Michael BastaschA recent report claims Germany is not on track to meet its goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020, despite the country spending billions on green energy subsidies.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces election on Sunday, and even though she’s expected to win, the inconvenient report from the group Agora Energiewende about her government’s global warming goals probably won’t do her any favors.
But don’t expect German Chancellor Angela Merkel to back down. In fact, she said a couple days ago her government would “find ways to get to the 2020 climate target,” which included the continued shut down of coal-fired power plants.
“I doubt that much will change in Germany in the short term,” Benny Peiser, director of the U.K.-based Global Warming Policy Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Despite the coast, “the vast majority of Germans remain overwhelmingly in favour of continuing the Energiewende,” Peiser said, referring to Germany’s energy transition plan.
The “Energiewende” is only one part of Germany’s plan to decarbonize its economy. Through Energiewende, Germany hopes to move away from fossil fuels, especially coal, towards solar and wind power.
Agora Energiewende reported the missed emissions target “won’t be a near miss but a booming failure,” in a recent report. Coal generated 40 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2016 while wind and solar supplied much less.
“The green energy fiasco, however, is not an election issue at all — not least because there is an all-party consensus on what may eventually turn out to be one of Angela Merkel’s most disastrous policy decisions,” Peiser said.
German began subsidizing green energy source in earnest in 2011 after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant meltdown. Merkel began an aggressive shift towards solar and wind power to replace its nuclear plants.
But it’s cost them.
Germany has spent $780 billion in recent decades, Bloomberg reported, and it’s not enough to get them toward their national goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020.
“We expect Energiewende cost to fall starting from early 2020 – renewable power from newly build wind and solar is now the most cheapest power in Germany,” Christoph Podewils, Agora’s communications director, told TheDCNF.
“Of course we have lot of challenges – market design, regulation, grid expansion and enhancements, acceptance, de-carbonising of heating and transport – but cost is no issue anymore,” Christoph said.
However, average Germans are feeling the pain. Electricity costs are about three times higher than in the U.S., driven mostly by increases in energy taxes to pay for green energy. Heat is so expensive it’s called “the second rent.”
German industry, on the other hand, is expempt from green energy laws out of fear they would no longer be competitive. That’s shifted more of the cost onto residents and smaller businesses.
German emissions are down 27 percent from 1990 levels, which is ahead of other European countries, but still behind what they need to meet their goal.
Emissions have come down all while coal plants have thrive. Coal, especially lignite, is a cheap source of fuel in Germany that’s competitively subsidized green energy sources. Coal is also a more reliable energy source since it doesn’t rely on the sun and wind.
“Germany’s CO2 emissions in the electricity sector haven’t decreased since 1995,” Peiser said. “The country is almost certain to fail its climate targets by 2020 by a wide margin.”
“All that renewables have achieved is to replace zero-carbon nuclear and low-carbon gas power generation while coal power generation is increasingly competitive and thriving,” he said.
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Until they restart their nuclear plants, they are never going to reach their CO2 goals. Their manufacturing economy will also suffer. Nothing kills manufacturing like high energy costs.
The Greens hate nuclear, and Merkel needs their sympathizers to stay in office. A true Green would rather have old folks freeze in the dark.
Public Broadcasting System (USA) will show a minute-by-minute chronicle of the 2011 nuclear meltdown crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, at 3pm CST (USA) today, and also later at midnight CST.
It was never a crisis, and the damage done by the evacuation was orders of magnitude greater than the damage done by the “meltdown”.
Based on the latest pre-election polls, the Greens are imploding and will not factor in as a possible coalition partner any longer, either at the state the federal level. Fact is Merkel killed nuclear in order to sideswipe de Greens in a state election [Hesse] and Fukushima was a convenient excuse.
Augmented by the demented perspective of “refugees” killing off the few remainders.
In a nutshell, +1000
The article says that German industry is exempt from green energy laws. It’s small businesses and individuals who are paying the price.
That big manufacturers are exempt from the energy laws isn’t going to do them any good unless they can also generate the energy necessary to function when Merkel finally manages to shut down the coal power plants. We know that solar/wind won’t be near enough.
Sure they can meet their goals. They just have to depend on other countries to continue to supply them with all the electrical power they need.
Exactly. The Germans import a significant percentage of their electricity. It’s a crazy shell game that has cost nearly a trillion dollars.
No, enery exports are by far greater than imports. Reason: Germany has 100% fossil fuel & nuclear backup. It doesn’t need imports. That will change in 2021 when all nuclear plants will be shut down.
This is the new politics now….no longer about communism, dictators, oppression, etc
I fully expect the next world war will be about who has windmills and who doesn’t…………
Where is don Quixote when you need him?
Well, they won’t.
