Plenty of virtuous places (New York, California, UK, Australia) want to compete for the mantle of “climate leader.” But let’s face it, at least among places with significant population, nobody can top Germany. In Germany, they got started on a massive build-out of wind and solar electricity generation way back in the early 1990s. By year-end 2023, they had total wind and solar nameplate electricity generation capacity of 148 GW, which is about 2.5 times average demand (of about 60 GW) and about 1.5 times peak demand (of about 100 GW). So surely, the days of fossil fuels in Germany must be numbered.
Time for another update on Germany’s progress toward energy nirvana. The bottom line is that, like the Red Queen, Germany is running faster and faster to stay in place. In the meantime, it is destroying its economy.
My last update from Germany was on June 15, and covered the then-latest data for the full year 2023. The news was that Germany had finally surpassed the benchmark of getting more than 50% of its electricity from “renewables.” That news had been excitedly announced at multiple news outlets, including Reuters, which had the headline “Renewable energy’s share on German power grids reaches 55% in 2023.”Did you get fooled by that headline into thinking that the 55% was from wind and solar? Actually, as I noted in the June 15 post, of the 55%, 8.4% came from “biomass” (i.e., wood chips imported mostly from the U.S.), and 3% from “hydro” and “other,” leaving only 43.6% from the wind and solar. The capacity of the biomass and hydro generation facilities, by the way, was only 12.9 GW, meaning that they produced about 25% as much electricity as the wind and solar facilities with less than 10% of the capacity. No surprise there.
Well, now figures are out for Germany for the first half of 2024; plus other related economic news continues to pour in. Let’s check in for an update.
Clean Energy Wire on July 18 has first-half 2024 electricity consumption data sourced from Germany’s UBA (Federal Environmental Agency). The percent from “renewables” has gone up again, now to 57%!
Renewable power sources covered around 57 percent of Germany’s gross electricity consumption in the first half of 2024, preliminary figures published by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) have shown. Generation from renewable sources reached 147 terawatt hours (TWh), rising by nine percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
Once again, of course, they have mixed “biomass” and hydro in with the “renewables.” Should we back those out?
In the first six months of 2024, wind power accounted for the largest share of renewable electricity generation (around 51%), followed by PV (24%), biomass (15%) and hydropower (8%).
So biomass and hydro came to 23% of the 57%, or 13.1%. That leaves at most 43.9% that came from wind and solar, up from the 43.6% for 2023. Basically, the percent from wind and solar was up by a rounding error.
The problem is that in the meantime Germany had added greatly to wind and solar generation capacity. According to a chart at this page, also from Clean Energy Wire and sourced to the UBA, Germany’s solar generation capacity went from 67.6 GW at year-end 2022 to 79.2 GW at year-end 2023 — an increase of more than 17%; and its wind generation capacity went from 66.1 GW to 68.8 GW, an increase of over 4%. That’s rather an enormous amount of additional capital invested in wind and solar to achieve an additional 0.3% market share in electricity generation.
And now let’s look at the big economic picture for Germany. First, how do its electricity prices compare to other places? Here is a very useful chart from the Energy Policy Research Foundation, comparing second-half 2023 consumer electricity prices among EU countries and U.S. states:
There’s Germany way at the top of the list, over 38 cents per kWh, well over double the U.S. average.
Next up, here’s data on German GDP from the St. Louis Fed. The peak was in Q3 2022 at $770.6 billion, with small declines since then. Some might call it a recession, and a rather long one. The most recent quarterly figure (Q2 2024) was $766.4 billion. This is serious stagnation. By contrast, the U.S. GDP in the mediocre Biden-Harris economy has been growing in the range of 2-3% annually. If Germany’s economy had been growing just 2% for the last two years it would now be around $800 billion per quarter, rather than the $766 billion reported.
Let’s say that high energy prices may not be good for an economy known for its large manufacturing sector. You may have seen the recent news about Volkswagen. From Reuters, September 2:
Volkswagen . . . is considering closing factories in Germany for the first time, in a move that shows the mounting price pressure Europe’s top carmaker faces from Asian rivals. . . . VW considers one large vehicle plant and one component factory in Germany to be obsolete, said its works council as it vowed “fierce resistance” to the executive board’s plans.
