From Dr. Benny Peiser and The GWPF
Merkel’s Green Shift Backfires As German CO2 Emissions Jump – solar business closing
Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering company, has lost patience with its CEO after Peter Loescher’s expansion into green energy and expensive acquisitions led to a fifth profit-forecast cut. Supervisory board officials have asked for the 55-year-old Austrian native to be ousted. A key element of Loescher’s growth strategy was the 2009 announcement that he would transform Siemens into a “green infrastructure giant”, heralding a drive into solar technology to promote Siemens as a partner for companies and governments keen to use more renewable energies. At the 2010 annual general meeting, he wore a green tie and called for a “green revolution.” Since Loescher took over in July 2007, the shares have declined 22 percent. –Alex Webb, Bloomberg, 29 July 2013
German engineering giant Siemens has confirmed it is completely winding down its solar business. The involvement ended in a disaster, costing Siemens about one billion euros. Plans to sell off its solar business had come to nothing, Siemens admitted Monday in confirming a report in the German newspaper “Handelsblatt”. The involvement ended in a disaster, costing Siemens about one billion euros ($1.3 billion). —Deutsche Welle, 17 June 2013
Germany’s exit from nuclear power could cost the country as much as 1.7 trillion euros ($2.15 trillion) by 2030, or two thirds of the country’s GDP in 2011, according to Siemens, which built all of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants. “This will either be paid by energy customers or taxpayers,” Siemens board member Michael Suess, in charge of the company’s Energy Sector, told Reuters. “As an industry, Germany has always reached its goals. Now the whole world is looking at us. If the energy shift should fail … it would undermine Germany’s credibility as an industry nation,” Suess said. –Christoph Steitz, Reuters, 17 January 2012
Germany’s rise in CO2 emissions is set to worsen for a second year, the first back-to-back increase since at least the 1980s, after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to shut nuclear plants led utilities to burn more coal. Utilities boosted hard coal imports 25 percent in the first quarter to 10 million metric tons. With elections due in September, the move is a blow to Merkel, a former environment minister who helped negotiate the 1997 Kyoto accord curbing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. “The trend of rising German CO2 emissions is alarming,” said Claudia Kemfert, who heads the energy unit at the Berlin-based DIW. “Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities,” IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said on June 10. –Stefan Nicola, Bloomberg, 29 July 2013
george e. smith says:
July 29, 2013 at 11:59 am
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They still are a class act, after all they gave their misguided greeny CEO the boot. If it was not for government enabled Crony Capitalism, GE would be circling the drain.
At least GE just dances around the green topics in most respects and poses for photo ops with Obama, instead of actually placing heads and stockholders in profits buzz saw.
george e. smith says:
July 29, 2013 at 11:59 am
NIXDORF ?
Green economic philosophy:
Attack any current source of energy production. Force to new source of energy. Attack new source of energy. Repeat as necessary until economy collapses.
Even wind and solar will come under attack for their destructive impact on the environment once other sources of energy are replaced. Witness the attack on replacing coal with NG at NRG Energy in NY.
As others have said, we need an energy disaster to force logical thinking about our energy policy. Letting the NGO’s force the issue has only lead to increased costs and reduced reliability.
Mike H says at July 29, 2013 at 12:15 pm…
I would agree with you but I think my current employer would frown on it.
Shame as I have some shares in my current employer and I strongly suspect they would rise if Immelt was immolated.
But I won’t comment.
Were the German people advised of the cost (€1.7trillion) of closing down their nuclear generators and replacing nuclear power with some other alternative?
I presume that the answer is that the German people were not told the costs involved.
Had they been told the costs involved would they have wanted to close down their nuclear plants? I suspect that the answer is that a majority of Germans would not have wished to see nuclear closed down in circumstances where their taxes or higher energy bills will have to find €1.7 trillion.
The closing down of the nuclear plants was a complete over -reaction to the Japanese incident since Germany is not subject to the same geological conditions. It would appear to have been a political decision not well thought through. The adverse consequence on industry, and industrial competitiveness and the full costs to the tax payer and consumer were not sufficiently taken into account.
If I was German, I would be very concerned by this stupid political decision.
Siemens has been clobbered in three directions at once. 1. They lost their proprietary nuclear technology when they backed out of the Areva partnership. 2. Their costs of production have been going sky-high as electricity costs in Germany go up. 3. Low cost Chinese production has destroyed any European solar industry.
