European Power Plants Face Widespread Bankruptcies
Germany’s economics minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) wants to levy penalty payments onto coal plants if they produce CO2 emissions above a certain threshold. Against this plan intense resistance is growing in Germany: Within the Christian Democrat, within industry and – for especially dangerous for Gabriel – within the trade unions. The Christian Democrats (CDU) in particular are taking on Gabriel’s climate levy. And Merkel is allowing her party colleagues to assail him. Armin Laschet, the vice chairman of the Federal CDU, is accusing Gabriel of breaking the coalition agreement. –Jochen Gaugele , Martin Greive , Claudia Kade, Die Welt, 25 May 2015
The transition to renewable power generation is accelerating closures of coal and gas-fired power generation plants at a quicker rate than expected. According to UBS, policymakers may have to take measures to prevent widespread bankruptcies in the European electricity market. That’s the conclusions drawn by investment bank UBS, who have produced a report on the subject. According to their data, some 70 GW of coal and gas-fired power generation shut-downs have occurred in the last five years, and the pace is increasing, according to the analysis. –Diarmaid Williams, Power Engineering International, 11 May 2015
The world’s richest nations are unlikely to reach a deal to phase out subsidies for coal exports at talks in June, reducing the chances of a new global climate change agreement at a U.N. conference in Paris, officials and campaigners say. One European Union official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the EU hoped to “nudge forwards” the debate, but that within the EU, Germany was an obstacle, while Japan was the main opponent in the OECD as a whole. –Barbara Lewis and Susanna Twidale, Reuters, 27 May 2015
To many western environmentalists, who are determined to see a binding global deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the UN climate change conference in Paris later this year, India’s rising coal use is anathema. However, across a broad range of Delhi politicians and policymakers there is near unanimity. There is, they say, simply no possibility that at this stage in its development India will agree to any form of emissions cap, let alone a cut. — David Rose, The Guardian, 27 May 2015
The idea that India can set targets in Paris is completely ridiculous and unrealistic. It will not happen. This is a difficult concept for eco-fundamentalists, and I say this as a guy who is considered in India to be very green. Copenhagen failed because of climate evangelism. I was sitting for days with Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama and Sarkozy. It was absolutely bizarre. It failed because of an excess of evangelical zeal, of which Brown was the chief proponent. Even with the most aggressive strategy on nuclear, wind, hydro and solar, coal will still provide 55% of electricity consumption by 2030, which means coal consumption will be 2.5 or three times higher than at present. –Jairam Ramesh, India’s former environment minister, The Guardian, 27 May 2015
Levy the tax and let Germany freeze in the dark.
The sooner this happens the better off the world will be!
Last winter, thousands DID. >_<
Fewer ‘useless’ mouths to feed – and mostly the advanced ‘wrinklies’ will suffer. The Greens are patting themselves on the back.
@Jennifer Hubbard, are you kidding me?! Look your parents in the face and say that. It’s funny how people like you always make these remarks assuming it will never directly affect them. The real pollution on this planet is people like you. I hope you’re one of the first to go.
If a single wealthy country implodes from runaway climate policies, it will wake up a great deal of folks. But the human cost would be huge. It is not desirable on any level.
There will always be a separate reason to point to… runaway CAGW mitigation policies will not be directly implicated.
If anything – the headlines will read “Not Enough was Done: Climate Disaster has Claimed a Country… send more funds for research please.”
Strangely, there is strong historical and ‘experimental’ evidence to support a runaway governmental control problem… while there is zero evidence for an Earthly runaway greenhouse problem.
True but probably necessary to awaken the masses.
If any wealthy country implodes, it won’t be from climate policy.
In my view, this is a separate cost/battle/forcing/exposure that needs to be aired, that’s all.
It seems like it will wake up nobody. Disasters are unfolding in England, Scotland, Germany, Spain and elsewhere. No policy disaster in any one country seems to be informing the policies in any of the others.
And none of them are having even the slightest effect in the US. Instead, the US seems to be rushing headlong down the same path, even to “catch up” with the “green” european economies. When disaster hits and a grid collapses for real, politicians will round up all the usual suspects, Greedy Capitalists, Big Oil, Big Coal, Banksters, Putting Profits Ahead Of People. You know the drill, we have heard it all before.
When finally cornered, the refrain will be “Mistakes were made, but there is plenty of blame to go around”.
If they can not evade blame altogether, they will attempt to diffuse it as far as possible.
If the past is any guide, they will not stop until they get a body count which is too large to ignore.
It is madness, total madness.
The Rise and Fall of the 4th Reich.
But leaving it rot like this causes much more damage in the end. So, let it implode and wake/ shake up the green leftists here in Europe. Before they ruin the rest of it.
Sadly you are right. It wont be the greens and climate activists who will suffer.
Haven’t you just named the parties involved in this?
Check out the situation with cap-and-trade that is being brought into Canada and big oil/gas & big banks.
This involves not only Canadian provinces but also, California, Washington, Oregon and Vermont.
Bringing in cap-and trade to the U.S. via the backdoor.
And send to Germany all the warmunists here in the USA to marvel at the green utopia they are attempting to create in our own country.
No such thing as ” Informing the policy”. Fake meme, fake English
When the people in these countries get sick and tired of being sick and tired of freezing in the winter and suffering in misery, they will vote the Chicken-Little’s out of office that are the cause.
@pyeatte, I have been following this the same way as you have and having family in the EU (or should I say FU’d EU) it is too late, voting out these BS artists is not going to help one bit. If I were you I’d move far away from large population areas and hunker down as best as you can. Mayhem is not far away.
The last time Germany’s economy went in the toilet they nearly whipped the world.
a “world” that did not extend beyond Britain on one side, and the Urals on the other, nor past The Sahara…
Look at all that white soot they are spewing out of those hemi circular hyperboloids of one sheet.
Loverly sight it is, blocking and absorbing all that evil solar energy that we make heat out of.