In related news, a German-speaking friend sends along an English translation of this August 12 piece from Die Welt. The headline is “Germany’s electrical fallacy.”Excerpt:
Clean and cheap electricity was the great promise of the energy transition. It was said for years that there would be a “job miracle” for free. But now demand is collapsing. . . . [In the first half of 2024], the Central Association of the German Motor Vehicle Industry reports a decline of 47 percent in orders for electric cars. A drop of 54 percent in sales of heat pumps, reports the Federal Association of the German Heating Industry. What, on the other hand, is increasing: the demand for combustion cars and oil heaters.
“Will the energy transition now be cheap? Yes. Period,” promised Patrick Graichen, later the federal government’s chief planner and head of the Agora Energy Transition think tank, in an interview with WELT in 2017: “The harvest years of the energy transition are now in sight.” Fossil fuels would soon become unaffordable, while green electricity is becoming cheaper and cheaper. . . . But the narrative that has been circulating for many years is increasingly met with skepticism – and not just by consumers. . . . “The supposed certainties of older forecasts, according to which electrification of the industrial, transport and building sectors are economically preferable and that a constant increase in renewable energies would drive down end customer prices, are now fragile,” says Constantin H. Alsheimer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Thüga Public company.
“Fragile”? I would say that those old “certainties” have been completely shattered. But maybe that’s just an issue of the translation.
Let me end with the message from Dirk Messner, head of the UBA, as quoted in the July 18 Clean Energy Wire piece (emphasis added):
“It is a success that the share of renewables in electricity production continues to grow,” UBA head Dirk Messner said. However, Germany still needs to accelerate renewable expansion capacity to meet its climate and energy targets, especially in the solar photovoltaics (PV) sector, he warned. Messner called for planning security and for the careful further development of subsidy mechanisms, as well as for a way to keep grid fees in check in areas of high renewable expansion.
Build more and more wind and solar, increase the subsidies yet again, and drive Germany over the economic cliff. It will continue until the voters finally wake up. I have no idea when that will be.
Wind and solar have “worked” exactly nowhere.
I might further state that as
Wind and Solar, without reliable backup, have “worked” exactly nowhere.
The Chinese must have a bunch of jokes about Germany by now. Perhaps along the lines of having more wind power than brain power.
Germans, choking on an expensive diet of indigestible wind and solar, for over 20 years, by now must be suffering from lots of indigestion, which creates wind power below, while their brain power for making rational decisions is evaporating.
In over his head Scholz, with a 17% approval rating, wants to end the Ukraine War as soon as possible, but his clueless oversea’s masters insist he ship more weapons to Ukraine, which continues the dying and maiming at about 2500 per day, mainly of the shrinking Ukraine population, most of which lives with on/off electricity and loses more and more land each day.
Will the German people finally rise to say, enough is enough, or are they too befuddled/brainwashed/afraid to stand up to their eco-woke-drunk “leaders”.
Sure Ivan. Another glass of Vodka?
yuh, IvanPostsky
Looks like hotscot isn’t the only Ivan here.
Sure, just let Russia rebuild the Soviet Union- after all, that Empire was always friendly to the West. When Putler first gained power he said “the worst thing to happen in the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union”. A few years ago he gave a speech saying how awesome was Peter the Great. He wants to go down in history as Putin the Awesome”.
Actually, Katherine the Great, the German wife of a tsar who died, was even more important than Peter for the rise and expansion of the Russian Empire.
She ordered the founding of Odessa, and obtained, by treaty, Crimea, in 1784, after a few wars with Turkey, then called the Ottoman Empire.
She ordered her ambassadors to buy the contents of entire European museums to fill the museums in Russia.
One of her lovers was the famous general Potemkin.
No matter what the West thinks of Putin, the Russians think he is the best leader they have had since about 1990, after the Gorbachev and Yeltsin debacles. He beats dysfunctional Biden/Harris/Walz by miles.
Putin offered Ukraine the Minsk accords, but the US told Poroshenko to stall and ultimately reject it.
