

    electric cars are the future and german car producers are on the edge of losing their position.

    1. John

      Ever thought about the chemical waste of these batteries? The enormous amount of co2 that is generated during production (the same as 8 year of driving a gas powered car) and the landfills they ‘disappear’ in?
      So on and so forth.

    2. tom0mason

      sod says “Kretschmann is wrong.” but as always has no rational argument, just an empty emotional comment.

    3. AndyG55

      sob.. you STILL haven’t answered.

      What EV do you own, or have ordered????????

      Why is it so, so difficult to get a simple answer from you.

      WHAT ARE YOU HIDING.?

      Do you have a fossil fuel powered Mercedes under your arse, like seb does?

      1. SebastianH

        Why does he need to own or order an electric vehicle? Do you own a math or physics textbook? You claim you have all the answers, so you should have a whole library, right?

        Does one need to own or use something to have an opinion about something? If so, why are you allowed to have one about EVs or solar power plants? Are you special in any way? 😉

        1. AndyG55

          “Do you own a math or physics textbook?”

          Many, and its VERY obvious that you don’t.

          So, neither you nor sob-sob have EVs, you are just FANTASISING and YAPPING about stuff you have only ever read about in EV propaganda pap brochures.

          1. sod

            “Do you own a math or physics textbook?”

            Many, and its VERY obvious that you don’t.”

            sorry, but your primary school book does not count here.

            EVs are the future. nobody with a working brain denies this. the current discussion is, whether we shall push introduction by giving a timeline or wait a few years longer until chinese manufactured cars force german car makers into bankruptcy.

          2. AndyG55

            EVs will only ever be a niche market, owned by inner-city leftist yuppies as a “feel good” meme.

          3. AndyG55

            The main reason China could put Germany car manufacturers out of business is the massive disparity in electricity prices.

            Germany companies relying n the once cheap supply will be forced to close down, and once China finished their HV connection to the west, Germany will be able to use Chinese 3 wheeler EV charged by Chinese coal fired and nuclear power stations.

            Won’t that be GRAND, hey sob-sob. 😉

  13. Agent76

    Apr 21, 2016 Fossil Fuels: The Greenest Energy

    To make earth cleaner, greener and safer, which energy sources should humanity rely on? Alex Epstein of the Center for Industrial Progress explains how modern societies have cleaned up our water, air and streets using the very energy sources you may not have expected–oil, coal and natural gas.

    https://youtu.be/BJWq1FeGpCw

  14. sod

    Good article in “Der Spiegel”: VW is pushing natural gas cars, which show even worse selling numbers than electric cars.

    http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/volkswagen-erdgas-ist-der-neue-diesel-a-1153381.html

    diesel is dying and car makers were asleep at the wheel on electric cars.

    1. AndyG55

      Most carmakers know that EV are a dead end, and are only worthwhile manufacturing if massive subsidies are available. The inconvenience of LONG recharge times makes them non-viable for most purposes, so they will only ever be a niche market.

      You can daydream all you like sob-sob, but your dreams are not reality.

      Natural Gas has been used for many years, many bus fleets run on gas. Worldwide, there were 22.7 million NGVs by 2015

      On top of that you have LPG powered cars, which are starting to drop as a percentage from about 3%, as the power and convenience of diesel takes a bigger market share.

      Which EV are YOU fantasising about, sob-sob ???

  15. AndyG55

    A friend sent me a picture of the EV owned by the local University. Great advertisement it is, too.. 😉

    https://s19.postimg.org/jauyuz4oj/UniEV2.jpg

    You can’t see it, but the front tyre is flat (as is the battery, almost certainly)

    Also note that it has no registration plates and plenty of bird s**t.

    A perfect example of the future of EVs. 🙂

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