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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Note to self: Do not EVER work in Germany.
Wow. I didn’t realize just how wonderful American men are until I read the above. They may call their female boss names (just like they do their male bosses), but nothing that disgusting. THANK YOU, GOD, THAT I LIVE IN AMERICA!!
“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.
Yes, yes, I remember well the industry that was prominent in Germany in the 40’s, and how well it reached its goal, Schindler notwithstanding. But in more recent times, it is ludicrous to expect national credibility when the industry in question is founded on lies, even ones as big as CAGW “science.”
If you search on the phrase ‘ fly-yellow paint ‘ using the images tab many of the first pictures that appear will be of yellow autos. This was the color selected a few years ago (? 2008 – 2009) as a clue that the car was electric or otherwise environmentally appropriate. One doesn’t see a lot of bright yellow cars on highways in 2013. The folks that thought this up should get out of the auto business.
That Germany’s “Green Shift” backfired is no surprise. One of the big nuclear plants should have all its cooling towers painted fly-yellow, maybe these
http://www.iromegane.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/german-nuclear-plants.jpeg
as a reminder. The skeptical types had this figured out almost as soon as it got started. A lot of grief could have been averted. Too late now.
Janice Moore says:
July 29, 2013 at 8:32 pm
“Note to self: Do not EVER work in Germany.
Wow. I didn’t realize just how wonderful American men are until I read the above. They may call their female boss names (just like they do their male bosses), but nothing that disgusting. THANK YOU, GOD, THAT I LIVE IN AMERICA!!”
Calm down. Bernd is in Oz for all I know. I’m in Germany and we don’t call our female bosses names. Never heard that “tampon graduate” stuff here. Don’t know where he got that from.
As for not working in Germany: Wise decision. It’s just not worthwhile. The state keeps most of the money.
As for MBA’s managing the companies: Well whether that is so bad is a matter of argument. Some of the old engineer-founders of Germany have failed in the market. Nixdorf, Zuse come to mind. And lots of unknown small startups founded by engineers who thought they could run a company but couldn’t. Most of the technical types can’t be bothered to care for money. They like to develop;not care about sales or staying in budget. It can work for a generation, like with Siemens himself, or the SAP founders; but often the heirs are just not interested or able to continue the success so you pass control to hired hands; the MBA’s.
Merkel was stupid to close their nuclear down after Fukishima. Germany is under zero tsunami threat like Japan and Merkel being a trained Physicist must be able to understand the science behind the earthquake caused tsunamis. Siemens is due to ”invest” in a wind producing facility in the UK now but this might be cancelled now. Not saying sorry though.
“Green” on this scale is collectivist, another branch of socialism and it central planning, As Thatcher said, socialism works until they run out of other people’s money. In the case of “green”, the crowd that demands it also loves to scold the rest of us on “sustainability”, yet none of their schemes are economically sustainable, so they can only succeed via the morally corrupt avenue of collusion with government, and thus also develops a form of crony-ism, I guess we could call it crony environmentalism.
Germany’s decision on nuclear power is more economically devastating than maybe even losing a war.
I agree with CodeTech and theBuckWheat. Too bad this site isn’t read by more greenies.
johnmarshall says:
July 30, 2013 at 3:30 am
“Siemens is due to ”invest” in a wind producing facility in the UK now but this might be cancelled now. Not saying sorry though.”
Thank god for that, I look out, from the North Wales Coast, at a forest of these useless objects, where the Irish Sea and the Horizon used to be.
Janice Moore says:
Janice,
Chill. Tampon graduate applies regardless of gender. They get a degree and reckon that they can do anything.
I made an effort to explain the origin of the term and that it applies to both women and men. There’s nothing that I can do about people finding offence in what I say or write. q.e.d.
Dirk, as to an origin of the term, Volker Pispers explains in this youtube video. You only need to watch the first minute. The video’s in German.