Putin had a signed agreement with Lezinsky in April 2022, that on hindsight was a real good deal for Ukraine, but hairdo Johnson told Lezinsky to reject it and to keep on fighting.
But Russia did not collapse, grew its GDP at 5%, and is systematically destroying Ukraine. Half the natural wealth of Ukraine is in the Dombas.
No-growth, dysfunctional EU/NATO will eventually see no light at the end of the tunnel.
In over his head Scholz, 17% approval rating, wants to end the war asap.
Every Empire falls apart. Should we revise the Roman Empire or Napoleons? Or the British Empire?
The fact is that the people of Ukraine don’t want to be part of the “Russian Mir”. When the Soviet Union fell apart, Ukraine was recognized by the entire world as a sovereign nation. So Russia had no business INVADING AND KILLING THOUSANDS, BOMBING SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS, ENERGY SUPPLIES, ETC.
If your such a fool, I’ll make a point to ignore you in this forum.
I think Putin will be overthrown by the oligarchs who’ve lost their fantastically expensive yachts and palaces in the EU.
“the Russians think he is the best leader they have had since about 1990”
Only a complete moron would believe that. Do you think there is freedom of speech in Russia? people get to vote for who they want? You are f*cked up. Write what you want, I’ll ignore it.
“Every Empire falls apart.”
True.
US military spending is 40% of the World total. With US controlled allies of NATO, Japan and other allies, it is over 3/4.
This IS an empire.
But there are signs of change. US military spending used to be over 50% of the World total.
It’s sort of an empire but different than others. But this ain’t the place for a long discussion of the American Empire- as fascinating as it is. But to whatever extent it is- I think it’s great! 🙂
Different as in “exceptionalism?”, like the US/EU devise their “rules-based order”, and all other shall live by those rules or else?
“How did the West get computers and Internet and cell phones and commercial air travel and full supermarkets and Levis and F150s and Real Housewives and bacon-wrapped everything and …”
Oh yeah, that’s how it happened. Thanks I forgot.
The east of Ukraine is pro-Russian, already for about 400 years,
The west of Ukraine is a mixture of Polish, Hungarian, etc.,
The east of Ukraine, especially the Dombas, opposed the coup d’Etat in 2014, but the Ukraine army came to impose Kiev’s will.
Hostilities broke out, about 14000 civilians were killed, during 2014 and 2022.
After the Ukraine army massed its forces and increased bombardments in the Dombas in 2022, Russia responded by also massing forces.
The rest is history.
It’s easy rewriting history, eh?
Russia’s economic and demographic stats do not look awesome. How did the West get computers and Internet and cell phones and commercial air travel and full supermarkets and Levis and F150s and Real Housewives and bacon-wrapped everything and … Anyway the article is about Germany not Russia so: “leaving only 43.6% from the wind and solar” is not terrible if the Germans have learned how to build invisible windmills – or flying windmills? Maybe they can get around conservation of energy and build wind-powered jumbo jets. Hindenburg only counts if the flight path is down wind.
The cause of the conflict is not the desire of Kremlin to rebuild Soviet Union. Russian elites do not want to rebuild SU. They want to be an integral part of Europe and to be treated as equal partners of the world elites, particularly that of US.
Peter the Great’ mission, by the way, was integration of Russia into Europe – culturally, economically and politically. He westernized Russia, built economic ties with German and other European states and imported into Russia a lot of Germans and other foreigners.
The cause of the conflict is NOT admission of both Ukraine and Russia to Europe.
Therefore, somebody, who really wants to stop conflicts like this, needs to work toward inclusion of both Ukraine and Russia into European political and economic system. Guess who is vehemently against this?
That is the reason the US military complex pushed the US and EU to have all EU countries in NATO, to sell more weapons.
Any hold outs are severely punished by the US and EU, to frighten and intimidate.
NATO right to the borders of Russia is the goal, and have a militarized Russian-speaking Ukraine bark at Russia, and then peel away, with “color” revolutions, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakstan with semi violent coup de Etats, to get at the vast resources of these countries, before China gets them.