If The Germans freeze, just think how miserable everyone else will be. Well the French will just throw some more fuels rods in the oven. Howcome they got to be so smart ??
Be of good cheer, fellow skeptics. This is about politics, not science. The First Quarter contraction of US GDP will move Hillary Clinton and the Party she represents to re-examine climate. A slow economy elects Republicans. Her, and her Party’s, goal is power. Power requires winning the 2016 election and the economy will determine the winning side.
There is an article on this on the Global Warming Policy Forum Website on this German dilemma here
http://www.thegwpf.com/german-government-in-crisis-over-escalating-cost-of-climate-policy/
The same will happen here in UK as more and more coal fired power stations are forced to close because of preference to wind and levy on CO2 emissions. Prepare for power cuts.
The UK has been through two world wars and now this crisis within a century!
At least the two wars were the cause of all the misery. Now the misery is self-induced and 100% unnecessary.
The Agenda rolls on, defying all logic and leaders:
In a stunning admission, the German Government recently announced that its transition to Renewable Energy was, “On the Verge of Failure.”
http://srsroccoreport.com/germany-death-of-renewable-energy-bring-on-the-dirty-coal-monsters/germany-death-of-renewable-energy-bring-on-the-dirty-coal-monsters/
The banner reads, “We oppose the social blackout of whole regions!”
This need not lead to power cuts or any other catastrophic outcome. The increased cost of coal and subsidies will largely be passed on to the consumer, although ultimately some capacity may be mothballed or scrapped before the end of its planned economic life.
Whether the consumer feels this is good value to reduce possibly illusory climate change concerns is another matter.
Apparently 600,000 households were reported as disconnected for non payment of electricity bills in 2012.
http://notrickszone.com/2012/05/01/germany-succeeds-making-energy-unaffordable-for-15-of-its-population-600000-households-disconnected-annually/#sthash.alXRPYgz.dpbs
I wonder what the situation is now?
That statement shows you do not understand EE, and how the grid actually works. Please study up a bit (you can get the basics without using complex numbers and the square root of minus one– which you would need to calculate the specifics of reactive power and a major reason for brownouts.
Hello ristvan. ‘The specifics of reactive power’ sounds interesting. Could you please provide more information.(Freezing pensioners would be most interested as to why they need to stay in bed to survive.We should explain this to them.)
So I thought it was the Europeans that were so gung ho about requiring power factor correction for all our computer switching power supplies.
Is it maglev trains that are phase shifting the grid, or is it that big CERN donut ??
I’ve used capacitive coupling to drive LED signs with AC current sources; but I’m not running enough juice to even show up on PG&E’s phase meter.
Come on Dirk fess up. What sort of secret machine are you chaps shifting the power phase off kilter with ??
In the UK there are banks of diesel generators ready to come into life when the wind stops or is too strong so it is correct to say that there may not be power cuts. The increased costs will all be passed on to the consumers since that’s how business works. The catastrophic outcome will be the huge loss of jobs as industry closes down and moves to other countries where energy policy is more enlightened. Green ‘investment’ kills jobs in the long term.
UK there are banks of diesel generators ready to come into life
============
you find this all over the third world. it is caused by unreliable mains power. if you don’t have your own generator you are going to have to do without.
however, it is a pipe dream to synchronize all these generators into a national grid. it is called power for a reason. you can flip a light switch at your house because you are trying to control only a small amount. try and switch a large amount on and off and you will quickly find out that things are not nearly so simple as politicians would like to believe. One might was well try and turn a river on and off.
Fred.
These ‘banks of diesels’ in the UK are already attached to the grid. It is a special diesel reserve that sits and does nothing for 330 days a year, and costs us a fortune to keep it on standby. Just another of the many hidden costs for having wind power, which the government does not advertise.
I would not say we here in the U.S. are more enlightened, as we have more than our share of eco-chondriacs, including the President and his coterie of “scientific advisors, eager to thrust us for ably into tertiary methods of power production, but we are much luckier in having available vast resources of methane to burn cheaply. The Euros cannot compete with that advantage and keep shooting themselves in their collectivist feet trying hard not to catch up. I’m so sad about that.
If the consumers can’t afford the cost, they will do without, either voluntarily, or by being disconnected. If the plant can’t sell its power, or enough of it, it will go broke, and will be shut down. Plant shutdowns = power cuts.
But it’s okay because once all the coal plants are gone then the global climate will revert back to the old ways of constant 20-30 C temperatures with always average rain, wind, and sun shine. They will no longer need electricity to stay warm or cool. /sarc
Reality confounding ideology! There is hope, but they still show cooling towers to illustrate pollution!
That is deadly dihydrogen monoxide!
Well it IS 95% of the so-called “GHE”
Yes, if the EPA would have us believe that life-sustaining CO2 is a pollutant, then surely life-giving H2O must be even worse!
Both can kill you, though, in high enough concentrations.
So it’s not steam then ?
I get it…H2O
No, surely just oxygen hydride? The only reason we say carbon “di”oxide is because there is a “mon”oxide form. Aluminum oxide is called that even though the formula is Al2O3. We don’t call it “dialuminium trioxide.
Off topic and just sayin… 😉
Or perhaps even plain old hydrogen oxide?
(I’ll get my coat… )
Hydrogen Hydroxide
Or is the dreaded hydroxillic acid?
Except it isn’t acid…
I’m with Nomenclature there; it is hydrogen hydroxide.
Nothing like sitting on the fence to watch the fun, is there Nomenclature ??
Nomenclature:
Hydrogen hydroxide? Nice try, you almost got me there.
Trouble is that water does not form a crystalline alkaline salt (although I give you that ice does dissolve in water).
The atomic bonds in water are covalent not ionic.
How about hydroganol instead (an alcohol lighter than methanol but without any carbon atoms).
