Re: Germany sets record for peak energy use - 50 percent comes from solar (Update)

['Chris de Morsella' via Everything List]

________________________________
 From: John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com>
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2014 10:47 AM
Subject: Re: Germany sets record for peak energy use - 50 percent comes from 
solar (Update)
 


On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 12:25 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List 
<everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:



> more than half of a summer day peak demand of the major European economy 
> coming from solar electricity,

Germany has encouraged solar energy with huge subsidies more aggressively than 
any other country in Europe; Germany is a rich country so they can afford to 
produce electricity in a way that is vastly more expensive than coal or natural 
gas or hydroelectric or nuclear or anything else except perhaps wind power. As 
a result Germany is not only the leader in solar energy it is also the leader 
in high electric bills, and "almost seven 
million households in the country are living in energy poverty—defined 
as having to spend more than 10 percent of income on energy bills". Germany 
embarked on their solar energy crusade in 2000, in that year electricity cost 
18 cents per kilowatt-hour, today its 37 cents and 800,000 Germans have had 
their electricity cut off because they couldn't pay their bill. And despite 
their herculean effort it turns out that Germany isn't even 
very green, in 2009 Germany emitted 913 million metric tons of carbon 
dioxide into the air, in 2013 it emitted 951.

Rich countries can afford, at least for a while, to make energy in a 
ridiculously inefficient way, but you're never ever going to convince poor 
countries, the vast majority of the world, to follow the German model.  No 
matter how loudly the environmentalists in rich western countries scream the 
developing world will never change their ways until you show them a way to make 
electricity cheaper than coal. 


  John K Clark

And the oil, gas, coal & nuclear energy sectors enjoy no government subsidies 
at all and they are not externalizing huge on-going costs onto the commons  
right? -- snicker... thought everyone would enjoy a good joke.
Chris

 
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