Only 8 left…
4 of those were offline for various reasons earlier this year with no discernible effect on German power output (which is 35% solar/wind/renewable in first half 2017)
Griff,
If you know the numbers, you also know that coal usage for electricity is climbing in Germany. In addition ‘biomass’ – ie clearcutting eastern Europe for power is horrendously inefficient and polluting, including huge carbon emissions. The Germans don’t count the emissions from biomass in the ‘new accounting’. Then there is biodiesel – which means clearing huge swaths of rainforest so that Merkel can ‘lower’ the carbon emissions even more. Then there are all the extra transmission wires, thousands of turbines spoiling the landscape – roads constructed to get to them, etc. Green energy is an environmental disaster.
As for cost: In every market I have studied, wind + solar comes in at about $1/kWh. Germany – case in point, 70% of power is from coal, nuclear, etc at about $0.15 per kWh, then add in 30% of $1 to get the German price of $0.45 / kWh.
@ Tom Andersen I live in Berlin, Germany I pay 0,25 € / kWh = 0,3 US$ plus 9 € / month (10.80 US$ )
And what about the 600,000 old age GERMAN pensioners who have had their electric cut of….. NO MONEY TO PAY
How many Germans are going to freeze this winter and winters hereafter because they can’t afford to pay their “energy” bill? I read a report a while back (2016?) that indicated a number as high as 40,000 people froze to death because they couldn’t pay the bill.
Here it is: http://notrickszone.com/2016/03/29/europe-lets-its-citizens-to-freeze-to-death-40000-dead-in-winter-2014-as-energy-poverty-explodes/#sthash.2pOQ2qop.dpbs
There is no excuse for this, but I guess when you’re on a bender like Merkel is, it doesn’t matter. Someone should ask her how many people in East Berlin and East Germany froze to death when the heat was shut off or simply never turned on.
Could be funny. We here northwards have a colder climate still. And icebreakers, because all our harbors freeze regularly. So I’ll enjoy my nuclear heating next winter and have a smug smile at Germany, which is basing future energy use on Russian gas. Not a wise move, using Russian, highly polical gas. It may stop flowing in a flash of Putin’s mood. Merkel better prepare not to step on Russian feet, should they keep warm.
Making the EU dependent on Russian gas is one of the goals of the Anti-Carbon Movement. Merkel is a commie.
Freeze to death is a hyperbole though. They die because cold makes heart work too much and a stroke ensues I guess. But you are correct cold kills a lot of people, more than the EU is willing to admit in energy discussion.
It’s a metaphor, you know. If, in fact, someone is exposed to temperatures so low that they nearly freeze instantly, with no tissue damage (and this has happened, however rare it may be), then s/he can be revived. But it has to be sudden exposure. Excessive cold and heat will both kill people. Heat stroke is a killer. But with cold, water will form crystals in the blood, which impede blood flow, a reason that warming your hands and feet after exposure to extreme cold is very, very painful.
Also, in both cold and heat-related deaths, part of the problem is dehydration. Even in extreme cold, you will lose moisture to the atmosphere unless you’re wearing a moisture block like skin lotion. The very thing that cools us in hot weather will kill us in cold weather.
Below is the subject article posted by Pierre Gosselin, originally from German media FOCUS.
I find Pierre to be honest and reliable and I recommend his website NoTricksZone.com
The wording of the FOCUS article is imprecise, which is why I suggest that Excess Winter Mortality should be a reasonable unit of measurement.
Here is a 2002 article that reports Excess Winter Mortality Rates in Europe for the period 1988-1997. It would be interesting to update these statistics to determine if Excess Winter Mortality Rates have increased in the UK and Germany, for example, as energy costs have increased.
Excess winter mortality in Europe: a cross country analysis identifying key risk factors
J D Healy. 26 November 2002
J Epidemiol Community Health 2003;57:784–789
http://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/57/10/784.full.pdf
The coefficient of seasonal variation in mortality CSVM is calculated using the following formula, which acts as a lower bound estimate of seasonal mortality:
CSVM=[total deaths (Dec+Jan+Feb+Mar)]–[total deaths (Apr+May+Jun+Jul)+total deaths (Aug+Sep+Oct+Nov)/2]
all divided by [total deaths (Apr+May+Jun+Jul)+total deaths (Aug+Sep+Oct+Nov)/2].
Table 1 Coefficient of seasonal variation in mortality
(CSVM) in EU-14 (mean, 1988–97)
CSVM 95% CI
Austria 0.14 (0.12 to 0.16)
Belgium 0.13 (0.09 to 0.17)
Denmark 0.12 (0.10 to 0.14)
Finland 0.10 (0.07 to 0.13)
France 0.13 (0.11 to 0.15)
Germany 0.11 (0.09 to 0.13)
Greece 0.18 (0.15 to 0.21)
Ireland 0.21 (0.18 to 0.24)
Italy 0.16 (0.14 to 0.18)
Luxembourg 0.12 (0.08 to 0.16)
Netherlands 0.11 (0.09 to 0.13)
Portugal 0.28 (0.25 to 0.31)
Spain 0.21 (0.19 to 0.23)
UK 0.18 (0.16 to 0.20)
Mean 0.16 (0.14 to 0.18)
My more recent analysis shows that Excess Winter Mortality in the UK ranges from about 25, 000 to 50,000 per year, in the USA about 100,000 per year, and in Canada about 5000 to 10,000 per year. Excess Winter Mortality Rates in the UK are about twice those of Canada and the USA. This high death rate in the UK should be a cause for concern.
“Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather”
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae, 4 September 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
IF Excess Winter Mortality Rates in Germany have increased significantly from the 0.11 rate depicted for the decade 1988-1997, then there should also be considerable concern.
Regards, Allan
“The grand electricity lie”: Why electricity is becoming a luxury
http://notrickszone.com/2016/03/29/europe-lets-its-citizens-to-freeze-to-death-40000-dead-in-winter-2014-as-energy-poverty-explodes/#sthash.2pOQ2qop.nmDSlkBn.dpbs
One of the sickest things about Europe and its disconnected leaders is that often it takes a full-scale disaster to happen before policy gets corrected. Often the scale of the death and devastation becomes known only after the clean-up crews have come in and sifted through the rubble. Think, for example, of Nazism, the Holocaust – or Soviet communism.
In the above named examples the true scale of devastation left behind became clear only after the drunk-on-ideology tyrants were defeated and their legacy finally put in the spotlight.
FOCUS now cites a documentary film which is set to be broadcast this evening on European television station ARTE. The documentary presents how Europe’s electricity prices are spiraling out of control, and the horrible consequences this is having on the continent’s citizens.
40,000 dead from power being shut off
The situation, we are discovering, is far more disturbing than even the earlier worst case scenarios every imagined. FOCUS reports (emphasis added):
In 2014 in Europe there were about 40,000 winter deaths because millions of people were unable to pay for their electric bills – the so-called energy poverty currently impacts about ten percent of all Europeans. In the past 8 years the price of electricity in Europe has climbed by an average of 42 percent.”
7 million German households in energy poverty
FOCUS writes that the poor are the real victims of “socialist” Europe’s clean energy drive. In Bulgaria people see half of their income gobbled up by energy costs alone. In Spain 28 percent of the citizens live in “energy poverty”. In Germany, FOCUS writes, 7 million households are considered to be living in “energy poverty”.
Good comments Hugs and Sara.
Thank you, Allan
I believe that so many (elderly?) people dying due to the high costs of “green” winter energy is considered by the greenies as a bonus, not as a terrible side effect.
It cuts way down on medical expenses for the elderly and infirm.
It solves the “Pension crisis”, the “Healthcare crisis” and the “elderly-residential-care crisis”.
The current winter forecast is looking really bad for the entire European region:
NOAA Models Project Harsh 2017/18 European Winter…Possibly Coldest This Century
http://notrickszone.com/2017/09/19/noaa-models-project-harsh-201718-european-winter-possibly-coldest-this-century/#sthash.LoMZWvaB.dpbs
Rubbish. Nobody in Germany freezes to death (Except drunkards on the way home). For People without income there is normal social support plus actual house rent pus heating expenses. (Hartz4 plus Wohngeld plus Heizkostenzuschuss).
The problem is with low and medium income receivers. Electricity prices have tripled since 2000.
Old people don’t heat their homes, and then fall prey to colds, influenza and other illnesses. In effect, it IS the high heating costs that directly leads to their deaths.
R
You are wrong on that, but really much more people die because of cold than freeze to death literally.
Drunk lives matter?
Why can’t the US learn from these idiots trying to change the weather. How stupid are we.
And who pays to subsidize these people while Merkel spends billions for useless wind and solar. You cannot think
I agree ralfellis. Here is a recent post.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/23/the-evils-of-climate-enthusiasm/#comment-2618246
[excerpt]
“It is the obligation of responsible, competent professionals to blow-the-whistle on this (global warming) sc@m, and to encourage the availability of cheap, reliable, abundant energy systems for humanity. This is especially true for the elderly and the poor worldwide, and for the struggling peoples of the developing world.”
The elderly and the poor in the United Kingdom, Germany and other countries are suffering increased winter deaths due to high energy costs. In the UK, this human disaster is called “Heat or Eat”.
The Excess Winter Mortality Rate in Britain is much higher than that in Canada. Canada has a population of about 35 million and the UK about 65 million, but Excess Winter Mortality in Canada is about 5000 to 10,000 per year, and in the UK it is 25,000 to 50,000 per year.
Canada and the UK have genetically similar populations and similar health care systems. Canada tends to be colder but mostly drier than the UK. However, Canada generally has much lower energy costs and better-insulated housing and probably better central heating systems, on average. This suggests that adaptation to winter and low energy costs are significant drivers of lower Winter Mortality rates.
Imagine IF the UK had competent politicians in the past several decades instead of warmist imbeciles. Instead of spending billions on green energy debacles, they could have spent the funds on improving home insulation and central heating, and encouraged fracking of shales to reduce natural gas prices., and a whole lot of grannies and grandpa’s would still be alive for their grandchildren.
Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple.
When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die.
Regards, Allan
References:
“Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather”
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae, 4 September 2015
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
“Life expectancy rises ‘grinding to halt’ in England”
BBC, 18 July 2017
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-40608256
Rising rates of life expectancy are grinding to a halt in England after more than 100 years of continuous progress, says a leading health expert.