Loescher got absolutely everything wrong on the energy file; his execution by the board was inevitable.
DirkH says:
July 29, 2013 at 10:21 am
“The real trick is enriching the Uranium; and nothing beats a German gas centrifuge.”
Sure, unless the centrifuge is being controlled by a Siemens PLC that has been repurposed by the NSA.
Being or acting stupid should hurt. Think about it. If it did not hurt, it might not be stupid.
Loescher’s strategy would have been perfect if CAGW wasn’t a bad dream. Lesson for CEOs … build your strategies on what you know, not what you don’t know or think you know. He seems to have much in common with climate modellers:
“The climate science community may believe they understand “the fundamental physics of the Earth system”, but the performance of their models indicate their understandings are very limited and that they have a long way to go before they can “make projections of its evolution”. [Dr Bob Tisdale]
Germany (Siemens) seems to have slipped up (been stitched up?) (However) you don’t do what that guy did without ‘knowing’ an aweful lot more than we can know. There’s incredible stuff just around the corner we can only guess at and dream of. Germany could still prove to be ahead of the game when a few more global moves have been made, moves the (presumabley ‘unexpected’) delay of which has germany exposed. I do get the feeling that there is a (global) air of expectancy (Why isn’t USA all over Thorium? and other questions). There is something really huge just around the corner – the only things I can think of are antigravity technology and UFO/Alien stuff. Now that I gotta see. It could even be the simple belief of possibility of same. Release (massive & unprecedented) by govts of UFO records has gotta have got people thinking? No? Not even crossed your minds?
This is a game people, played by unseen participants (humans) (?) at such a level we wouldn’t even believe the ‘moves’ possible. Their board is the earth, their pieces are us. (for ‘us’ read you, me, governments, countries, gnp’s oil coal, monopoly board stuff). Sure, some of this evolves but the rest is THE GAME. At the moment most of ‘us’ seem to be losing, as in controlled/exploited as an almost throwaway resource.
Humans went from living only in warm climates to burning wood and dung, burning whale oil, coal, oil, and finally to exploiting nuclear power. Now we want to back up, throw away decades of immense progress, and reduce our energy use by restricting it to what we can extract from the sun and wind (and tides).
It’s a travesty, and I have zero respect for those who think our level of technology is advanced enough to extract this power in sufficient quantity to be useful without actually harming the environment (extracting power from the atmosphere and stopping sunlight from reaching where it normally does can do nothing but harm).
Germans like to make money. They do it very well. Chancellor Merkel is a bright, well-educated, woman who likely has not believed in CAGW since at least 2001. She is seizing a golden moment for Deutschland — collapse of carbon market, 17 years of obvious NO-warming. Real Money is not investing in windmills or solar panels nor is it going where such things are any substantial part of the power grid. While Money is not pretty, it offers us truth-in-science people hope, for once it knows it has been fooled, in a free market, it QUICKLY flows where the risk-profit analysis is rational.
Thus it is, that only by a socialist tyranny (such as D’oh!bama, the Puppet in Chief ‘s thinkers are trying to create) can one fund l-i-e-s.
Nuclear power is GREAT, but, it is still relatively expensive to get to market compared to coal, thus, to make money, for now, coal is better.
I want Thorium! I demand Thorium (Withnail & I, modified) There has to be transition. Millions of brand new cars sitting in car parks. Wish they were wind turbines, huge great big mother flippers. No. Lots of people denied the dignity of work at something worthwhile for a while. Given time we could have great Thorium or other energy not yet revealed, the zero point stuff even.
Code tech: – Back up? There’s a new engine that more than doubles the conversion of energy from fuel – why we not using it? Solar cells and wind turbines are cutting edge technologies.
Solar on roofs, and a slow down of wind – do nothing but harm? Sunlight normally reaching the ‘desert’?
Intelligent transition management is needed. It is not possible in a competitive world where knowledge is power and secrecy of same prevails, profit is survival (notwithstanding the human sacrifice). (May I introduce: the corporation)
What is with Germans and their fascination with green fuhrers from Austria?