So there you have it Hydroganol, let’s drink to that. 😉
‘MCourtney
1d ago
This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs’ (The Guardian, 27 May 2015).
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Mr Courtney, it would be interesting to know what The Guardian editors found so offensive.
Chris Hanley.
Often it’s because I’ve linked to the IPCC AR reports – they hate that.
But in this case it was because I linked to Dana Nuccitelli’s hit piece on David Rose. A the article was written by David Rose it showed a certain discord within the Guardian editorial policy.
Which rule I breached is unclear. But it’s probably the one about not making the Guardian writers look silly. It’s hard not to breach that rule where Dana is concerned.
Iv’e read some DN writings and find her more than wrong.
You handled that crowd fairly handily (at the Grauniad). Well done. Now I need to purge it from my mind.
Terry I think you have hit the nail on the head, the tax is meant to increase the cost of coal power so its more in line with the cost of renewable energy. This will do two things, force people to get used to a higher cost of energy (or force people into energy poverty) and make new renewable energy projects more economically viable against their coal rivals.
Note that David Rose is allowed back at the Guardian to write about climate issues.
He’s the guy who talked about the Pause in the Daily Mail and was vilified for doing so. He was even vilified in the Guardian for doing so (only by Dana Nuticelli but it was still in the Guardian).
Yet now, even the Guardian has welcomed him back.
The Times may not be changing.. but the Grauniad is.
Rusbridger steps down as editor soon, right? Is Katharine Viner similarly afflicted?
Now that is really wishful thinking!
Viner is his replacement this summer, but I have not heard what her opinions are like (other than she was his 2nd in command).
There is a very high level of dirty power and grid instability from renewals. Added to this, if fossil fuel plants go bankrupt or find they can make more money from renewable energy subsidies than from selling electricity, the grid will crash and there will be blackouts at some time in most of Germany. This is what rational minds in Europe are trying to prevent.
Renewable energy produces dirty power that must be made clean by fossil fuel plants or the grid will crash. No way around this fact by protesting, lawsuits, propaganda, or global warming myths. Germany is in trouble and must get and keep its fossil fuel power plants online as they phase out renewable energy by removing all of its subsidies.
Finally, are there enough Germans that care about the environment and the enormous slaughter of birds and bats, that they will get rid of renewal subsidies and let the free market system for energy restore stable power and protect wildlife and their environment?
Most people focus on the human suffering exposed by unreliable electricity, but the impact on the manufacturing segment is enormous. If a manufacturer can not be assured of the availability of power, they will move to where they are.
And Germany is the economic power of the EU.
@ jtom, soon used to be the biggest, The EU is a thing of the past and that includes Germany. Now, of what once was the economic driver all across the world it has become part of a welfare continent
Poland is tired of German “green” energy instability and is taking steps to keepit out
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/poland-dealing-with-wind-and-germany-with-coal/
This will hasten German ‘learning’…
Not only must they rid themselves of the evils of coal produced power, they have determined the severe danger of Tsunamis attacking German nuclear plants necessitate curtailment also. So many fears, so little time.
Sometimes you have to rub the puppy’s nose in the poo, to teach it not to poo inside the house. I guess the same applies to greens and stupid energy policies.
+1
I solve the first problem by never owning a dog. The disconnect is that it is their poo, our noses.
Then you miss one of the great joys of life.
Oldgamer56, please do not try to preach to me about the joys of life, especially when it comes to dogs, which, in my view, are a parasite of human beings.
One of the great joys of my life is that I don’t have to deal with dogsh!t on a daily basis, nor spend money feeding an animal, nor put up with all the additional parasites for which the dog is a host,
As it is now I must contend with dogcrap lying around in my neighborhood left behind by irresponsible dog owners, who not only feel free to let their dog drop poop anywhere, but also now increasingly feel free to go ahead and bring their dogs into the grocery store, or even restaurants, where people are paying big money to enjoy a meal.
And sorry to tell you, but a dog is a filthy animal who will gladly roll in and even consume crap. I value my health, and work to maintain a high standard of personal hygiene and cleanliness, so any idea of such an appalling creating sharing my personal space is entirely out of the question.
If Henry James Byron’s observation that “Life’s too short for chess,” it is true, then it is certainly too short for dogs. While you tend to your toy wolf, I’ll be spending my precious time on something worthwhile
I don’t hate dogs. I grew up around dogs. My neighbor’s German shepherd yearling ran with me alongside my bike while I delivered papers in the morning. I could tell you some dog stories.
So go in peace with your pet pooch, but keep it and its crap out of my space, and please lay off the dog-preaching.
appalling
creatingcreature“Life’s too short for chess,”
itis true,Even though “Life is too short for chess,” nevertheless, “the mistakes are all there, waiting to be made.”
I’ve also decided over time that:
Life is too short for pro football.
Life is too short for fiction.
Life is too short for rendering 3D graphics.
The list goes on…
life is too short to be a curmudgeon as well, except for me, i reserve the right to be pissy.
I used to own dogs and they slept in the garage but now I live in an area crowded with apartments in Los Angeles, where my long morning walks are blessed by the enjoyment of seeing the profusion of vegetation, the the busy-ness of people and the dog walkers studiously waiting for their beloved pooches to defecate so that they can deposit their offering into a plastic bag which they then carry and quite often toss into a garden, onto a lawn or into a non-composting recycling trash bin. After several such displays every morning, it takes a certain type of stoic resilience to tackle the rest of the day with quiet detachment and enjoyment.
Well you have to make choices in life.
You can own a dog, or you can own a front lawn; well unless of course you have a neighbor who owns a dog.
How long does it take dog owners to learn to live without a lawn.
One of these days I will find the perfect lawn insect repellant; probably some sort of very stick and very hot pepper concoction.
I had a dog once. I also owned a piece of wilderness, where dogs are native.
If you have cats, you need neighbors who have gardens.
g
The truth and the elimination of a level playing field is bringing this idiotic policy into stark focus that even a Merkel begins to understand.