“Over 300,000 poverty-hit German homes have power cut off each year”
2 March 2017
https://www.thelocal.de/20170302/over-300000-poverty-hit-german-homes-have-power-cut-off-each-year
naturbaumeister.I have old relatives in the UK and every winter they and their friends, who also have”normal social support plus actual house rent (minus heating expenses I admit)” all adhere to the philosophy of ”Eat or heat”.
And where exactly does that 40,000 figure come from? The links given don’t resolve -I submit it is absolutely bogus.
German electricity bills contain as much for tax as for green levy… also Germans use less electricity thn US households and have lower bills.
I see various figures fro German households cut off… well bear in mind there are 40 million German households, so do the math on percentages cut off. Then look at the US cut off percentage…
Griff. Why are you on this site?
” a number as high as 40,000 people froze to death ”
I would highly recommend checking these numbers in detail. Germany is one of the richest countries in the world. We have a social system that also provides people without income so that they neither starve nor freeze to death. It is likely that more people are frozen in the US than in Germany based on the population.
You not get it. Who pays for the social system to subsidize those who cannot pay for inflated electric caused by subsidies failed useless green energy. This is wrong.
How on planet earth do they get away with all that wealth transfer from the many to the few?
And who are the few?
The few are the socialists in charge of government and their friends.
NUTS!!!😳😳😳😳
More of the same medicine and the patient could die. Highest electricity cost in the world is painfull for the population an industry.
$780 Billion for renewable. Average cost of Nuclear is $4 to $9 billion per reactor. For that sort of money 86 to 195 reactors could be built.
“…….Germany has spent $780 billion in recent decades, Bloomberg reported, and it’s not enough to get them toward their national goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020……”.
I wonder if Germans ever heard of the old saying that says when one finds oneself in a hole, one should stop digging.
Germany isn’t exactly known for being at a latitude and location where they get a lot of sunshine per year:
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Germany/annual-hours-of-sunshine.php.
Many American states appear have Germany beat by quite a bit:
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-state-sunshine.php.
Heck, the table in the second link above says we here in Wisconsin even top Germany in sunshine hours. Judging from the lack of them from my vantage point, solar panels here in Wisconsin appear to be about as popular as the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings.
Solar power is ridiculous in highish northern latitude countries, especially those that tend to be cloudy due to weather fronts.
On average Germany may receive about 1650 hours of sunshine annually, so around 140 hours per month. However, in the winter months when power/energy is most needed, it is more cloudy and there are few sunshine hours a day such that the average sunshine hours per month is down to around 50, ie., less than 2 hours per day!
Further, in the winter months, the grazing angle is low, so that the effective energy received per hour is considerably less than when the sun is higher in the sky in the summer months. But Germany does not require aircon in the summer so midday summer performance is not an important factor.
Any school child of around 12 to 13 years old ought to know and understand why solar power is not effective in a country like German (or the UK or other similarly located northern latitude country).
Yes, but in March through September then the percentage during the working day is at least 25% and very often 35% on the majority of days.
Germany saves a lot of CO2 through solar. And a lot of money not spent on imported expensive gas.
Griffy Dude: Your persistence at this website is noteworthy, but it’s really getting to the point where you should qualify to be fitted out for a clown suit. I should see if I can find a red nose for you to wear.
Germany is on the same latitudes as Anchorage and Juneau Alaska and the winters there are very dark and cloudy.
She’s a monster! Stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.
That’s because many plants were shut down in East Germany after re-unification because they couldn’t comply with West German pollution regulations .
Absolutely.
Germany has had little success since around 2007/8 reducing its CO2 emissions since it has come up against the buffer. Wind and solar do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions because of the need for backup generation, and that backup generation tends to be mainly from coal and gas. More significantly, the backup generation is provided from generators working in ramp up/ramp down mode which is very inefficient, since much fuel (and hence additional CO2) is used overcoming inertia.
The sum of 800billion USD seems enormous even for a fabulously rich country like Germany .
The article did not make clear, to me at least, where the money came from or where it went .
Perhaps Griff , who always seems to have a finger on the German pulse , could enlighten us and perhaps explain the apparent incongruity :-
“We expect Energiewende cost to fall starting from early 2020 – renewable power from newly build wind and solar is now the most cheapest power in Germany,” Christoph Podewils, Agora’s communications director, told TheDCNF.
and:
“However, average Germans are feeling the pain. Electricity costs are about three times higher than in the U.S., driven mostly by increases in energy taxes to pay for green energy. Heat is so expensive it’s called “the second rent.”
yes if my maths is correct that is about $10k per head, or $40k for a family of four
Money only ever comes from the citizen, no where else.
Put up company taxes, company increases price, citizens pay.
Government pays subsidies to renewable companies, taxes go up, citizens pay.
Traditional generators become inefficient due to renewables, increase prices, citizens pay.
I think a pattern is developing…..
