Chemicals make our lives immensely better. Without them, we’d be catapulted back to Stone Age, fully exposed to nature’s merciless brutality.
Trade union and chemical industry bosses in Germany warn Merkel of the consequences of high electricity prices. Source: Wikipedia, public domain photo
Processing chemicals, however, sometimes involves large amounts of energy. Therefore, in their quest to provide customers with affordable products, processing companies need affordable energy. Today this is no longer available in Germany, which has taken a blind leap into renewable energies. Now electricity rates are skyrocketing out of control.
Spooked, chemical processing companies and the labor unions in Germany have sent an urgent letter to Chancellor Merkel, so writes Der Spiegel here. Hat-tip: Karl Rannseyer at Facebook. Spiegel writes:
The letter to the Chancellor is anything but friendly: According to a newspaper [Handelsblatt] report, the chemicals sector has warned Angela Merkel of rising electricity costs due to the energy transformation to renewables – the competitiveness of the branch is at stake.”
The letter warns:
If the chemicals industry loses its competitiveness, not only Germany as an address for production and research will be at stake, but also the entire industrial network as a whole will be dragged into into a painful situation.”
The letter was signed by the President of the German Association of Chemical Industries (VCI), Klaus Engel; by the head of the Chemicals Trade Union IG BCE, Michael Vassiliadis; and the President of the Federal Employers Association for Chemicals, Eggert Voscherau.
The German people should be ready to turn her out of office forthwith if she disregards this expert testimony.
Many Germans are duped and drugged up with this environmental religion, deriving a sense of superiority from it all. Remember the movement has shades of brown.
[…] Chemicals Industry Bosses And Labor Union Send Angela Merkel … Go to this article […]
There is light on the horizon for Germany’s chemical industry.
The eternal Euro crisis will be plastered over for the next decades with mountains of freshly Euros generated by Draghi. Of course, the Euro will do what the Italian Lira did from 1970 to 2000; inflate away and devalue year after year.
The mandated electricty FIT cross-subsidy fee of currently 3.5 Eurocent/kWh, rising to 4.5 or 5 Eurocent/kWh next year, will fade into irrelevance.
Through the EU-wide renewables electricity price-fixing there was an initial inflationary pressure on the economy via the energy supply anyway; this might not have been the primary cause of the collapse of the PIIGS but surely exacerbated it. Another shock to that part of the system was the nuke phase-out in Germany.
During the inflation years, Italy was in political chaos. The EU masters always wanted a crisis to exploit; they will get more than they wished for. The chemical industry, on the other hand, will be able to increase its prices in Euro and therefore pay the renewables indulgences with ease.
Note to Klaus Engel: your industry is cordially invited to re-locate to Canada.
First, thank you for the site and the information it brings to us English speakers.
Perhaps this contrast published in March of this year will interest. How chemical manufacturer is returning to the US now that low gas prices resulting from Shale extraction has reduced prices.
“Royal Dutch Shell announced this month that it chose a site near Pittsburgh for a facility to convert ethane from locally produced natural gas into ethylene and polyethylene. They’re used to make plastics that go into packaging, pipes and other products. The planned ethane cracker would employ a few hundred workers.
It’s among nearly 30 chemical plants proposed in the U.S. in the next five years, according to the American Chemistry Council. The projects would expand U.S. petrochemical capacity by 27% and employ 200,000 workers at the factories and related suppliers, says Council President Cal Dooley, a major turnaround. As U.S. natural gas prices soared in the late 1990s, chemical makers moved overseas, laying off 140,000 employees, Dooley says…”
Read more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2012-03-27/natural-gas-manufacturing-boom/53812740/1
[…] NoTricksZone, 25 September 2012 Copyright © 2012 The GWPF. All Rights Reserved. Information published on this website is for educational use only. […]
[…] Cheap energy powers economies. Natural gas is more than just energy, it’s also a feedstock to all sorts of important chemical production, from nitrogen fertilizer to plastics. Pierre Gosselin has a couple relevant posts at his No Tricks Zone. 500,000 New US Jobs By 2025 Thanks To Affordable Shale Gas – US Gas 75% Cheaper Than In Europe notes some of the industries moving back to the US or starting from scratch thanks to cheap natural gas. It’s quite a counterpoint to his lament about companies leaving Germany and that Chemicals Industry Bosses And Labor Union Send Angela Merkel Warning Letter Over Skyrocketing Energy…. […]