Posted on 06/02/2014 5:40:30 AM PDT by Freeport
(Reuters) - Nestled in the green hills of southern Germany, chemical giant Wacker Chemie churns out a wide range of products, from an ingredient for chewing gum to the polysilicon crystals in solar cells.
The electricity to produce all that - enough power for more than 700,000 households annually - has become more costly at Wacker’s main factory in Burghausen. It has played a big part in pushing up the firm’s total energy bill by 70 percent over the last five years, to nearly half a billion euros.
It’s a different story across the Atlantic in the U.S. state of Louisiana. There, chemicals maker Huntsman Corp pays 22 percent less for its power than it did just seven years ago.
The tale of those numbers underlines a profound shift underway in two of the world’s biggest industrial powers. Thanks in large part to Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power and push into green energy, companies there now pay some of the highest prices in the world for power. On average, German industrial companies with large power appetites paid about 0.15 euros ($0.21) per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity last year, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistics agency.
In the United States, electricity prices are falling thanks to natural gas derived from fracking - the hydraulic fracturing of rock. Louisiana now boasts industrial electricity prices of just $0.055 per kWh, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
Peter Huntsman, chief executive of the family firm, calls the United States the new global standard for low-cost manufacturing. Huntsman is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to expand in the United States, and rapidly closing plants in Europe. The company estimates that a large,...
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
:-)
Well, Obama thought of it and he's about to put a stop to it. Turning the EPA loose on coal will give us European style energy prices combined with China style rolling blackouts.
That certainly isn't true in Massachusetts. Natural gas in sufficient supplies to enable price reductions aren't even on the horizon. there will be some capacity relief when a new pipeline is completed in 2016, but that will only be enough to handle current demand. In the meantime, the residents will continue being gouged due to misguided policy decisions taken over the past two decades.
For those who want to see a video showing how horizontal drilling and fracking is done, Northern Gas and Oil has a great one. It’s 6 minutes.
It includes a visual piece on how fresh water aquifers are protected from contamination.
http://www.northernoil.com/drilling-video
Worked and lived in Burghausen while employed by Marathon Oil back in the late 60’s.
Breathtakingly beautiful countryside occupied by Fraulein in dirndls.
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