Disko troop:-) very funny, do you write comedy for a living?
reckon you should, got a good laugh from this and other comments of yours prior:-)
oh and wasnt it yesterday I read the germans are a bit worried about running outta gas supplies this winter? odd cos they got their very own direct line from Gazprom not that long back, didnt they?
maybe they better pay the bill?
This is the corner the eco-loons have forced the politicians into: put on a facade WHILE attempting to take some practical course behind the scenes, almost as a sideshow. A kabuki dance with a green-theme must be put on the main stage while the REAL activity proceeds off to the side.
This is a form of corruption, a poisoning of rational thought if you will, for for the ‘promise’ of some nirvana that will forever be just beyond reach (the ‘green dream’ of sustainable energy consisting of wind and sun). IMO.
.
More German coal imports, due closing nuclear power stations?? Its worse than that – they have also boosted production from the very dirty brown coal plants in Eastern Germany. And hypocritically boosted nuclear power imports from France.
But on the former subject, if Germany can still use brown coal, why is the UK turning the Drax power station into the largest woodburning stove in the world?? Is this another case of the UK being the only mug to take EU edicts seriously??
Silver Ralph says:
July 30, 2013 at 6:43 am
“But on the former subject, if Germany can still use brown coal, why is the UK turning the Drax power station into the largest woodburning stove in the world?? Is this another case of the UK being the only mug to take EU edicts seriously??”
We Germans cough up the money to fit flue gas scrubbers to all of the plants. Even the brown coal plants are as clean as an operating theatre. Well, sorta.
The Brits work economically. Owners of Drax and other plants have decided that it’s not economic to fit the scrubbers for the remaining lifetime of the facility so they close or convert to that burning of imported wood.
What’s smarter? I can tell you that there’s no place as expensive as Germany with regards to energy cost; taxed to the hilt; expensively bought from Gazprom etc., all kinds of green fees, rising from year to year. Energy in the UK is still vastly cheaper; even the wind mill madness is relatively cheap compared to the German PV subsidies.
“johnmarshall says:
July 30, 2013 at 3:30 am
Merkel was stupid to close their nuclear down after Fukishima. Germany is under zero tsunami threat like Japan and Merkel being a trained Physicist must be able to understand the science behind the earthquake caused tsunamis.”
Maybe not so stupid? Someone else commented that Merkel probably hasn’t really believed the CAGW hype for a decade or better. Maybe that’s true, her being a trained physicist and all?
If so, and if coal plants are cheaper to run than nuclear (absent any CO2 considerations), was she really “stupid,” or was she just taking advantage of an opportunity to switch Germany to cheaper coal, knowing that the green revolution was self-destructing, as the Siemens experience illustrates?
Her green allies would hardly object to the move to dump nuclear, and more likely cheered her on expecting, of course, that the replacement power would come from a favored source such as wind, solar, tides, or bio-something. What are they to do now, request the nukes be put back on line?
Meanwhile the nuclear industry is put on notice: Come up with something that competes on price or get used to coal and oil generation for another few decades.
Stupid? Or Crazy like a Fox?
Janice Moore says:
July 29, 2013 at 5:45 pm
“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.”
And who do you think made nuclear so expensive? The biggest cost is dealing with the same destructive crowd dedicated to kill off any industrial life’s blood. Nuclear electrical plant accidents: Canada 0, France 0, Germany 0, Japan 7, Chernobyl 50, directly but estimate up to 4000 long term, UK 0, US 3 (1961). These deaths occurred mainly with 50s -60s technology, and in the case of Chernobyl, no jurisdiction outside of the USSR would have built such an inherently unsafe plant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country
Over 4000 Chinese coal miners die every year.