Russia and China are united for many reasons, but mostly due to US not wanting to share the spotlight with others, aka unipolar vs multipolar, the reason BRICS has become so attractive
Chinese have shown well documented lack of critical thinking, mindlessly scaling to the nth power a lot of stupidities, their own or borrowed from Stalin or the West.
From killing sparrows and building of thousands of microscopic smelters, to ghost towns and mounds of dead electrical bikes, soon to be followed by fields of dead EVs, they also install enormous number of wind turbines themselves.
More solar power in Germany. As Dr. Evil would say, Righhhhhhtuh!
Maybe the research outposts at the South Pole should also use solar? If it works for Germany, right? Germany only has a little more wintertime sunshine.
Just for reference, Munich in the south of Germany is more than a degree of latitude north of Québec City in Canada. Hamburg in the north is about at the latitude of Goose Bay, Labrador.
At least Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station has sunshine potential for 180 days straight…(unless it’s storming or windy or blizzard) but that means they also have 180 contiguous days of night with zero sun
Does solar work well with the panels at a constant -14°C/-71°C (the daylight time temp renge)? It
Cold usually does not hurt electronic circuit reliability if it is constant. The accelerated aging models are exponentials with more=worse for both heat and humidity.
The “fun” part would be the 360° tracking system to follow the sun around the horizon. What’s the maximum angle that the sun rises above the horizon, 5° or 8°?
About where it is at 7:30 am at 37°N.
Subsidies are driving the PV panel, nothing else
If Germany really cared about global warming, it would build solar systems in Spain, Italy, Turkey, and Greece, at much less cost and much less subsidies than in Germany
“Fossil fuels would soon become unaffordable,”
So where does that leave them on a cloudy windless day or a windless night ???
With unfavorable wind/solar generation conditions
Buying nuclear generated power from France?
Not when it’s too hot.
Only a complete moron would try to blame France’s nuclear for a slight drop in output if Germany has to go without electricity after the trillions it has wasted on wind and solar.. that is producing nothing.
MUN
If Germany’s Wind and Solar capacity are 250% more than average demand and 150% more than peak demand, why does Germany only get 57% of its power from them?
Where does allllll that overcapacity go??
In Germany?
“ keep grid fees in check in areas of high renewable expansion”
Really?? I thought wind an solar were cheap !! 😉
The end of WWII showed that it can take years and years of suffering before the Germans wake up to what is really going on.
Very nice Francis. It is to our everlasting shame that we allow these mongrels to abuse language the way they do. If they want to brag about wind and solar then use the words wind and solar. Looking at Francis’ article there is nothing to brag about for wind and solar. Two classes of generation that should not be considered renewable (biomass and hydro) are treated like renewable and they are making the gains wind and solar are being given credit for. It is disgusting. They are liars and cheats but what else can you expect from bad government?
If Germany has a Wind and Solar capacity that’s 2.5 times average demand AND/OR 1.5 times peak demand, why is it that their renewables only generate 57% of their usage?
I guess 250% overcapacity in low density energy sources is incapable of providing 100% of a modern societies energy needs
Yes, its intermittency. It can’t be done. The problem is that in Europe output from wind will regularly fall below 10% for a week or ten days, in the summer and winter calms, caused by blocking Atlantic high pressure systems.
This, coupled with the existence of seasonal wind droughts if you go back 30 years and look at the weather data, led the Royal Society to conclude that to get to net zero you need one third of annual demand in the form of storage. That, for the UK, is 100 TWh.
Its impossible. The only way you can meet this is by installing a duplicate gas powered network. If doing that, the justification for the wind then becomes the fuel savings when the wind is blowing. So how much wind you need is not a question about net zero, but about economics.
My own conclusion, because of the persistent and total failure of any advocates ever to produce a business case justifying any amount wind on the fuel savings, is that the optimal level of wind is zero. It just adds complexity, transmission cost, and it lowers the efficiency of the gas systems, because of the need for constant rapid stops and starts. Must be doubtful that it lowers CO2 emissions at all over the lifetime of the wind systems.
As a student of irony I relish the fact that it is climate that is the spanner in the works for the pretended solution to the climate problem.
The futility of Man trying to control the elements was ably demonstrated by a 10th Century Anglo-Danish king on an English beach, and confronting the incoming tide.