In Germany there are more than 350,000 households without electricity, because they can not pay their electricity bill. Between 6 and 7 million households receive annually threats of a current barrier. The majority of them then pay their arrears, but probably on credit. And that Germany is an enormously rich country, is also a fable. Germany is in the rear midfield among the homeowners in the EU. More money in their bank-account owns even the Greeks. And many other EU-Countrys. It is a political industry in co-operation with the press, which constantly gives Germans and foreigners the impression how immeasurably rich Germany is. However, the upper 10% of the population is getting better and better, while the remaining 90% have less and less. The gap between these percentage populations has never been as high as it is today. One thing one must leave the Germans, however, a poor German pensioner couple will bite their tongue rather than admit how poorly the standard of life of many retirees is. The original Germans are very proud in this respect. As a result, migrants in Germany will provide far better from social help.
However, this state of affairs will not last forever, too much the gap between the rich and the poor grows annually. And then one wonders about social unrest in Germany. As one has once wondered between WW I and II.
Out of 40 million households?
And I submit that’s a bogus figure anyway. where did it come from?
@ Griff I am with you! As long as a couple has a claim to about 1500 dollars a month there will be no social unrest.
Griff, why don’t you ask your son in Germany instead of showing off your ignorance? Here, I’ll help you: http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/strom-laut-bundesnetzagentur-waren-345-000-haushalte-mit-stromsperre-a-1004435.html Maybe you don’t believe the Federal Grid Authority, but why would you then believe every cough from greedy lobbyists?
From Mensch to Mensch: Don’t you think its really bad what you did here and so often before?
In Germany it is VERBOTTEN voice criticism of government policy or personal !!!!!
So 90% of population just do not know !!!!
You really have to ponder the true idiocy of German policy. They spent $800 billion to ensure that Germans pay three times more than Americans do for energy, while continuing to emit more CO2.
The US, meanwhile, let the private sector pursue fracking (though Obama tried to ban it on federal lands) and it created $3.5 trillion of new wealth between 2012 and 2014, turned the US into a net energy exporter, lowered pump prices AND helped the US lower CO2 emissions every year.
The idiocy is staggering, and still they persist.
Looks like a perfect milking machine to me.
800 billion USD,they’ve spent despite they never had that money, burdening the tax payer over and over with new and crackbrained taxes to suck their already small purses.
As a citizen, I have to save my money before I’m able to expend it.
These policy buttheads splurge it before they ever had it!
Difference!
Justice? Democracy?
Pah!
Germany has been milking the entire eu to keep their export economy going. They let the poor and failing economies in the eu keep the euro down to help Germanies export market, but this doesn’t allow for the depressed economies to take advantage of a lower currency to rebuild their export markets thus keeping them from being able to rebound. Germany is just a selfish and preditury as it ever was, they in essence won they war they lost by controlling the eu.
Well, is it any wonder then, that Merkel was peeved by Brexit?
Billions for the banks, best scheme ever to succeed.
If Germany is trying to reduce CO2 then why are they shutting down Nuclear Power Plants? The methods of the greenies are counterproductive.
Because they aren’t.
They have 2 policies:
reduce CO2
end nuclear power
These are parallel policies. And yes, not compatible.
However renewables have taken up the slack from shutting down 45% of nuclear power overnight in 2011.
What they have done is frozen cleaner gas generation out of the market. There burning of coal is almost unchanged and they still have 20GW of the dirtiest lignite generation which for a country which prides itself on going green is a joke. It’s clearly shown in wikipedia just look at the fossil fuel graph
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
You can also pick any real actual published energy data source you like and the coal generation has remained almost flatlined since 1990.
All that has really happened is the percentage has dropped as a number because all the increase has been done by renewables. They have managed to ban coal exports and some of the green groups attach that as a decrease in use to create a fake view the Germany coal use has dropped. That is the strange situation they have got themselves in that they are now more reliant on coal than they have ever been.
If you consider CO2 a pollutant then coal power is Europe’s biggest pollution problem and Germany is the number one polluter, they are twice the next nearest country being Poland
http://reneweconomy.com.au/european-coal-emissions-fall-german-lignite-stations-keep-pumping-38880/
Yet they are Griffs like most greens favourite poster child and I just don’t get why. The numbers don’t lie and there is a massive discord between what Germany says it’s doing and what is actually happening.
I don’t live in Germany and I don’t know what is happening on the ground but if you look at the numbers there isn’t a lot of progress.
Sooo just what is the supposedly end result of these goals?
The great irony is that in Japan 10,000 were killed by the tsunami but none died from radiation poison, not even the volunteers who went in to do the clean-up. I often find it curious that no one ever mentions the many submarines, aircraft carriers, etc. that have been sailing the world for decades with no serious problems (except the one Russian sub). Pretty amazing safety record. Also France has dozens of nuclear power plants and no major problems to date.
Hundreds of very ill sailors who were on-board the US aircraft carrier that sailed through a radioactive plume from Fukushima would disagree with you.
If such sailors actually existed, I would agree with you.
Fortunately for them, your tale is nothing short of fanciful propaganda.