But now for the biggest naysayer of all; the little “o” to realise his folly – we watch with amazement..
Paris might be more than any of these “world leaders” expect.
A contingency of skeptics should have a prominent presence at Paris. Some of the news media may report the other side.
It’s interesting that renewable sources are actually out doing nonrenewable in a country as far north as Germany. No one saw that coming.
The situation with India is a little different. A relatively poor country that has much less CO2 going into the air per person than does us. So they deserve a little slack.
But with some 1500 or 2000 people dead there because the latest heatwave, I bet they are more than worried about global warming.
They are “outdoing” conventional energy sources the same way that a duck weighs as much as a witch.
trafamadore says:
…renewable sources are actually out doing nonrenewable…
Wrong.
A relatively poor country that has much less CO2 going into the air per person than does us.
CO2 is completely harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere. More is better.
1500 or 2000 people dead there because the latest heatwave
Out of a billion. You can bet that number would be doubled and squared in a cold wave.
We now return you to your bubble of ‘carbon’ ignorance…
Gregg,
Understood. My point: cold kills much more than warmth.
If a heat wave is bad, wouldn’t air conditioners be a good thing?
@ Gregg: It does get cold in India, and when it does, it is far more lethal to them than heat. They have no way to cope with cold snaps.
@gregg E. You pointed me to the article at triplepundit.com where they claimed 84% renewables that included hydro. Did that include the dams the greens are tearing down in the west of the US and want to also tear down more and STOP the building of new ones in Canada and Washington? Uhm?
In what way are “renewables” “outdoing” “nonrenewables”? What is happening is exactly what engineers stated would happen, ie “renewables” are still not even a pimple on the posterior of fossil fuels, despite the gigantic waste of subsidies. They are however outdoing “nonrenewables” in massacring birds and bats and blighting the countryside.
What global warming? There isn’t any.
Shutting down new fossil fuel construction in favor of uneconomical and environmentally disastrous “renewables” is the only way.
But eventually the “renewables” will need new fossil fuel backup plants. The US is blessed with lots of low-carbon, high-hydrogen gas, but other developed countries less so.
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article136927738
According to your logic then, it is totally OK if the earth heats up by 6C or more as long as the countries responsible for it are not producing more CO2 per person than the highest per capita country. I mean, to you keeping CO2 to less than 400ppm in not important as long as it is India and China driving it up to 600ppm or more. Progressive logic for sure. Also goes to prove it is NOT about preventing AGW that is important to you guys.
Alcheson CO2 is still going up and there hasn’t been any significant change in the global temp for 18 years 5 months so your scary CAGW theory is falling apart. Anyway 600ppm would be great. About half way to what the plants would really like.
According to the senate testimony of Dr. William Happer, the U.S. Navy tries to keep the CO2 levels in their submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million – 20 times the current atmospheric level. “Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels.”,
Alcheson,
For what is worth; The honest answer to your question, from my perspective, is YES.
Now, if I were to accept the premise in your question that an average atmospheric CO2 concentration of 400 ppm would actually cause/lead to an outcome of “the earth heats up by 6C or more” then I would have a different answer.
Please see the Monty Python video above (TSK TSK @ 4:29 PM) … did you see the humor in it? Do any of the characters look or act in a manner that you find familiar?
I also suggest that you try, just for a little while, to see things from another perspective. Imagine and visualize the non-CO2 levels of atmospheric gasses (nitrogen, oxygen, etc) dropping from 999,650 ppm to 999,580 ppm.
According to your logic then we should ban women’s feminine hygene products, for as you say, we need to do what we can to reduce the risk of a 6c increase. Although here in Central Saskatchewan, if our winter warmed up by 12c for a 6c average increase that would be most welcome!
Trolls are getting so rare nowadays, one should treat them as a rare delicacy to be slowly nibbled at rather than eviscerated. Perhaps with a bottle of Chianti on the side, but only one that’s been chilled within an inch of its life.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/28-predictions-later-or-the-invasion-of-the-living-dead/
Pointman
Too easy to disprove renewables out doing traditional power: http://www.agora-energiewende.de/service/aktuelle-stromdaten/?tx_agoragraphs_agoragraphs%5BinitialGraph%5D=powerGeneration&tx_agoragraphs_agoragraphs%5Bcontroller%5D=Graph
Those old renewables were really kicking it in during 22-26May15. /sarc
They are more concerned about air conditioning. 45C is quite common in India. Been there several times.
.5C global warming makes no difference
Where I grew up, without AC, it was always over 100 F in summer 40 to 45 C were common. I often describe it as 110 F in the shade, and there aint no shade… I lived… Hottest I personally remember was 117 F in Marysville (central valley California) one summer.
Was in Phoenix at over 50 C once. 126 F IIRC, and the airport was shut down as the tarmac under the airplanes was melting… concrete runway was fine but the taxi and parking area was soft…
People choose to live in those places and to avoid snow… and a bit of water spray avoids heat stroke. .. done it many times working outdoors in that heat and sun.
“A relatively poor country that has much less CO2 going into the air per person than does us.”
Thanks to 300 million not having electricity and the country not needing much heating.
ooom, no its not. Free renewable energy equals 90% of demand. yet zero reduction in fossil fuel use and an increase in Co2. Reason, they use coal to back up the intermittent sources resulting in prices four times higher.
Free renewable energy, what planet do you live on?
Grey Lensman
Fossil fuels displaced renewables and industrialised civilisation became possible. A return to renewables is not possible without horrific toll in human death.
All energy is free: it was all created at the Big Bang and it cannot be destroyed.
But collecting energy and concentrating it so it can do useful work is expensive. Fortunately, nature has collected and concentrated energy for us.
Energy concentrated in ancient now dead stars is now available to us as radioactive materials.
Solar energy collected by growing things over geological ages is available as fossil fuels.
