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Germany's Energy Poverty: How Electricity Became a Luxury Good
Der Spiegel ^ | 09/04/2013 | Masthead Editorial

Posted on 09/06/2013 6:53:43 PM PDT by neverdem

Germany's agressive and reckless expansion of wind and solar power has come with a hefty pricetag for consumers, and the costs often fall disproportionately on the poor. Government advisors are calling for a completely new start.

If you want to do something big, you have to start small. That's something German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier knows all too well. The politician, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has put together a manual of practical tips on how everyone can make small, everyday contributions to the shift away from nuclear power and toward green energy. The so-called Energiewende, or energy revolution, is Chancellor Angela Merkel's project of the century.

"Join in and start today," Altmaier writes in the introduction. He then turns to such everyday activities as baking and cooking. "Avoid preheating and utilize residual heat," Altmaier advises. TV viewers can also save a lot of electricity, albeit at the expense of picture quality. "For instance, you can reduce brightness and contrast," his booklet suggests.

Altmaier and others are on a mission to help people save money on their electricity bills, because they're about to receive some bad news. The government predicts that the renewable energy surcharge added to every consumer's electricity bill will increase from 5.3 cents today to between 6.2 and 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour -- a 20-percent price hike.

German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energy policy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany, and one of the country's most important future-oriented projects is acutely at risk.

After the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan two and a half years ago, Merkel quickly decided to begin phasing out...

(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Germany; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: altmaier; angelamerkel; became; carter; climatechange; electricity; energiewende; energy; energypoor; energypoverty; germany; germanys; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; good; greenenergy; jimmycarter; luxury; merkel; peteraltmaier; poverty; renewableenergy; solar; sweater; wind
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Idioten!
1 posted on 09/06/2013 6:53:43 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Coming to a United States of America near you, courtesy of the ObamaBot Flat Earth Society

Resistance is not futile. But you have to actually resist.


2 posted on 09/06/2013 6:58:39 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s.....you weren't really there)
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To: ChildOfThe60s
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

3 posted on 09/06/2013 7:02:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I aim to raise a million plus for Gov. Palin. What'll you do?.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Should be required reading......


4 posted on 09/06/2013 7:10:05 PM PDT by Mygirlsmom (If...if...We didn't love freedom enough...We purely&simply deserved everything that happened after)
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To: neverdem
predicts that the renewable energy surcharge added to every consumer's electricity bill will increase from 5.3 cents today to between 6.2 and 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour

The article makes no mention of just what they are now, but in 2010 they were 30 cents per KWH. Add in the rate increases and it goes over $0.36 per KWH.

We pay $0.117 in rural CO, an outrageous price already.

Without the environazi’s ( and there are a few Freeper enviro-nazis too, you know who you are) it would be half, or about 5 cents per KWH.

Germany's rates, 3x ours, is where the environazi's (including the Freepers aforementioned) are taking all of us.

Mentally, triple your electric bill, see where that gets you.

5 posted on 09/06/2013 7:10:52 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle (SWAT stands for Storing Weapons for patriots to Attack Tyranny.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Very sobering quote. More so because succeeding generations seem to have learned little from this. Or in the case of Americans, nothing.

Thanks for posting it again.


6 posted on 09/06/2013 7:15:00 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s.....you weren't really there)
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To: Balding_Eagle
Mentally, triple your electric bill, see where that gets you.

While it hurst individuals, many people don't see it as an undue burden because they can pay the bills. But there are whole classes of industries that are very energy dependent, and cannot move into an area with high energy prices. The jobs go elsewhere. Even industries like data centers are extremely rate dependent.

7 posted on 09/06/2013 7:19:11 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: neverdem

Of course its coming here.

Obama made that clear way back in 2008.


8 posted on 09/06/2013 7:26:44 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: neverdem

Why don’t the voters turn these wind/solar power whacko politicians out?? You know, why don’t they vote with their.....vote?


9 posted on 09/06/2013 7:27:42 PM PDT by citizen (There is always free government cheese in the mouse trap.....https://twitter.com/kracker0)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I love your quote.

But anyway...

“For instance, you can reduce brightness and contrast,” his booklet suggests.”

Liberal technocrats are the same worldwide - they should not be allowed to become involved with anything more “technical” than a paper clip. This statement is almost fantastically stupid.


10 posted on 09/06/2013 7:33:19 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: Vince Ferrer

Generally, utilities give businesses, particularly large ones, better rates than homeowners. Germany, at this point probably being more industrial than the US, couldn’t survive at the rates shown. I wonder what the disparity is between business rates and homeowner rates there as opposed to here.


11 posted on 09/06/2013 7:36:32 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: The Antiyuppie

left-wing quotes usually are...

welfare is good for the economy - Pelosi

and what was that gem from DWS the other day??


12 posted on 09/06/2013 7:39:41 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: neverdem

Recently saw a picture of a German wind farm with 30 plus or minus wind turbines within sight of a nuclear plant. It made me wonder if the turbines were there to replace the nuclear plant or if the plant was maintained in order to have power after the turbines failed? Cost efficiency be damned, we go forward with the green agenda, but not without other sacrifices in our lives.