During 2003 to 2009 in the US alone, 716 oil and gas extraction workers were killed on-the-job,
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/whats-the-deadliest-power-source
Rod Everson says:
July 30, 2013 at 7:28 am
“If so, and if coal plants are cheaper to run than nuclear (absent any CO2 considerations), was she really “stupid,” or was she just taking advantage of an opportunity to switch Germany to cheaper coal, knowing that the green revolution was self-destructing, as the Siemens experience illustrates? ”
Running an existing nuke is cheaper than anything else you can imagine. They need to be maintained each refueling cycle, every 2 years, and are checked to fulfill the most onerous regulations, but still cheaper than anything else. 98% uptime; churning out what, 7 TWH a year, one reactor; what’s that in household retail price of 0.25 Euro a kWh; 1.75 billion Euros a year, of which the state takes 70% in taxes and green fees for redistribution to his cronies with the PV and the wind mills.
You have to produce SOME energy if uou want to collect the fees to give to the cronies.
And just as a free service, 1.75 bn Euro are 2.275 bn Federal Reserve Notes (colloquially called a “US Dollar”) at a quote of 1.30.
Codetec
I believe you people can’t see passed the limited array of numbers you choose to believe in – sound familiar? You don’t know the future either.
Did you deliberately miss the point on ‘cutting technology’ of wind and solar to post as you did? Old tech completely useless? Are you for real? As one example, Germany has a huge number of domestic solar panels that last year (I think) produced a record Gazillion Watts, used for industry. Check that out! Impressive. Subsidies – you want to go there? You sound like someone who thinks he was just tricked into buying someone else a beer, bitter. You got shares in electricity, perhaps?
I suggest there are many things in the equation that none of us know. Yes it seems someone made a big mistake, but the truth is gonna be hard to find out and will almost certainly not be clear from numbers in any currency. It will take time.
I’ll venture a prediction that something big, I mean really big, happens in the next 12 months, that makes a lot of these judgements irrelevant.
Can’t you just feel it?
I’m reminded of the frogs in the saucepan (no, I’m not aiming this at AGW, I think that show is just about to set off the misty dry ice (cool) finale to obscure the performers, close the curtains and let the punters go home wondering what drama they just paid to see and who to nominate.
I have just read the ‘fault fallacy and failure of wind’ thread. It seems to me the ‘al gore against wind’ types that prevail on that thread are al gore wannabe’s with all his faults fallacies and failures. They should stop their deliberate negative soundbiting against wind. They simply do not present balanced quality considerations for assessment – none that I saw, nothing backed up with science, even the quote on ‘cost’ of producing the copper, steel, concrete is WRONG.
Shame on them. Detention, go write 1000 lines – ‘I will do my homework and debate like a real adult’
Wind never pretended to be anything but wind. It blows here and there, sometimes hard sometimes not at all. Always known.
Subsidies and cherry picked number bias, we all know what you can do with those issues – politics and statistics anyone?
Environment – any rational human being can see the gift
Not a be all and end all, but until the powers that be choose Thorium, wind (and solar) can be transition energy supply (supplements) far far preferable to burning coal and oil to get that energy.
“””””…..Stephen Richards says:
July 29, 2013 at 1:02 pm
george e. smith says:
July 29, 2013 at 11:59 am
NIXDORF ?……””””””
Well, I’m semi-illiterate in German; some would say totally so.
So I have no idea what that word means; but I presume from the punctuation, that is some sort of Question; which clearly, I don’t have an answer to either.
george e. smith,
The internet is a wonderful resource for finding answers to questions like yours. So I put NIXDORF into my handy desktop translator, and came up with the official German/English translation: “NIXDORF”.
See? Now we know the answer. Nixdorf means nixdorf.
So, how’s your nixdorf holding up? I’m taking my nixdorf out for a walk. He lives nixdorf to Heinz. Never nixdorf when there is an alternative. “Baby, show me your nixdorf…” Nixdorf in the Promised Land. When polishing your nixdorf… etc.
I am still at a loss over how this topic began.
neillusion says:
July 30, 2013 at 4:46 pm
… Not a be all and end all, but until the powers that be choose Thorium, wind (and solar) can be transition energy supply (supplements) far far preferable to burning coal and oil to get that energy.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Are you for real???