And solar energy collected by evapouration of water over large areas is concentrated in river flows.
This is why hydropower continued to be used but people abandoned using the diffuse energy from wind power, solar power, biomass burning, and the power of muscles (provided by slaves and animals) when the greater energy density in fossil fuels became available by use of the steam engine .
The displacement of renewables by fossil fuels enabled the food and industry required for an industrialised civilsation. A return to renewables would remove any possibility of civilisation feeding its population.
Richard
@ richardscourtney
I liked your comments and copied them for quoting elsewhere.
Germany used to be the standard bearer for environmental politics; not any more, despite squeals of their MSM to the contrary.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/examples-will-have-to-be-made-germany/
Pointman
Pierre Gosselin [notrickszone.com] has published great posts year as the Wind Turbine crisis has become more fully understood.
The short news is: Germany’s 25,000 Wind Turbines performed at less than 15% efficiency for 2014.
So, given the billions spent, the country:
1. Used nearly the same amount of fossil fuels.
2. Is bankrupting the power companies that have to idle when the wind blows.
I thought Mr. Gosselins posts would go viral.
This information needs to be discussed and understood.
Great job Mr. Gosselin!
http://notrickszone.com/2015/02/07/germany-2014-report-card-is-in-its-25000-wind-turbines-get-an-f-averaged-only-14-8-of-rated-capacity/#sthash.AQdV3SsA.dpbs
http://notrickszone.com/2015/04/18/growing-unrest-german-trade-union-to-protest-co2-plan-that-threatens-100000-jobs-and-affordable-and-reliable-energy/#sthash.75CENv2X.dpuf
http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.Gekq1zLJ.dpuf
This is the major issue with renewables. Whatever your views may be on the desirability of reducing CO2 emissions, renewables do not result in the meaningful reduction of CO2 emissions.
Because of the need for fossil fuel generation backup which is run in inefficient ramp up/ramp down mode, just as much CO2 is being emitted, so what is the point of renewables? They are simply a big FAIL however one looks at it.
Thats what I said but its not bankrupting the power companies. They run ay full steam, maximum efficiency but earn nothing. until the wind stops blowing and the sun sets. they then just close the steam bypass valve and power up the gennies and earn peak save the grid power rates and huge profits. Not efficient in saving fossil fuel use or reducing CO2 but it makes money
Grey Lensman
No part of that claim is true.
More inconvenient truths. It’s unfortunate that people/economies/countries will suffer because they swallowed the green kool aid but there needs to be an example. The bigger the example the better the results. I would prefer the AGW scam be exorcized rather than the failure of renewables though. That would put a proper end to this nonsense rather than viewing it as defeat for the environment.
Just been watching a program called “Time Commanders” where a group of people try to command a Roman army. In this episode they all got completely obsessed by what was happening in one part of the field and totally missed the fact that they were getting surrounded and then were being massacred.
That’s where we are at with this global warming scam. The environmentalists are obsessed with passing some joke resolutions – missing the key point that the public are growing angry over fuel costs and job losses and that irrespective of whether they get the resolutions through, they’ve now lost this battle.
The reality of this climate policy is now hitting home. Nothing can now stop that reality forcing politicians to drop their climate plans — as they said on Time Commanders “DEFEAT IS IMMINENT”.
Good point. As these governments take their people into energy poverty there will be revolutions. One hopes the revolutions will just be at the polls and these fools will be voted out, but there could be blood in the streets if people get cold and hungry and they know that the politicians are the cause of it.
Someday, the people will awaken to the fact that CO2 does not add any “heat” back to the earth. When they realize that all of these trillions spent was for nothing … look out.
What if it does get significantly colder ? Are the governments going to claim credit for it and tell the unwashed masses how they saved them from catastrophic global warming by their fabulous “carbon” reduction policies (that neither have, nor will reduce “carbon”).
I hope so, because if the target on your forehead fits, then wear it !!!!
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
RA COOK, How else do you explain near 90% wind/solar yet no reduction in fossil fuel use, increase in co2 output and no blackouts? Indeed it is the Germans themselves who have suggested that is exactly what is going on and was reported here!
Who is John Galt?
A crisis of intellect.
You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. What on Earth were they thinking? (Oh I forgot, they don’t think on Earth, they think inside a computer model.)
Well Germany has been patting themselves on the back for far too long already.
If they chose to allow Gang Green to extort them into the poor house more power to them.
What was that comedy show from German TV last year, after the Govt report on renewables, subtitled in english .Introducing the model windmill as the modern replacement for the crucifix.?
Group think and sanctimonious stupidity will eventually reward all who permit it to continue.
Who knew ignoring these idiots would threaten to collapse society.. civilization as we know it.
No electricity at affordable rates equals no modern conveniences for most of us.
Wait for the rots when the enviro-enforcer types can not afford to recharge their gadgets.
It is not uncommon to still find genuine wayside crucifixes along German side roads and tracks; their purpose was similar to the bird-chomping eco variety viz. as a tangible act of faith.
This is what happens when you allow the inmates to run the asylum.
German power plants are going bankrupt in part because they are high-capital structures immersed in a relentless falling interest rate environment.
In accounting, the Law of Assets says that assets on the balance sheet should be carried at acquisition cost, or market value, whichever is LOWER.
Accounting is (or ought to be) inherently conservative. The Law of Assets is designed to prevent assets from being overstated, and management from making ‘we’re rich’ decisions, based on appreciation not yet booked. (People made this mistake during the housing bubble. They mentally booked fantasy appreciation on their balance sheets. This wealth effect induced them to spend spend spend. But unbooked appreciation is like Sirens on the rocks. Fools get dashed on the reef in short order.)
Well, accounting is also a symmetric system. So even though it may not recognized, there is a corresponding Law of Liabilities.