That and Wind and Solar installations last at best 1/4 the lifespan of traditional Gas or Nuclear generation. Solar only lasts until the next hail storm.
Michel,
You hit the nail on the head.
The most efficient electric systems and grids are without wind and solar, IN ALL CASES
No, no, no
Wind and solar produce EXCESSES which are exported, not consumed in Germany.
Extreme excesses are prevented by curtailments.
Wind and solar produced AND CONSUMED in Germany likely is about 50% of the wind solar production.
That means that 57% is grossly overstated
I’d love to see a serious economist tackle the question of how long until Germany is reduced to utter penury, that would be an interesting climate model.
Fossil fuel shills have been singing a requiem for Germany for decades now. Guess what – they have the accuracy you claim climate scientists have. 😛
Not quite, industry has and continues to abandon Germany.
Germany could have had a thriving PV industry – the destruction in the early 2000s was home made. And as soon as cheap chinese EVs flood the european market their car industry is in for a world of pain.
“Germany could have had a thriving PV industry”
roflmao.
Yep, the destruction started with the installation of wind and solar pushing up electricity prices and the Mirky government attacking manufacturing on a regular basis. And continued with the idiotic closure of their nuclear plants.
Cheap Chinese EVs are all sitting in vacant lots, people are just hoping they don’t spontaneously combust.
Have you got your EV yet ? Or are you just being a juvenile mindless shill. !
Could not Google up a reference to “those jobs aren’t coming back”. Must be an election year in the US.
Have you seen those “Cheap” Chinese EVs? They Flambé at a rate of >21,000 per year or 58 per day whether parked and being charged or just parked and while being driven and most of the really
affordablecheap models can only travel at 17-25 MPH for an hour before the battery is depleted.So Germany is awesome with cheap energy and thriving industries. Why don’t you move there?
nutter M U n
doesn’t live in Germany and never has.
I have.
To know full well when the good times are over. a never ending recession came and when the vast, entitled, white aging population is driving the economy down the toilet.
Right now, Germany is an awful place to end up, with high living costs, freezing windless foggy winters and power crazed Polizei.
The UK isn’t much better TBQH, lousy summer, awful food, loads of crime and a horrible atmosphere.
Those 2 dystopia are starting to make former Eastern Europe look positively attractive!
I lived in Munich from 1984 – 1987. Delightful place, delightful people. Not anymore.
“Fossil fuel shills”
Says the little child-mind who is totally dependent on fossil fuels for everything in its tiny pathetic life.
You do know Germany still gets a large proportion of its energy from coal , oil and gas, don’t you, little child…
The amount of wind and solar is a pretty small percentage of the total energy used, even as the economy collapses due to manically idiotic electricity costs.
Yipes! Why so much oil? I have that understood as “the expensive one”.
“Fossil fuel shills have been singing a requiem for Germany for decades now.” You usually demand evidence when people make similar claims regarding climate alarmism. Perhaps tyou could supply some evidence of your own in this case.
German was “reduced to utter penury” after WWI and the Great Depression- and we see what came from that.
Eventually, politicians will be forced to do a u-turn on fossil fuels. They need a face-saving way to do that, so let me offer this way out for them: “We in Germany have dedicated ourselves to do our part in reducing climate change. However, this was done with the full expectation that all countries would participates in that effort. Unfortunately, major countries have failed to join in the fight, and have instead increased their emissions faster than the rest of the world has been able reduce theirs. Nothing we do without their participation will impact climate change. So we must reluctantly end our battle, increase our use of fossil fuels, and prepare for a warmer world.”
They can claim the high road, blame other countries, and return to a fossil fuel economy. If they do that soon, they may avoid political lynchings.
Or they could just say, “we finally realized how wrong we were about climate change- mostly because our smartest people started following WUWT”. 🙂
Or, they could say, ‘we have been misled by these criminals, who have made you, the people, suffer. Now they will go on trial for treason and crimes against humanity. We will return to prosperity for all with fossil fuels.’