What don’t you understand about the word INTERMITTENT?
You cannot run a business much less manufacturing with an intermittent power supply. I have worked as a chemist in drug manufacture, plastics and ceramic casting for turbine blades.
YOU CANNOT MAKE A TURBINE BLADE WITHOUT A STEADY SUPPLY OF POWER! You don’t shut down the power to foundries or for that matter to plastics manufacturing without destruction of the equipment or at least a major clean-up/start-up down time measured in days to weeks.
Solar or wind are good niche market products but that is it until a useful method is found for storing energy without a major loss. Also solar and wind are land intensive and only suitable in certain locations.
Despite all the rhetoric, Wind, Solar and battery technology is OLD technology. You just are not going to get the fast breakthroughs you see in new technology. Going from 1900 to 1960 you saw major leaps in technology and science in many fields from transportation to medicine, from leeches to antibiotics, from horses to spacecraft and from candles to indoor electric lights.
From 1960 to now we have REFINED those breakthroughs. There are physical limitations to those refinements that can not be bypassed. Congress can pass a law that cars have to get 500 MPG but it ain’t going to happen. (Unless you are talking nuclear)
neillusion, now I’m one of “you people”? LOL
I can’t tell if you’re semi-literate, or English isn’t your first language, you’re playing at some sort of sarcastic game, or if you’re just dim. Whichever it is, your gibberish above is just that.
Wind and solar are great in small scales for isolated areas, they’re both useful for camping or powering remote traffic signals, things like that. But neither will ever be useful for commercial or residential power supplies. People and business require on-demand power that is reliable. Neither wind or solar fulfill that requirement. Let’s see how well your furnace moves the warmth through your house when it’s -40 and the wind isn’t blowing and you’re depending on wind or solar for your power.
And it is truly mind boggling that any sane individual can use the word “Gazillion” when describing the power generated by these useless technologies.
See if you can arrange to visit a wind farm some day. Some companies like to show them off, and will tour you around the facility. That might wake you up to what is involved. Cutting edge? Mind boggling.
There are only a very few places in the world where wind is constant enough for a wind farm to provide anything close to predictable power, and those places are all in sensitive bird migration paths (for that very reason).Think about the “cutting edge” factor of slicing up and clubbing so many birds. Think about how intelligent it is to slash service roads and pile hundreds of tons of concrete as a base for a giant wind turbine that is not a constant source of power.
Nixdorf could be understood as a composite word meaning “Nothing-Village”. Nix is colloquial for Nichts meaning nothing. Well and Nixdorf was also the name of an old extinct German computer maker who in the 80ies got acquired by Siemens.
Until the person who used this terms tells you what s/he meant by it, you haven’t got a clue…
neillusion says:
July 30, 2013 at 3:14 pm
“Codetec
I believe you people can’t see passed the limited array of numbers you choose to believe in – sound familiar? You don’t know the future either.
Did you deliberately miss the point on ‘cutting technology’ of wind and solar to post as you did? ”
The first Megawatt wind turbine was built in USA, I think Vermont, in 1946. Silicon solar cells are being sold at least since the 70ies. There were some process improvements.
“Old tech completely useless? Are you for real? As one example, Germany has a huge number of domestic solar panels that last year (I think) produced a record Gazillion Watts, used for industry.”
Yep; one record Gazillion Watts. Which is what in Gigawatt-hours or GWh? I forgot the conversion factor. Please help me out.
“Check that out! Impressive.”
I would go so far as to say “Shiny!”
” Subsidies – you want to go there? You sound like someone who thinks he was just tricked into buying someone else a beer, bitter. You got shares in electricity, perhaps?”
Germans pay currently 24 bn EUR a year in subsidies to PV and solar etc; mostly solar; growing by 20 % a year, a nice exponential. Currently that equates to 300 EUR per capita per year. or 390 USD.
Neillusioin, you don’t know anything. You must be a Green. They wouldn’t know a number if it crawled up their behind and died there.