PS: Are you still trying to claim that all of the whales in the Pacific have died?
What radioactive plume? I watched that plant self-destruct. There was NO plume.
Are you aware, ICISIL, that there may be people here who, like me, were in the Navy, still have contacts and can effectively rebut what you said?
Maybe the milk was off.
http://enenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Reagan_Position_Mar13.jpg
“These kinds of illnesses… are characteristic of people who’ve been exposed to radiation… We’ve seen them at Chernobyl, they are not difficult to prove… We know Tepco… misrepresented the levels of radiation these sailors were exposed to… The number is more than 110… we now have 225 injured sailors — 21, 22, 23, 25-year-olds. A population that you don’t usually find cancers such as leukemia, testicular cancers, uterine cancers, thyroid cancers. We also have cancers so rare only 0.001% of people have experienced it. Yet we know that radiation causes these kinds of cancers… Information that initially came out was totally incorrect… We’re now beginning to see the real data that’s revealing the exact kind of exposures — the kind of toxic soup — that these sailors were literally sailing through for days.”
200 Navy sailors and Marines file suit against TEPCO
https://www.stripes.com/news/judge-sailors-class-action-suit-can-proceed-over-alleged-radiation-exposure-1.311088
Navy sailors have radiation sickness after Japan rescue
http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-by-radiation-after-japan-rescue/
btw, I read that the number of sailors suing TEPCO is now up to something like 370. Are you naysayers so disrespectful of our boys in service to accuse so many of being gold diggers?
I have no idea as to the extent of illness nor the evidential link, but the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ought to give particular insight to the exposure to after the event nuclear fallout.
One would imagine that the surviving population were exposed to high levels of nuclear contaminants for many many years after the bombings, so the long term medical history of the survivors would be very insightful. Per wikipedia:
The 164,621 people still alive must by now be well into the 70s. But perhaps what would be more interesting is to look at people who were born say after September 1946 through to 1947 who were no doubt exposed to lingering high levels of radiation in the soil and food crops/meat that they ate in the early years of their lives.
How many people died after the Windscale emission in the 1950’s? How many people are sueing as a result? ZERO!
A class action suit is proof that people got sick.
You are really scraping the bottom of the barrel to support this delusion of yours.
Even now, the rectors are still cooled with water and some of the radioactively contaminated water comes out uncontrolled into the Pacific. Radioactivity can also be measured at the west coast of the USA. It is an area around Fukoshima so heavily contaminated that it is forever uninhabitable. At the nuclear power plant, workers are constantly working to clean up and store contaminated water in big tanks which are leaking. They can work there only for a short time, because otherwise the rate of the illness due to the radiation becomes too high. Who would say that the Fukoshima disaster has had no impact on people?
I didn’t say there had been no impact I wrote that nobody had died. You are under more danger of radiation poisoning from your dentist or doctor. Animal and plant life seems to be thriving around Chernobyl.
That massive tank farm acts like a giant x-ray machine – bremsstrahlung radiation. The unintended consequences of good intentions. It’s like cutting off the head of Hydra and two heads grow back.
@el Duchy Do you know how many of the workers will die from cancer in the future? And are you sure the will be counted by Tepco?
That radioactivity can be measured is meaningless, given how sensitive the equipment we have today is.
The very idea that anything will be radioactive forever proves that you have no idea what you are talking about.
The area around Fukushima wasn’t “uninhabitable” the day of the accident.
You know Marty “Forever” is a very long time. You may want to consult the half life of the materials released during the incident. You’ll find that radioactive material is unstable and will eventually degrade into stable elements. Usually lead. So no the area won’t be uninhabitable forever. You’re also precluding any future clean up efforts. We heard the same “Forever” comments about Chernobyl yest the exclusion zone around that site is a lush nature preserve with lots of animal life.
No country in the world could meet a goal that is unattainable. The human mastery of climate change at a global level. The goals we can meet are those involved with adaptation to, and indeed exploitation of warming, where and when it occurs.
No expenditures on (un)sustainable tech will ever mitigate climate change, because the sensible warming we create is only local or regional and is due to land usage and UHI effects. The SSTs are what rules the atmospheric temperatures for the most part. The idea that CO2 has more effect than water vapor in the atmosphere is only one of faith in the popular meme.
May I also rant that sustainability must be based in adaptability.
Hasn’t mankind done fairly well sustaining itself over the last 10,000 or so years? The use of the word sustainable is a bad joke.
More like 18,000 years, goldminor, around the time when humans began to domesticate plants. I can get the specifcs on that, if you want them.
And the use of sustainable is becoming tiresome! “Sustainability” is all over the U.N and U.N. publications.
And now, after thousands of years we can barely cook ourselves. Indeed…just a thumb is required on ones smart phone with the appropriate installed app and you can thumb your way to dinner! Watchout when the power goes. Humanity 3 meals from chaos. Heading rapidly, hand tied and blindfold, to oblivion. Saves the planet tho aye?
If you boil the whole thing down to: “Give the Government (any one) more money, and we can change the weather”, you can see what an idiotic scheme the whole CAGW thing is!