Oz has the answer-
Nearly two thirds of Australian jobs revealed to be taxpayer funded (msn.com)
although there might be a wee problem with digging up the money at some stage-
Major sign Australia REALLY is in trouble as China’s property crisis causes our current account deficit to deteriorate | Daily Mail Online
Interesting graph, the UK price is conspicuous by its absence.
For reference (Google search), it was 0.41USD/kWh, higher even than Germany.
No wonder our economy is imploding, too.
Can somebody point that out to the EPRF and get us included?
At least, this means that Britain is leading the world at something. Britain is the leading lemming.
Britain is proudly winning the race to the top costs …
& the bottom of everything else, led by Ed Millipede
I too noticed our absence from the list. It was obviously far too embarrassing to put it up there at number one.
“Interesting graph, the UK price is conspicuous by its absence.”
Because since ‘Brexit’ we are not classed as part of Europe !!
Some of the benefits of Brexit …
We get to pay more for our food;
Our travel in the EU is restricted;
We control our borders ( so now even more illegals get in );
Many EU healthcare workers left the NHS & went home;
We don’t have to pay £ millions in fines/yr for dumping raw sewage into our seas & rivers:
Ferry trade to Ireland has reduced by 41% (Holyhead – Dublin), and alternative direct routes have been opened;
Because of our ‘green policies’ we are importing evermore electricity from our ex-best friends in the EU, in a continent-wide cold winter who will be cut off first ??
Or ……………..
Following Brexit the UK rose to have the largest GDP growth in the G7 in 2021 and 2022. In 2023 it fell back but its growth was close to the others, larger than Germany’s for instance. In 2024 it again has the fastest growing GDP in the G7 so far this year.
Since leaving the EU the UK has gone from having the seventh largest exports to having the fourth largest and has risen from eighth to seventh largest in manufactured goods. It is the largest net exporter of services in the world.
It exports way more per Capita than China, Japan or the USA, about four times more per capita than China.
We pay less for our food than before because we no longer are a member of the iniquitous Common Agricultural Policy which transferred money from the UK, with its largely efficient farms to countries with largely inefficient farms (France etc).
Well done Brexit I say!
Familiar-to-me “used to cost” metrics were destroyed/reset in 2020ish in the USA.Politics or COVID or whatever.
Re grocery prices: I spend much of my time in Belgium and France, and I am amazed at how much more expensive food is there compared with the UK.
Self-imposed ‘morgenthau plan’: presently available PV systems in regions of moderate insolation like Switzerland and countries north of the Swiss Alps act as net energy sink.
Or it would be if the PV panels were manufactured in Germany but of course the only way solar and wind can appear to be viable is by manufacturing the hardware in China using coal.
They still cite Weissbach, who uses sources on PV production technology form 2000 and 2003. And one of them cites a production analysis from 1992. The world has moved on a bit by now. At least outside of this site.
Did you know that Germany still gets 75% of it energy from coal, oil and gas.
Only 5% from solar.
And did you know that EVERY solar panel uses large amounts of coal, and gas in it manufacture.
Those solar panels are not going have much output in a German winter, especially at night. 😉
You really are a poorly educated little child, aren’t you.
Fed on FANTASIES that you actually “believe”
Why is electricity so expensive in Germany? With all that Solar and Wind it should be the cheapest in Europe.
And yet the Davos and WEF agenda continues apace. I wonder when the crunch point will happen? There has to be one.
The crunch time will only arrive when the world population has been reduced to one billion souls.
They have no intention of lifting their foot of the destruction pedal until then.
Would that be a tipping Point?
There is a simple, cheap and equally effective solution to Germany’s CO2 emissions problem:
All Germany has to do to achieve net zero is to repair and repurpose the Nordstream gas pipelines by taking CO2 emitted in Germany to Russia and release it there. The Russians would be happy with the fees and Germany could bask in its world leading Net Zero virtue.
It’s a no brainer and as the Greens have no brain what’s not to like?
“taking CO2 emitted in Germany to Russia and release it there”
🙂 🙂 🙂
Just send beer.
I hope the voters wake up to the big Net Zero deceit that achieves NOTHING for the planet before they die from cold.