Eugene says:
July 29, 2013 at 11:42 am
A lot of infrastructure outfits (and utility and other investors) have been chasing the “green energy” bubble, and why shouldn’t they? What’s not to love? Special accelerated depreciation provisions, special tax write offs, on-going revenue for selling energy promises to traditional utilities that are mandated to provide some amount of “renewable” in the portfolio.
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Green subsidies are the ultimate “renewable.”
Stupidity should be painful.. Siemens now knows that in a 2.7 trillion dollar loss kind of way..
The collapse of the green energy fiasco continues…
My memory is that General Electric and United Technlogies (Pratt & Whitney engines etc.) have been very disappointed with their ventures into alternative energy.
Meanwhile retailing idiots promote alarmism about polar bears (CocaCola Canada) and mis-represent nature as uncontaminated with harmful chemicals (Canada Safeway – sure I say, there’s the anthrax in rotting leaves, the tetanus organism in soil, the poisonous snakes……). I boycott both companies.
neillusion said:
No, not even close. Solar cells and wind turbines are old tech that are both completely useless when it comes to providing commercial or residential levels of power.
Both are decades old technology that were abandoned in the late 70s after they were rushed to in the early 70s during the energy crisis. Both require spinning backup generation because they provide power intermittently. Both are responsible for MASSIVE environmental destruction, both in their placement and in the manufacturing process, and both are responsible for horrendous environmental destruction while in operation.
There is no magical solution to make either of these old, useless technologies suddenly start working. They never, EVER will work. Ever. Believing they can is equivalent to believing in unicorns and dragons.
And while we’re at it, no, there is no magical “ultra-efficient” engine out there either. Nice try, though. You can be excused for believing this crap, lots of people fell for it in the 70s too. But please grow past your naive beliefs before you start lecturing people about what is and is not possible.
Idiot. The bandwagon is the green room for the tar and feathering gong show. Did he not know that?
Commercially, solar cells are best put to use as a road sign and light power source, on construction sites, and for farm and ranch purposes. Individually, you might be able to get off the grid if you like raw food and candlelight.
Don’t get me started on wind towers. You think their footprint is small compared to a damn or coal operated facility. Wait till the subsidies dry up and these things are laying on the ground. That footprint will be HUGE!
“dam” not “damn”. Apparently I was in a swearing mood.
Pamela Gray (7:40PM),
So are we ALL! “Green room for the tar and feather gong show” — LAUGH — OUT — LOUD.
I’m so glad to see you back posting. Hope all is well.
Janice
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@ur momisugly Code Tech (7PM)– GAME, SET, AND MATCH!
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@ur momisugly Keith Sketchley — Good for you! I haven’t been following the news all that closely. GREAT to hear that GE and their asinine curly-fry light bulbs are doing poorly. I do hope, though, for the sake of all the GE employees (some of whom, I think, are among our finest bloggers on WUWT), that they get a new captain and turn the ship around before the point of extremis (reef dead ahead).
Siemens has over recent decades been turned from a corporation that was run by engineers, to one run by “tampon graduates”. The term has been adapted from advertising of old which showed young women sailing, swimming, skiing, skydiving, speaking in boardrooms, etc — apparently because they were using one particular type of tampon.
Thus the “tampon graduates”; the MBA (“BWL” in Germany) and even law graduates; women and men; who are put into positions to control stuff, even though they don’t have the vaguest idea of what they are managing. In the absurd reduction of micro-management to management; detached from everything else.
The graduates are churned out of Universities and colleges; with high regard for themselves and overflowing confidence that they can manage; better than anybody could in the past. (ipso facto; managers with experience gained from working with the stuff that they’re now managing.)
Siemens is now finding itself standing on tippie-toes in the effluent of decades of such management. Managers who set high targets for the company’s Engineers to try to reach; having publicised products and services for which the company has no established proficiency.
It’s not just the renewable energy sector where Siemens is failing; in PV solar as well as wind (delaminating blades, no provision to connect off-shore to grid, etc.). Even the stuff where the company had traditional proficiencies have been stretched beyond breaking point. Germany’s high-speed ICE (InterCity Express) trains have been dogged by decades of “unexpected” failures with wheel coming apart, bogies catching fire, brake discs shattering, inadequate HVAC; and now a new generation of ICE, long-promised; is falling way behind schedule because they cannot get the software sorted and there are certification issues with the new rolling stock.
The blog of Siemens’ works council is a landmine of information.