America doesn’t even bother saving money on energy; they waste money on the military.
” but cost is no issue anymore,” Christoph said.”
The only true comment in the whole piece.
Except it does not mean what it purports, quite the contrary!
Merkel is not driving Germany ‘back to the future’, but forward into the past, maybe some 13 centuries worth of progress, in order to embrace the 7th Century with all of its manifestations.
Germany needs to welcome the million or so migrants that Merkel did so much to take in. They practice a 7th century religion, so it make sense to take Germany back to the dark ages to make them feel more at home.
Since the CO2 has no influence on the climate it is also completely unimportant whether and how much of it is saved.
The exit from the nuclear energy and the development of renewable energy in Germany are two completely different things. Nuclear power is expensive and dangerous. We can not and will not afford a catastrophe such as in Chernobyl and Fucoshima. Nuclear energy has previously constituted only a small part of the energy supply. (about 15% ??) The energy supply is mostly covered with coal, oil, gas, biogas and hydropower. Now about 15% of the energy is generated with wind and solar. This will save a lot of oil and gas that would otherwise be imported from Russia and the Middle East. No one in Germany is so stupid to generate the entire energy only from wind. To reach a supply exclusively with wind and sun we had to develop new technologies for storing and transporting energy.
That’s great. The problem, though, is that Germany’s poor bankroll that metric through increased electricity costs with their money and their lives.
No, the poor get social support which is sufficient to pay housing, heating and electricity. This, of course, means that the wealthy have to pay more. If you want that is socialist, but iI think that it is necessary to maintain social cohesion in a civilized country.
It’s a scam and the German people are to stupid to see it. They have become sheep. Their voting system has become so badly rigged and corrupted that voting is a waste of time. The Rothchilds rule this country and people. The people of Germany need to standup to this corrupt family and take back your country.
$780 billion isn’t billions. It’s inevitable trillions. And never ever forget that they’re spending those trillions so that there people can pay more trillions for electricity. And so China can replace them as an economic powerhouse. Stopping climate free m changing? Heh!
Perhaps just ONE country could commit to spending a VERY modest amount, say $100-200 Million, conducting some real experiments such as verification that back radiation from a cool object can transfer heat to a warmer object, testing that you can arithmetically add radiative fluxes to determine temperature via SB, and testing the effect of trace CO2 in bulk air masses. You never know the result just might be helpful.
One might also try testing the effect of Gravity on a vertical 10m column of argon to absolutely debunk the ridiculous ideas of Loschmidt and ensure the smugness of certain people who shall remain nameless. I’ll do that experiment for a mere £1,000,000.
Why can’t the US learn from these idiots trying to change the weather. How stupid are we.
Let’s just say Germany will get a he’ll of a lot closer to any climate change target than the USA. Why should this be of interest to the sceptic community – has nothing to do with the idiots.
Ivan, USA actually reduced their CO2 emissions the last few years, Germany still rising.
Ok so you have just admitted that the Clean Power Act signed by Barack Obama was working. Well done mate, you are coming round to my perspective
Ivan, that is bloody dumb. Obama’s CPP was never actually put into place, and a bit of research would reveal that. Fracking resulting in cheap natural gas was the cause, and Obama and his green cronies tried to obstruct that.
CPP and green energy Tom. And the Donald wants to roll this back, threatening cleaner air for all Americans and the burgeoning US jobs growth in renewable technologies. Shame on him.
Trump avoided going down the failing path of South Australia and Germany on “renewable energy”. Apart from the prices in Germany of about 3X US, one has the South Australia problem of wind and solar being unreliable.
Continuing on a failed path indicates a zealot, who does not care about either price, and therefore the economy as a whole, or reliability, ditto. The push for renewables has other motivations than economic ones, and I retain enough of my leftist past to believe that is a major consideration. There is an element of nihilism in the green movement that hates modern industrial society, and wants it to fail. Perhaps you are listening to those people, and failing to recognize their motive.
Nope, not really. I am also pro nucleur that many in the green movement bitterly oppose, but am also strongly against tracking which has been rejected in Europe over health concerns of the injected chemicals entering the water table and creating long-term health problems.
Ivan, the Obama era EPA did several studies on the health effects of fracking, and found none. The Obama administration was not friendly to the oil and gas industry, so if there was anything there, they would have been motivated to find it.
Part of the opposition to fracking is financed by Putin and Gazprom, the rest by ordinary greens reflexively opposed to most industry. “Gasland”, a mostly fictional “documentary” is typical of that genre.
I took a quick look at tracking’s health effects. In my opinion the US is in for long-term health problems from tracking and these will start to appear more in the next few decades. The studies referred to here seem to contradict your statement – and I wouldn’t dismiss this issue as just a green leftie thing:
https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/amp/
Ivan, the EPA’s studies did not shut up the activists. Citing DeSmogBlog? Nearly Alex Jones territory. I noted she sort of admitted there was no real risk from fracking, but got into “harm” from diesel engines used on drilling rigs and the sort.
Those who want to spread panic will not respond to reality.