The Law of Liabilities says that liabilities should be carried on the balance sheet at acquisition cost, or liquidation value (i.e., market value), whichever is HIGHER. Why? It is designed to prevent liabilities from being understated, and management from making ‘we’re rich’ decisions based on debt not yet extinguished.
In a falling interest rate environment, the price of bonds goes up. So if an entity wants to retire debt early, or if an entity is pressed into bankruptcy, it must pay those higher bond prices. Even if a firm does not do this, it must set aside extra capital to account for the rising liquidation value of its debt. Failure to do so leaves firms with insufficient capital, and they can go bankrupt without understanding what hit them.
The Great Depression was actually a bull market in bonds. As interest rates fell, perfectly sound firms — unaware of the Law of Liabilities — did not account for the ever-rising liquidation value of debt, and fell into bankruptcy, blindsided.
Note that the Law of Liabilities even applies to firms with fully paid up capital. After all, net worth is on the liability side of the balance sheet.
The Germans were god fascists, it required a world war to stop them. They were good communists, it require economic collapse of the soviets to stop them. Now they are good religioenviromentalists. Nothing will stop them. Not even economic suiside.
Wow.
Mr. Steiner, are we free here to comment about Jews with the same impunity?
Or is there a double standard?
Poland is trying to install breakers in their electricity supply from Germany. They do not want to import the high price power because it willl shut down their industries.
They also do not the wild fluctuations in power delivery.
Go Poland. Inoculate yourself from the Green Disease.
The problem is not the high price but the low price! As soon as the randomly and not on demand produced renewable energy gets into the net on a windy and sunny day, (and it has priority feed!) it must be consumed somewhere.So Germany exports Megawatts with surplus to get rid of it and stabilize the own high tension nets, but this ruins the economy of the conventional energy plants of Poland, France and Switzerland!
Disillusioned Spanish official expert disses solar power at length. Very good:
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/05/01/Solar-Dreams/
Belgium’s Zaventem international airport suffered a power cut triggered by a power surge yesterday which led to closure of the entire Belgian airspace:
http://news.yahoo.com/belgian-airports-standstill-air-traffic-failure-092103852.html
Apparently the initiating power surge was so strong that it disabled the backup diesel generators which were supposed to protect against power cuts but in this case were unable to prevent total power loss from the Belgocontrol air traffic control centre.
It’s intriguing to speculate whether wind power played any role in this. Belgium, where I live, is naively green and people I speak to see no problem, for instance, in replacing the country’s nuclear power station with windmills.
From this article it is clear that Zaventem airport were not without warning that such a power cut could threaten the airport’s operation:
http://www.brusselsairport.be/en/mediaroom/news/52180/
I didn’t notice the supposed crisis exaggeratedly used in the title in the article. Who’s in crisis? Is somebody on a crash cart or in intensive care?
I know, I didn’t notice the world burning up, or continents sinking into the sea, or weather being any more volatile or unpredictable then it has been for centuries. I mean you are right there is absolutely no global warming “crisis”.
Alx
Yes, of course you “didn’t notice the world burning up, or continents sinking into the sea, or weather being any more volatile or unpredictable then it has been for centuries” because none of those things – not one of them – is happening or has happened in the last 100 years.
Richard
It is all George Bushes fault! (Sarc)
In politics the truth is what the public believes. What is unfortunate is that the results diverge from optimum if the facts don’t support the narrative. Never the less through this lense the successful attack on science all make sense and the suboptimum results preordained.
Making informed decisions with the best results is the goal. Knowing that the decisions will lead to problems is actually an opportunity. Napoleon said something like ‘when your opponent is making an error, Dont interrupt him.’ If one combines these two thoughts with the Japanese saying that “if you can see three days into the future you will be rich for three thousand years. You will get my drift.
You knew that the negative results were inevitable so what precisely did you do to take advantage of your knowledge? Probably like me nothing….and so exactly what defines stupid?
A model capable of forecasting the duration of the impending Green Apocalypse will bring great riches to economic survivors.
Energy suppliers only need to “hibernate” for awhile.
I do quite a bit of business with a German company and they often complain how increased energy costs are hurting their business. Germany’s “green” movement has caused them to have one of the highest energy costs in the EU, which is creating HUGE problems for them.
Cheap, abundant and RELIABLE energy is such an integral part of any economy and when energy costs skyrocket and become unreliable, there are many direct and indirect negative consequences; many unforeseen.
Often such negative consequences are unintended and become multiplied as: unemployment rates increase, corporate profits are squeezed, production is stopped due to brownouts/blackouts, bank reserves decrease, entitlement payments increase, taxes increase to cover increased government expenditures, interest rates increase, trade deficits increase, competitiveness decreases, etc.
CAGW’s demise can’t happen soon enough… People’s lives, livelihoods and living standards are being destroyed for absolutely NO reason whatsoever…
How long with this CAGW destruction continue?
Given that the EU commission is increasingly determining the policies , including those of energy , of the individual nations , the post of EU Commissioner of Energy and his/her abilities must be of significance.
The relevant person at present, I think, is a German , Gunter Oettinger , a lawyer and economist by training . It is not encouraging to read this in his Wiki profile :
“In a leaked diplomatic cable from the United States Embassy entitled “Lame Duck German Governor Kicked Upstairs as New Energy Commissioner in Brussels,” U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Germany, Greg Delawie notes: “Chancellor Angela Merkel nominated Baden-Wuerttemberg (BW) Minister President Guenther Oettinger as EU Energy Commissioner primarily to remove an unloved lame duck from an important CDU bastion”. Delawie’s cable further states: “Oettinger is noted for a lackluster public speaking-style, and some commentators have asserted that Merkel, who has often stood out at EU meetings, wanted to appoint a German Commissioner who would not outshine her!” ”
Europe needs someone with better credentials , and preferably an industrial or engineering background, in this essential role, surely?
I will put my neck on the block and raise my hands.
I see in 15 years steam cars/Stirling prime mover with 20,000 mile range on one charge.
