From Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF
As a result of Germany’s green energy transition, electricity prices are exploding. Consumers and businesses are paying the price while Germany faces gradual de-industrialisation. Economists estimate that the cost of the green energy transition will total 170 billion Euros by 2020. This is more than double of what Germany would have to write off if Greece were to withdraw from the monetary union. “The de-industrialization has already begun,” the EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger has warned. —Handelsblatt, 23 May 2012
Opposition to a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing has slowed the development of natural gas in Europe, creating export opportunities for U.S. producers hurt by low prices and a glut of gas at home. By 2020, Europe will be using more shale gas produced in the U.S. than from domestic fracking, Wood Mackenzie estimates. –Katarzyna Klimasinska, Bloomberg 23 May 2012
Investments in renewable energy could be put on hold while European governments develop clear policies on shale gas, according to a biomass energy expert. The prospect of increasing production of cheap shale gas in Europe has impacted investors’ forward planning, Chris Moore, CEO of MGT Power told a forest industry conference in London on Thursday. “If anything, it’s going to cause a waiting period, and that’s bad for renewable energy. You’re going to see a lot of question marks on renewables and their affordability,” said Moore. —Environmental Finance, 17 May 2012
The Energy Bill constitutes a disastrous move towards a centrally planned energy economy with a high level of control over which forms of energy generation will be favoured and which will be stifled. The government even seeks to regulate the prices and profits of energy generation. –Nigel Lawson, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 23 May 2012
At a time when most major economies are gradually returning to cheap and abundant fossil fuels, mainly in form of coal and natural gas, Britain alone seems prepared to sacrifice its economic competitiveness and recovery by opting for the most expensive forms of energy. –Benny Peiser, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 23 May 2012
Those who doubt that market forces still have the power to transform the world aren’t paying attention to America’s revitalized energy sector. Prices more than policy are driving these remarkable changes. Other problems to be fixed, rising CO2 emissions, for example, will also yield to the indomitable pressure of price, if carbon is taxed. While Washington squabbled over which energy direction to take, and which energy bill to kill, the markets moved us in exactly the direction the country should go — toward cheap, plentiful energy. –Joel Kurtzman, The Wall Street Journal, 22 May 2012
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Maybe Germany should move their manufacturing base to Greece – Lord knows they would be glad of the work – and the Germans can pursue a service economy, say – oh I dunno – how about finance?
“Other problems to be fixed, rising CO2 emissions, for example, will also yield to the indomitable pressure of price, if carbon is taxed.”
Oh sure, that makes sense. When you are in a hole, the solution is to dig. Idiots.
Market forces will work just fine, as long as people want the comforts of civilization. If they want a short, hard life, then they happily go green.
iI have seen in a German program on Monday that the power lines from the north sea to the south of Germany are delayed by courts, as many people don’t want the power lines in front of the house. They want them in the underground, which makes it more expensive and takes even longer.
“gradual de-industrialisation”
A feature, not a bug.
And on a lighter note…”Cars will be banned from London and all other cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 60 per cent over the next 40 years. “
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8411336/EU-to-ban-cars-from-cities-by-2050.html
Six companies are planning on introducing cold fusion products–ranging from large industrial units down to home units–in the next year; some as early as this summer. That’s where I believe the energy paradigm will shift, and in a gargantuan way; five years from now crude oil will be used primarily in petrochemicals.
Too bad. Industrialization is what the Germans do best.As the true cost of “greening” begins to appear,
Common citizens are going to reject it.
AGW “belief” or not, The cure is worse than the disease.
A couple of cold winters, plus brown outs and black outs, should help the German people and politicians realise that greenie almost always means goofy, pointless and expensive.
It is truly incredible how much money is being wasted by the countries of Western Europe and the United States in trying to solve the non-problem of rising carbon dioxide levels from almost nothing to a little more than almost nothing.
Given the excellence of German engineering, coupled with a population that more than probably any country in the world can pull together and achieve a common goal, if Germany can’t sustain a renewable energy economy, than no one can.