Well mainstream US seems to be comfortable with fracking; in the EU it hasn’t taken off mainly due to health and environmental concerns – and I don’t think it ever will. The ecomomic benefits are very clear and the downside risks less clear … fot the time being.
In Europe, opposition is due to a combination of Putin’s puppies and the green blob being their usual hysteric selves. In the US, opposition to fracking is mostly dominant in New York, where the governor, Cuomo, is sucking up to green donors in New York City mostly.
You don’t get it my friend but you grandchildren will when they are your age – will be a very different planet. Sceptics will be consigned to the dustbin of history, renewable technologies will have overtaken fossil fuels and people will look back on fracking as an ecological disaster.
The greens have been making predictions I have followed since about 1968. They have a track record about as good as Jehovah’s Witnesses or Marxists. Entertaining, though.
One little fact that those who like to trumpet the success that Germany has had in reducing its GHG emissions relative to its 1990 levels never like to mention is that most of that reduction took place in the years immediately following reunification, during which time inefficient Soviet-era pollution belching heavy industry in former East Germany was shut down. It has virtually nothing to do with all the heavily subsidized windmills and solar panels Germany has been deploying since the 2000 passage of the Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (Renewable Energies Law).
For 800 billion dollars, Germany has accomplished next to nothing with regard to GHG emissions reduction. Had that money instead been spent on nuclear power, even if the nuclear power plants they purchased were individually as expensive as the most expensive ones ever built, they could have completely decarbonized their electric power sector by now, and possibly even begun work on using nuclear power to drive production of carbon-neutral synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/30/climate-communism-the-russians-arent-buying/comment-page-1/#comment-2597090
[excerpt w/ minor edits)
We have known for decades that global warming alarmism is a false crisis, because the scientific evidence shows that the sensitivity of climate to increasing atmospheric CO2 is very low. The Russian scientists are in general agreement with this position, as are the competent scientists in the Western world.
That is the science – now to the politics:
Is the Russian government encouraging and financing the global warming alarmist movement? There is significant evidence that it is doing so.
Let’s consider why the Russian government would encourage the global warming alarmists:
Russian in economically dependent on oil and gas exports to the west, especially to Western Europe. Low energy prices, recently driven by technological improvements in the fracking of gassy and oily shales, have severely harmed the Russian economy.
Two of the main pipelines supplying Europe from Russia are called “Druzhba” or “Friendship” (oil) and “Brotherhood” (natural gas). More Russian pipelines to supply Europe are underway.
Global warming alarmists, anti-fracking groups and anti-pipeline groups have all been active in Europe and North America, trying to sabotage energy developments in the Western democracies. They do so because cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of society, and by driving up the cost of energy and reducing its availability and reliability they are attempting to cripple the economies of the western democracies. This is the front line of the “New Cold War”.
This reality is not new. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, described the takeover of environmental organizations by Marxists (aka “useful idiots”) in an essay entitled “The Rise of Eco-Extremism” (1994) http://ecosense.me/2012/12/30/key-environmental-issues-4/
Below are references that show the covert funding of green extremist groups by foreign sources, including the Russian Federation. They are of course aided by the usual gang of “useful idiots”, but we should not rule out the possibility that some of them too are being funded by foreign interests.
Regards, Allan
References:
Here are just two articles about foreign funding of phony environmental groups by the Russians and others.
http://www.newsweek.com/putin-funding-green-groups-discredit-natural-gas-fracking-635052
http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/vivian-krause-the-cash-pipeline-opposing-canadian-oil-pipelines
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/31/opecs-existential-sucker-punch/comment-page-1/#comment-2568116
[excerpt]
The problem is that so many voters are fools who accept the blatant lies of the left, and then they pay the price. In Venezuela they are far down this dark road.
In Canada, we have elected leftist “energy imbeciles” in Ottawa, Ontario and Alberta Ontario is already paying the price, and the rest of the country is likely to follow.
Canadian heavy crude belongs in the Texas refineries and this should happen as soon as the pipeline nonsense is fixed – we can thank the watermelons for the long, costly delay in this much-needed pipeline.
Strategically, the USA is much better off with Canadian heavy crude.
Comparatively, there are no major environmental issues with pipelines, and the railway alternative has much greater environmental and safety risks – not just oil spills – witness the Lac Mégantic rail disaster, where 47 people were incinerated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster
Haven’t read such a pile of BS in a very long time. Who paid you to write such tripe? Americans like you should focus more on what Putin is doing to your country; Europe is perfectly capable of protecting itself when it comes to V. Putin and his cronies.
“Haven’t read such a pile of BS in a very long time.”
Don’t you bother reading your own posts then?
I assure you, as piles of BS they comfortably surpass anything else on this or any other WUWT blog.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And a lot more to come …
“And a lot more to come”
Oh, for certain.
But you and your fellow bedwetter Watermelons are not going to like when it does.
Catweazle you are part of a dying breed. Sceptics have been discredited and the world is fortunately moving on towards a low carbon environment. Crawl back into your hole and pull the blanket over your head.