Most house holds with their own 30kwatt heating and hot water unit, recharge for £50 every six month.
I believe that we are now on the cusp of an energy freedom.
I put my money where my mouth will be £1,000 if not.
Well if you have to bet, a better way is to invest your money instead. Imagine if you had predicted the cell phone revolution, or internet and had invested accordingly.
A word of caution energy is free, getting it into a system or state where it is usable is not.
Yes and I missed plastic double glazing too.
But I did not allude to free energy.
But more available energy.
Highly unlikely. Fun to dream, though.
Twobob commented :
“I see in 15 years steam cars/Stirling prime mover with 20,000 mile range on one charge.
Most house holds with their own 30kwatt heating and hot water unit, recharge for £50 every six month.
I believe that we are now on the cusp of an energy freedom.”
Except there won’t be any industry to build them nor will anyone be able to afford them since everyone will be out of work. Sanity requires technological improvements precede what they are replacing.
Zero must be looking at Germany thinking, “there, with the grace of I, goes us”.
Spain is another case in point. Below are summarized highlights from this article.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/05/01/Solar-Dreams/
In 2004 Spain offered generous subsidies for solar electricity. It guaranteed 25-year-long profitable returns of 20% for solar entrepreneurs. Unsurprisingly 25 years of guaranteed profits did spur a lot of solar development, investment and growth. Factories making silicon wafers and/or assembling modules and solar installations popped up like wild weeds across the nation.
But then reality interfered with glassy eyed solar dreams. The guaranteed easy money encouraged poor practices such installations of poor quality, design and locations. The demand for solar components became so huge that importing solar components took over and local manufacturing fizzled. The hammer was when the debt-heavy government realized it could no longer afford extravagant profit guarantees and rolled back subsidies. Soon after came laid off workers and 44,000 of the nation’s 57,900 installations on the verge of bankruptcy. And of course it disrupted their most reliable source of electricity; fossil fuel and nuclear could not do well in a market where your competitors were guaranteed 20% profit regardless of market conditions or their performance.
In the end analysis showed the 57,900 installations in Spain solar offered 2.4 to 1 better return than biofuels. Which sounds good until you consider oil provides 30 to 1 return.
I traveled by train from north to south one year and subsequently from west to east in Germany in a later year in summer time quite recently
On both trips i saw windmills in vast arrays spanning the landscape and disappearing into the distance.
On both occasions the distinguishing feature was the listless still giant arms of all the mills.
I wondered at the installed capital cost embedded in this vast display and also wondered how many hours did they actually turn sufficiently to drive turbines to produce power and at what unit cost
the hidden problem with turbines is the problem with premature failure due to intermittent operation. machines last much longer when they run at constant speed. stop and go driving is much harder on a car than constant highway miles. the same with turbines. a machine that will run 100 thousand hours between failures in constant operation may do only 10 thousand hours in intermittent operation.
Our new UK Government turned off the fuel tax accumulator, the price fell and inflation dropped down to a big fat zero percent. Coincidence is not causation, but if you wanted low inflation then cutting the tax on everything sounds like a good place to start. We will be sold down the Suwannee at Paris but we have a referendum coming where we can vote hundreds of MEP’s out of a job. #RevengeIsSweet
Coal is causing the largest migration in human history. By far the largest migration. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of people are migrating in China, with hundreds of millions more set to migrate in India.
This migration is not a result of Climate Change. It is the cause of Climate Change, the result of Industrialization and wealth creation. These people are migrating out of poverty and into wealth. Climate Change is the result of industrialization, that lifts people out of poverty.
The UN in its misguided zeal to end Climate Change would end this migration to industrialization, this migration to wealth, condemning hundreds of millions to continued poverty.
The UN has cause and effect backwards. The IPCC says that Climate Change causes poverty. But this is not the case. Poverty is causing Climate Change, as people seek to end poverty they have changed the Climate. The UN policies seek to end Climate Change by keeping the poor in poverty.
ferdberple commented:
“This migration is not a result of Climate Change. It is the cause of Climate Change, the result of Industrialization and wealth creation. These people are migrating out of poverty and into wealth. Climate Change is the result of industrialization, that lifts people out of poverty.”
This is the stated goal of the UN and the ‘Climate Change’ meme….wealth redistribution. It will lift millions of people out of poverty with other people’s assets and put billions of them into poverty to make everyone equal.
Mr. Photon you can freely comment on anything you like including the Jews. But the post is about Germany not the Jews. Don’t let that stop you dear boy. What was in my comment that insulted your politically correct sensibility?
You do realize your post was after Max’s…..
I comment as an American of mostly German descent, who has a feeling of warm kinship with the German people.
Germany today is a nation still sick with war-guilt from the acknowledged atrocities of the Nazi era. And Germans, I believe, feel within themselves national characteristics that contributed to the rise of Nazism and the horrors that resulted. Germans, like the Confucian cultures of the Orient, have a deep, perhaps instinctive respect for and willingness to submit to authority. They also have some claim to a fair tendency to genius (witness the many scientific and philosophic contributions of Germans). And they have a tendency toward a kind of passionate religiosity that is not specific to any particular religion.
So Germany is rich soil for certain extremes. The 30-year War of the late middle ages is a good example. Germans of two different religious strains of Christianity (and surely Christianity, if any religion, should have been a “religion of peace”, given the teachings of Jesus) fought a brutal war over their beliefs that is right up there with the horrors of ISIS and the Shia extremists in the Middle East.
Nazism spoke to the same part of the German national character that Christian religious extremism did in the Middle Ages. And as they themselves suffered horribly from Nazi “solutions” and wars, the German people are filled with a simultaneously with a regretful collective sense of guilt and an inchoate fear that somehow they might do it all over again.
