A commentary posted by Thomas Sigmund at the online German business daily “Handelsblatt” here warns of the consequences of introducing a CO2 tax in Germany.
The German greens and socialists have been calling for ramping up climate protection efforts as a way to reboot the economy in the wake of the COVID-19 economic meltdown and that the country should not return to its “old structures.”
The latest figures suggest Germany’s economy is starting its worst recession in its postwar history. 10.1 million people in Germany registered for reduced work hours by April 26, far beyond all the forecasts of economists.
Sigmund writes that going even more green and putting “further burdens” on the economy are not the answer. He writes that the climate protection plans drawn up earlier, in a time of full employment, “will not last” and that Chancellor Merkel “has even greater concerns at the moment.”
Would only exacerbate already deep recession
“It is difficult to imagine that in this historic economic downturn further burdens will be imposed on companies,” Sigmund comments. “Those who continue to demand that CO2 emissions be priced are exacerbating the recession and torpedoing the planned economic stimulus package.”
A matter of “preventing mass unemployment”
Sigmund adds: “The shutdown gives us an idea of what industrialization means. It’s now a matter of preventing mass unemployment and not making the social explosives even bigger.”
At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, an informal preparation for the UN Climate Summit in autumn – done via video link – Chancellor Angela Merkel said climate protection would not be pushed off the political agenda in the EU, and would be “just as much on the agenda as health issues”.
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These dangerous psychopaths never give up.
They are pushing a new bullshit pandemic, Lockdownism, while desperately trying to keep alive the dying one, the Climate clown show.
“Chancellor Angela Merkel said climate protection would not be pushed off the political agenda in the EU, and would be “just as much on the agenda as health issues”.
Yes Angela, repeating history eh? You’re willing to go ahead and push EU industry under the electric tram while finessing a package to rescue the German industrial machine.
Or are you truly willing to shove all of the EU (including Germany) off the global markets, making it a irrelevant little sideshow while China takes over?
Remember Angela true socialism is about everyone keeping up with the slowest and least able participant so everybody comes last (or first in Marxspeak)
It’s like building pyramids– nothing useful results, the plebes are kept busy and it’s possible famine will result.
“The German greens and socialists have been calling for ramping up climate protection efforts as a way to reboot the economy in the wake of the COVID-19 economic meltdown and that the country should not return to its “old structures.”
Mandy Rice-Davis (‘Well he would [say that], wouldn’t he?’) comes to mind.
They could also propose increasing interest rates and more red tape just to be sure of meeting their objectives: removing all the old structures, yes, all of them! It won’t be nice.
Lots of opinions out there, in science what is called a hypothesis. There are reasons these days to loose faith in the integrity of science, but one should not loose faith in the scientific method. Political decision-making can value either ‘science’ or the ‘scientific method’. Various hypothesis come and go, some reaching great popularity, but the traditional ‘scientific method’ is based on formulating and testing hypotheses, in which from the results of subsequent experimentations, a deduction is made as to whether the hypothesis is presumably true or false. Fundamentally, for acceptance of a hypothesis, the null hypothesis must be falsified, which in decision-making equates to the ‘zero option’. Hence, the adherence to blind placebo trials in medicine. The data is now well and truly in, what does the scientific method tell us about renewable energy?
The Republic of Ireland is an isolated grid, with only nineteen power stations, so its performance is a microcosm of the larger EU grid. In the period 2012 to 2018, the output from 1,100 new wind turbines, each costing €4 million to install, replaced 50% of the output of the single large coal generation plant there. Electricity generation, in the modern Irish fleet of gas turbine power plants, emits 40% the CO2 arising from generation with more difficult to combust carbonaceous coal. In 2012, gas generated half of Irish electricity, as it did again in 2018, but this time with a significantly higher gas consumption. When your car comes off the motorway and goes into ‘stop start’ urban driving it burns more fuel, just like power plants forced into such operation, as intermittent wind energy pours on and off the grid.
The extra gas combusted was well capable of supplying Ireland with 6.5% of its electricity. Simply switching this coal generation to natural gas and running Irish plants efficiently could have realised over 70% of the emissions savings now claimed for renewables. In fact, this is what the US did in the period 2008 to 2017 and obtained a 27% reduction in CO2 emissions from their power generation sector.
The EU instead incentivised the installation of 100,000 turbines and even more PV solar panels at an installed cost of €1 trillion. If given a budget of €10 million each day to sprinkle it around like ‘pixie dust’ for the ‘common good’, the trillion would run out in 274 years. Alternatively, one could draw attention to the 2018 market value of the EU’s food and drink sector of €1.1 trillion. Instead, we got EU power sector emissions to decrease 28% in the period 2008 to 2018.
The EU publishes an energy price report every two years. Last year of ‘full data’ is 2016; circa €400 billion bill for energy sources, €212 billion being imported fossil fuels, plus an additional tax squeeze of €280 billion. €76 billion in subsidies for renewable sector equating to €208 million per day or €150 from each citizen. €48 billion paid direct to wind and solar generators on top of market price for 13% of EU’s electricity. Market price plus tax paid to gas and solid fuel generators for 41% of electricity, whose fuel costs were same €48 billion.
Richard Feynman’s, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics, who worked on the Manhattan Project, but called out of retirement for the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger accident, famously concluded: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled”.
Pat Swords BE CEng FIChemE CEng MIEMA
Pat
Good information – here in Australia renewables have similarly blown up prices and we have had to turn off gas and rely more on coal much of the time – which does nothing about emissions, if you care about them.
The Clown show, as referred to above, has gone on long enough. Planet of the Humans detail on dud renewables was known to readers of this blog years ago – and presumably to the Merkels of this world. If they did not know they are incredibly badly informed, and if they knew but still ploughed on regardless then they deserve to be locked up for deliberately destroying economies and deceiving their citizens.
Engineers like you and I have to deal with facts and reality in our job each day otherwise we get fired. Alarmists get it wrong for years but the day of reckoning is approaching.
I believe that the coming economic struggles will, as Pierre suggests, inevitably force a jettisoning of renewables subsidies and renewables generally unless they can specifically provide power 24/7 at lower prices (they cannot and will not for years to come). But the warmists and the delusion they have created will not die immediately and we will have to continue to highlight reality for some time yet, but the tide is turning.
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