Deindustrialization has always been the plan, or at least the desire. Mostly unstated, but sometimes stated. The U.S., though so far it has escaped the worst of it thanks to conservatives, is potentially no different than Europe. If the cap & trade bill, that passed the U.S. House, that mandated 83% CO2 cuts by 2050 (true!), had made it to Obama, we would be on our way to disaster. A replay of my previous comment:
If this AGW scare doesn’t work, the liberal elite econuts will rebrand and repackage and reposition. Obama’s Science Czar’s John Holdren’s past call (before the AGW scare) to “de-develop the United States” & create a “stable low consumption economy” is the political expression of the leftist dream, and they will push and push for that. Driving it all is secular guilt, and the dream of their own Eden. But the raw feeling of their pastoral fantasy is not dressed in wonkish words such “a stable low consumption economy,” but THIS:
“We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion.” –Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalogue
They see draconian CO2 cuts as the ticket to fold up industrial civilization, if all goes “well.” But unfortunately, for them, and everybody else, it wouldn’t lead to this Utopian Eden. An Albanian told the story of what happened to their country with the collapse of communism (and just some supply systems): “Even the trees lining the roads were chopped down.”
It would be no Garden of Eden. I could say that instead it would be like a Mad Max world — but it’d be much worse. No desert idealism of clean and clean-cut ruffians. Tons of people (at first), and just cutting discomfort, cold, disease, dirtiness, dysentery, hunger, and violence.
You’d think at some point, let’s say after severe CO2 caps are implemented, and other problems ensued, people would see it coming, and repeal… But there would possibly be too much inertia, and once a series of collapses begin, it may be impossible to halt the descent.
Hey RockyRoad, How come only you know about these impending Cold Fusion Reactors. The last I heard CF still had not been achieved.Although, I certainly hope that you are correct, Sir.
I just have one answer:
It should be quite obvious to anyone with even a modicum of economics savvy that de-industrialization was the entire point. The notion is to eliminate business and put the financial system so far under water that there can be no military. This is what I call “the colder war” where Russia and China defeat the West without needing an arms race. They can simply get the Western powers into a state where they can’t afford a military and have no means to arm and equip one.
There are only two major military expansions currently underway on the planet: China and Russia and their allies. Neither of those countries are buying into the “green energy” hype. The US Army is now the slated in 2 years to be smaller than it has been since 1940, the Navy smallest since 1915, and the Air Force since it has been in existence. Meanwhile, China and Russia are engaging in a military expansion. Once steel production and energy production are eliminated in the West, there is nothing that can be done to counter anything these countries might want to do anywhere on the planet. We wouldn’t be able to build tanks if we wanted to while they can build as many as they want.
“Green Energy” and government debt are national security hazards. If you have no factories and no power for them, you can’t build airplanes.
My country, which through many strokes of brilliance and ingenuity led the world into the Scientific Revolution, the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, is now determined to lead it into the stupidity revolution. Dunces hats all round at Eton and Westminster.
Fears deindustrialization???
I thought that was the goal.
Is the aim to push and push until eventually there is an insurrection that can be a crisis that will not be put to waste?
The unbelievable is that a rich country like Switzerland is actually pushing to wind farm and photovoltaic solar energy. The government don’t realize the huge costs that will kill the economy of the country and the example of bad economy results is actually realized (Spain).
Government reaction will arrive too late and we will have to pay the errors with additional taxes and higher energy prices. Thanks greenies !!!!
Coming to California in 2013 (when AB32 really starts to kick in). Of course that’s assuming we make it past 12/20/12. 😉
Ian W says:
May 24, 2012 at 9:54 am
Is the aim to push and push until eventually there is an insurrection that can be a crisis that will not be put to waste?
___________________________
If you push until the people rebel you can then call in the United Nations troops and impose law, UN style law. Libya shows what happens: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/04/libyan-militias-could-plunge-country-into-civil-war-ntc-chairman/
Getting rid of the idiots leaves a power vacuum and there will be civil war while who grabs control is decided. Such Chaos allows puppet government to form
What I can’t understand is the post Fukushima attitude toward nuclear power. Unit #1 was the cause of the cascade that resulted in units #2 and #3 melting. Unit 1 melted because unlike units 2-6, it required electric pumps to move cooling water. The other units could use their own decay heat to power steam turbine pumps and were reasonably OK until Unit 1 exploded cutting cooling hoses, pipes, and cables for the other units. It is like saying that a traffic accident involving a 1960’s Corvair should result in shutting down modern automobile production. In fact, the biggest irony is that if the quake had happened two weeks later, it probably would not have resulted in ANY of the plants melting because Unit 1 was to be shut down for decommissioning later in the month.