13 posted on 09/06/2013 7:42:33 PM PDT by Boomer One
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To: Balding_Eagle

thanks for the details. Incredibly stupid of Germany to shut down their nukes.


14 posted on 09/06/2013 7:59:01 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: bigbob
thanks for the details. Incredibly stupid of Germany to shut down their nukes.

Yes, I didn't even bring nuclear into my equations.

Pure, safe nuclear, without enviro-nazis interference, would be well under $0.04, 10% of what Germany is going to be paying, 1/3 of what we pay now.

What was that movie, "The China Syndrome"? Few people realize that they are still paying for that movie every month in the form of higher electric bills.

I guess we should be thankful, 20,000,000 people have already been required to pay for the book, “The Silent Spring” by Rachel Carlson, with their lives.

15 posted on 09/06/2013 8:18:54 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle (SWAT stands for Storing Weapons for patriots to Attack Tyranny.)
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To: ChildOfThe60s

Unfortunately, it’s already here. In the Chicago area, we have the first certified passive house. It’s a building that’s 10 times more airtight than code. It uses a ductless heat pump system and an energy recovery ventilation unit that brings in outside air turning over the volume of the house every three hours. In addition, it has a solar water heater and a five kilowatt-per-hour photovoltaic array.

The problem with the description above is that it doesn’t mention the exact indoor temperature especially on a warm July day. Also, a heat pump in the Chicago area seems insufficient for those really cold Chicago winter days. The architect, Brandon Weiss, who worked in Germany, has really sold a lot of folks on this nonsense. But what do I know? I’m just a local architect and contractor.

Local governments have really jumped on the bandwagon. Cook County now requires the recycling of at least 70% construction waste.


16 posted on 09/06/2013 8:42:48 PM PDT by 12Gauge687
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To: Balding_Eagle

I’ve lived in Germany off and on for twenty years....so I can tell this story in a simplified way.

In the 1970s...along came the Greens and the environmentalists. In the beginning...they rarely got any platform space in newspapers, magazines, or TV journalism. By the 1990s, that had changed and they used their platforms to hustle and scare folks.

There aren’t alot of nuclear power plants in Germany. None have been built since the 1980s, and the current plan....enthusiastically rejoiced by the bulk of the public after the Japanese disaster...will shut down within the next fifteen years.

In the weeks after Japan’s episode, they milked the system as much as they could....convincing everyone of the terrible nature of nuke power. The conservative party backed itself into the corner and just said they’d make it the national agenda.

Power companies over the past decade in Germany have looked at the future. It’s screwed up. Between regulation, lack of nuke power, and confusing politics....there’s only one answer. Dump as much electrical power ability within Germany, and move out to border states. They are helping to make wind and solar power for the moment look great. Course, locals are now a bit hostile over the ever-growing windmill situation. You drive from Kaiserslautern to Mainz, and there’s around three hundred of these windmills across the countryside.

The gut feeling by 2030? As the nuke plants shut down, and more power has to be bought from outside sources....the prices will double within a short period of time (maybe less than five years). The power companies will have guessed right, and France, Poland, and Czech will benefit from taxing the power that is sold to the Germans. Everyone benefits...except the Germans. But they will be happy not to have dangerous nuke power....like those Japanese guys.

How will you afford $400 a month for electrical? (without AC, mind you). That’s the curious question in the end. I think the candle market will take off, and guys will be on street corners in the afternoons....selling two or three candles to make it through the evening. Silly, but it’s the way of “saving” their precious land.


17 posted on 09/06/2013 9:59:18 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: Balding_Eagle
Without the environazi’s ( and there are a few Freeper enviro-nazis too, you know who you are) it would be half, or about 5 cents per KWH.
.
Germany's rates, 3x ours, is where the environazi's (including the Freepers aforementioned) are taking all of us.

The difference is: in Germany, the enviro-nazis are actual Nazis.

18 posted on 09/06/2013 10:07:19 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Don't blame me for McCain.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
thank you, posting that..it's very relevant in today's world.

19 posted on 09/06/2013 10:13:16 PM PDT by skinkinthegrass (who'll take tomorrow,$pend it all today;who can take your income & tax it all away..0'Blowfly can :-)
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To: neverdem
After the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan two and a half years ago, Merkel quickly decided to begin phasing out nuclear power and lead the country into the age of wind and solar.

More factually, Merkel quickly decided to react to the childish, breathless TV coverage of a plant failure which was caused by a once-in-a-generation typhoon and which resulted in exactly zero casualties by attacking her own nation's ability to produce energy.

It's not clear why she has not decided to phase out cars, surgery and swimming, which are all subject to fatal accidents and have actually managed to rack up a body count, unlike the dreaded Fukushima-palooza.

But now many Germans are realizing the coalition government of Merkel's CDU and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) is unable to cope with this shift.

Why, have they run out of oil lamps and buggy whips?
20 posted on 09/06/2013 11:09:14 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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