Industrial electric power cost is a better number than retail prices for GDP
Germany 21 US cents per kWh
US 8 US cents per kWh
China 9 US cents per kWh
(US industries moving production to China go there for reasons other than cheaper electricity)
GERMANY:
Industrial electricity prices including electricity tax reached 19.1 Euro cents (21 US cents) per kilowatt hour in Germany, as of February 2024. Figures fluctuated during the specified timeline. The largest share of industrial electricity costs was due to energy procurement, network charges and distribution. The price is government subsidized.
US industrial electricity prices were 7.95 cents per kilowatt-hour in May 2024, up from 7.82 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour the previous month.
Need source for data
But the residential rates really suck!!!
I don’t think most biomass is imported from the U.S. True for Drax of course.
I think Germany produces much of its own and they import much from Scandinavia and Poland. They’ve been doing forestry in Germany for a millennium.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2018/06/woody-biomass-power-and-heat/germany
If they are actually getting most from the U.S., I’d like to see the evidence. I’d like to see the U.S. producing more chips and selling to the world. Producing chips helps in doing excellent forestry- as the only wood going into chips doesn’t have a higher and better use.
“Build more and more wind and solar, increase the subsidies yet again, and drive Germany over the economic cliff. It will continue until the voters finally wake up. I have no idea when that will be”.
Or until the entire grid collapses which may occur ahead of voters waking up. one of may favorite quotes, posted here on a number of occasions from Thomas Sowell ““It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”
I have found that no amount of facts, data, or analysis can persuade true believers – they are simply blinded by their ideology and likely won’t believe that renewables are responsible for blackouts, brownouts, or the inevitable collapse if more unreliables are used to replace reliables.
And if the German grid collapses, it will be because the transition to Net Zero wasn’t done right – we’ll do it better next time. (This time we were stabbed in the back.)
“The problem is that in the meantime Germany had added greatly to wind and solar generation capacity.
…
That’s rather an enormous amount of additional capital invested in wind and solar to achieve an additional 0.3% market share in electricity generation.”
George Orwell predicted that military-industrial complex and continuous global war waging would be used to lock up a lot of labor, making population work while achieving nothing, engaged in an eternal cycle of property created only to be destroyed.
https://www.abhafoundation.org/assets/books/html/1984/126.html
https://www.abhafoundation.org/assets/books/html/1984/127.html
Now we are witnessing climate-industrial complex doing similar thing. In this case, enormous resources are wasted and vast number of people work to produce nothing of value. With ever increasing productivity of labor, this is an alternative way to wealth destruction through wars.
I’m involved with a small U.K. business that has recently installed solar panels to reduce our power consumption as non domestic costs are seriously high, 64 cents U.S. for a daytime KWh. We are getting around a 20% reduction in consumption which should payback over 9 – 10 years. This is the place for solar – consumption reduction, not generation. BTW I’m not a net zero supporter!
9 – 10 year payback? Not a great investment.
Wind/solar “capacity” (GW) is not ability to supply (GWh), nor does it add to supply capability, it merely displaces (forced by regulation) fossil fuel electricity supply and increases the cost. This deceit is central to the subsidy harvesting industry and Net Zero fantasy.
Germany does highlight the fallacy that the solution to intermittency – inability to meet demand – is build more wind turbines and solar arrays.
The truth is, the more ‘capacity’ added from unreliables, the more back-up from fossil fuels is required, and consequently the more carbon dioxide emissions then if the unreliables were absent.
“There’s Germany way at the top of the list, over 38 cents per kWh, well over double the U.S. average.”
Well, actually, it’s third. It would be interesting to know the reasons why electricity in Belgium is even higher than it is in Gernmany. According to Worldometer, 52% of electricity generated in Belgium is nuclear and only 19% comes from renewables. If the reason for the high cost is Germany is the high level of generation from renewables, why is electricity even more expensive in Belgium?
The leading crash test dummies for renewables are all failing to produce affordable and reliable electricity yet the useful idiots leading those countries are doubling down. At what point do the people realize they’ve been lied to?
WW1 and WW2 must have killed off some significant portion of the intelligent genetic pool in Germany. I can’t think of any other reason why they voted for Merkel and worse.