Mix the guilt in with modern science and technology and splash it onto a canvas soaked in post-Christian Nihilism and you could get a nation ready for, even relishing, the prospect of self-destruction as a kind of zealous penance. With the false intellectual veneer of Post Normal Scientism, Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is a perfect vehicle for the German psyche of today. Germany is destroying itself by embracing and acting upon, with religious zeal, false “scientific” narratives about both nuclear energy and carbon-based energy—-and feeling good about it.
After all, the Germans are doing this “for the good of humanity” and to “save the Earth”. As in the past, Germans will take themselves far down a romantic course of self-destruction before they come to their senses. My best hope is that it will be very cold in Europe the next few years, and doubts will creep in and help the Germans escape this strange delusion.
You are absolutely right! About 15% are strong believers, another 20% lukewarmers in this pseudoreligious earth-saving nonsense and feel themselves to be “Bettermen” in the neglect of reason and national interests.(Huh, the N-word!—national—Don’t use it! Only Nazis do!)
Paradoxically these “Prophets of CAGW ” control the media in a way, that reminds of the “Völkischer Beobachter”, but now in a sort of voluntarily “Gleichschaltung” (means:forced identical reporting/covering)!
Opponents and sceptics are “Deniers” in a way quite like “Holocaust Deniers”, absolutely right wing at least!
But the main things are the unbelievably high subsidies as well as the priority feed for renewables!
Thus making many people “eco-profiteers”!(though windmills are absolutely not “eco”) Even this reminds me of some conditions 80 years ago, betrayed and cowed the most, and a lot seduced by greed and ideology!
I have to congratulate Mr. Steiner for the sudden grasp of the English language after his previous comment.
That said, ……I sure as hell ain’t going there.
Nearly all mainstream media in Germany are strongly influenced/controlled by green leftist who “believe” in CAGW and their answer to this “challenge” is “Klimaschutz” (Climate Protection).
If one argues, that Germanys influence on global CO2 concentration is ~ 0,00006%, (global CO2: 0,04%, 5% anthropogen,~3% german part) no one will listen!
Nowhere in the mainstream media, paper or TV, people are told the fact, that “Klimaschutz” therefore is just nonsense! Besides,most laymen do not understand, that without buffer and storage, electricity from windmills is useless wriggle-current! And, last not least, the german minister for energy,economy and industry,S.Gabriel, a former teacher for history and german language,who has to deal with the problems, gave this statement in an interwiev with “Stern” magazine some years ago:
“…. nuclear plants produce electricity an not heat! ” (when asked about using combined heat and power).
Any Questions left?
“If one argues, that Germanys influence on global CO2 concentration is ~ 0,00006%, (global CO2: 0,04%, 5% anthropogen,~3% german part) no one will listen!”
True. Reason is the difference of concepts in classic Anglo-American “responsibility ethics” and german Kantian “Gesinnungsethik” or “Intention Ethics”. The latter having been invented to give the Prussian soldier an “ideal” he can fight for, as the problem of the day was that armies frequently disbanded having been overcome by “imagination” (i.e. they were able to picture their own personal demise on the battlefield) – so Kant / Hegel as Prussian functionnaires had to fight the war against IMAGINATION to instill Prussian discipline on the battlefield.
This still existing tool is these days being used by the German red-green leaders to push through their local Agenda 21 (dissolving nations, esp Germany in this case, to make it part of the EU-wide and later worldwide socialist technocracy).
This disciplinary philosophical tool is Germany’s strength as well as its weakness: It has enabled the rulers to mobilize the strength of Germany for various purposes (for instance, Bismarck’s industrialization efforts from 1870 to end of 19th century), but it also blinds the victims – it robs them of their IMAGINATION (which it was designed to do). A kind of Hobbesian Leviathan, so it is up to the individual to step out of this mass.
+1
Interesting analysis.
“The best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it” (and enforce it in a uniform manner)
Maybe the only way to completely get rid of bad policy is to accept it and let the outcome shine through the PR lies.
Thank you, Germany, for accepting/embracing and implementing the bad policy; I hope people in my neck of the world will learn from your example.
The green morons in Germany really believe, they would lead by example!
Though this be madness,
yet there is method in’t!
It is interesting to see that Germany, always considered to be greener than green, is now revealing itself to have an ever growing number of high profile citizens prepared to speak out against the Merkel green agenda.
They know the future of Germany is at stake and they have come to realise that the flawed global warming agenda has been a mechanism by which the arrogant, ambitious and unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism has taken over and is eroding democracy, freedom, the market economy and prosperity in Germany.
It seems that Germany’s big corporations are now at a crossroad. If the green agenda continues unabated, they must decide whether to remain in Germany, only to suffer the consequences, or relocate to other jurisdictions that are industry and business friendly allowing future growth potential.
When all Europeans wake up to reality, and see cost of CO2 emission reductions on the scale the politicians have decided for them, they will ask: How many degrees centigrade will the Globe cool or not warm, as a result of this?
They will ask: Has the US commited to the same degree of reductions, has China, has India, has Japan, has Russia? No. So Europeans cannot hope that total CO2 emissions Globally will decline as a result of their sacrifice.
Then they will start to investigate if CO2 really can be called a greenhouse gas. The latest data show that more CO2 does NOT cause a warming of the globe. Looking at the records from 1870 until 2015, there really is no pattern showing that when CO2 increases, temperature goes up. It can rise, it can fall, and it can, as seen the last 18+ years, remain in stasis.
Europeans will discover that the persons and institutions that have been set to record and document CO2 versus temperature have done so, for a very great part through cheating. They have falsified the temperature record and distorted it to fit an erronous idea, through homogenization, changing past recorded temperatures, and omitting data from weather stations that do not show warming.
When You have to pay for something, You will quickly start to ask what Your money goes to. So when push comes to show, Europe also, as the rest of the world, reject the stupid idea that we can cause catastrophic climate change by emitting a little CO2 to the air.
And hopefully that will be the end of the pseudo science of CO2 warming.