But even more befuddling is the results: Fukushima, 0 dead, 0 injured, 0 sickened and it looks like there will likely be no long-term health effects. THREE units melted, no injuries. Compare that to 11 dead with the Deepwater Horizon explosion or dozens dead from German sprouts and Colorado cantaloupe or nearly 4,000 dead from a chemical plant accident in India.
The fear of nuclear power is absolutely irrational. The notion of not deploying MODERN plants that would not have suffered the problems Fukushima did because a 1960’s design plant had problems is irrational.
What is going on is the population is being programmed with an irrational fear of nuclear power and an irrational fear of carbon-based energy using things such as “global warming” and over the top hype any time there is any nuclear trouble. I would be much more in fear of a chemical plant near me than a nuclear plant.
Energy is like the food for an economy. You can not expand production of anything without using more energy. If you throttle energy production, you throttle the economy. THAT is the goal here. We are, I believe, under attack in a strategic sense and it is being done through propaganda and computer models and indoctrination that starts at the kindergarten level.
Oh, and I believe folks would do well in reading this post-mortem of Fukushima, too:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/24-hours-at-fukushima/0
@ur momisugly Neil Jones says:
May 24, 2012 at 8:59 am
And on a lighter note…”Cars will be banned from London and all other cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 60 per cent over the next 40 years. “
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Given that the majority of demographic movement is towards more people in larger urban environments, and the corresponding increase in the % population living in ungovernable urban slums (and the problems of crime, illness, etc. associated with that), is a recipe for disaster.
They will not be able to provide sufficient mass transit which, in effect, will turn cities into virtual prisons for the inhabitants, and no-go zones for those living outside the city. Ungovernable slums quickly turn into war zones, as local ‘warlords’ take over from the State. This is happening in various parts of the world now.
Read this 2008 paper from the Army War College for more info:
From the New Middle Ages to a New Dark Age: The Decline of the State and U.S. Strategy
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?PubID=867
Excerpt:
The Rise of Cities and the Emergence
of Alternatively Governed Spaces.
One area in which the New Middle Ages resembles
the Middle Ages of the past is in the importance of cities.
In the medieval world, towns and cities, although much
smaller than those of today, became centers of social
activity and hubs of commerce as well as incubators
of disease. In the last 50 years or so, the rise of cities
has become an enduring and significant trend and has
reached a point at which more than half the world’s
population lives in cities. A possible implication of this
is that cities will increasingly become an alternative
focus to the state as an organizing device for economic,
political, and social activities. Many cities are also
becoming increasingly ungovernable—a trend that can
only feed into what appears to be an impending crisis
of governance at national, regional, and global levels.
The latter half of the 20th century was characterized
by the large-scale migration of population from rural
to urban areas. This movement—and the resulting
transformation of urban spaces—was particularly
pronounced in the developing world. In 1950, New
York was the only city in the world with more than
10 million inhabitants. By 1995, there were 14 such
cities—mostly in the developing world.49 By 2015,
there will be 23—with 19 in the developing world.50
In addition, by 2015, “the number of urban areas with
populations between five and ten million will shoot
from 7 to 37.
Eric Simpson: On the effect of de-industrial policies
“But there would possibly be too much inertia, and once a series of collapses begin, it may be impossible to halt the descent.”
This is probably the best storyline for a blockbuster new Hollywood Movie – but we will never see such a movie come out of that town.
Here’s a well known example of what happens when a city is going belly up:
Detroit
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Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights.
As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.
Other U.S. cities have gone partially dark to save money, among them Colorado Springs; Santa Rosa, California; and Rockford, Illinois. Detroit’s plan goes further: It would leave sparsely populated swaths unlit in a community of 713,000 that covers more area than Boston, Buffalo and San Francisco combined. Vacant property and parks account for 37 square miles (96 square kilometers), according to city planners.
“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”
Detroit’s dwindling income and property-tax revenue have required residents to endure unreliable buses and strained police services throughout the city. Because streetlights are basic to urban life, deciding what areas to illuminate will reshape the city, said Kirk Cheyfitz, co-founder of a project called Detroit143 — named for the 139 square miles of land, plus water — that publicizes neighborhood issues.
More: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-24/half-of-detroit-s-streetlights-may-go-out-as-city-shrinks.html
“Energy future debate: How to stop UK’s lights going out”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18165853
Britains answer?
Copy the Germans