The Washington Post lashes out at Europe’s failure to impose a continent-wide cap and trade scheme designed to make carbon fuels more expensive, calling European governments “incompetent central planners” and the continent as a whole a “green energy basket-case“.
The Post laments that Europe has blown a big opportunity to become a greener economy.
I can’t think of a single central planning endeavor that ever has been competent. The Post writes:
FOR YEARS, European leaders have flaunted their unwavering commitment to fighting climate change — and chastised the United States for lagging behind. But last week brought yet more confirmation that the continent has become a green-energy basket case.
[…] the market for carbon permits has all but collapsed. […] European governments have proved themselves to be incompetent central planners…
[…] Germany is irrationally shutting its nuclear power plants … and promising that renewables will somehow pick up the slack. Perversely, that approach has led power companies to ramp up coal burning….”
The Post also writes that the US “is now burning less coal even as Europe burns more” because of the US’s “practical embrace of natural gas and the continued use of nuclear power.”
Europe, with it’s overzealous campaign and stance against fracking and nuclear power, has maneuvered itself into an impossible energy position. As the Post writes, Europe is showing the world what not to do.
Also read a piece by Benny Peiser: “German energy produces sustainable laughter”
“The United States consequently has the opportunity to turn itself into the world leader in fighting climate change, a role it has long shied from. To lock in its progress, U.S. policymakers must learn from Europe’s dysfunction. That means putting a price on carbon emissions that is simple, predictable, aggressive and comprehensive, and then getting out of the way. ”
That’s an interesting way the collectivists from the WaPo put it – forcing agressive taxation on something is “getting out of the way” for them.
And they don’t even understand what’s happening in Europe – what the EU did was “get out of the way” – they had fixed the amount of ETS credits long before the financial crisis and are now staying “out of the way” and that’s why, in the face of a collapsing economy, the price reaches the natural value of zero in the face of oversupply.
But I wouldn’t expect a WaPo collectivist to know what “supply” and “demand” mean.
In regard to “…the US’s “practical embrace of natural gas and the continued use of nuclear power.”—the anti-fracking (?) crowd is getting energized to stop this practice cold in its tracks.
If they succeed, the “…the US’s “practical embrace of natural gas” dies with it.
In addition, I have read that there are now efforts in North Carolina to require a certain amount of renewable energy be added to the energy grid. Right.
No Tricks Zone has reported the dramatic and near catastrophic failure of this approach in Germany and other European countries. But does the US news media report on such things? Noooooooo! It’s more like, “Move along, now. Nothing to see here.”
And this NASA report claims CO2 is a coolant!
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
Die Welt says Germany’s Solar industry is dissolving. They aren’t sustainable without subsidies. Meanwhile, politicians and other fantasists prattle on about how the energy transition can be useful, cheap and bring 50,000 jobs; neglecting the fact that up to 3 times as many real, productive jobs are destroyed for every “green” one.
While the subsidy sector is in its death throes, some people are laughing all the way to their new castles who sidled up to their “green” friends to push for government policies to make the commercially unviable a “mandatory” installation for all Germans. Subsidies that encouraged Germany’s solar industry to continue “business as usual”; which guarantees eventual failure in a free market, even for a product that starts out being commerically viable.
You say “I can’t think of a single central planning endeavor that ever has been competent.”
Really?
What about USA of 30s building national infrastructure, dams, interstate highways?
What about Holland building country-wide set of dams to prevent flooding?
France building high-speed rail network?
Europe building airspace industry (EADS, Airbus) out of nothing?
those are of course total failures…
Obviously we have differing definitions of “central planning”.
Oh the joy of green misery…
WaPo is like the ACLU. On the wrong side of every issue.
EU-Parliament muppet bemoans that the broke Southern Europeans (whom Merkel and Diesel-Boom just told to solve their own problems) voted for their own interests and against even more strangulation of their economies via carbon credit price hikes.
http://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2013-04/emissionshandel-eu-parlament-peter-liese
The mupped is from the CDU yet ultragreen; says that the broke nations are exactly the ones who didn’t do much for climate protection, completely omitting the fact that Spain has more wind power per person than Germany and that all these nations had lavish renewable FITs, ignores the fact that Spain had a huge Solar boom in 2008.
Another muppet from the Green National Front.