The tendency to think that all the idiots live in your own country is wrong!

And I offer Germany as a proof of my contention!  Their desperate, and not altogether discreditable, post-war efforts to be 'Good Germans' has allowed their nuttier fringe to lead them up several garden paths to disaster.  Not the least damaging of them is the way in which the 'Greenies' have rammed through alternative energy policies which are not only useless but also hideously expensive.  This mad tendency was capped last year when the 'Kaiserin', in a fit of panic after Fukushima ordered 8 of the 18 nuclear reactors to close immediately prior to the phasing out of the remainder.  The resulting energy slack would be taken up by renewable energy sources especially wind farms.  However, some quite disgraceful energy expert, Dr. Günter Keil, has carried out an investigation on behalf of  The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) - no, me neither - and has come to some rather startling conclusions.  Well, they're startling if you only possess three brain cells and lack an imagination!

According to this worthy, the German energy policy of the last 12 years is a disaster waiting to happen:

Years ago Germany ambitiously embarked on transforming its energy supply system, and hopes to supply at least 80% of its energy needs through renewable energies by 2050, and thus become a moral leader on environmental responsibility for the rest of the world.

To do this, the former Socialist-Green coalition government, led by Gerhard Schröder, enacted the so-called Renewable Energy Feed-In Act (EEG) in 2000. This Feed-In Act requires electric utilities to buy all renewable energies, such as solar and wind power, from all producers at fixed, exorbitant rates and to feed it into the power grid for a period of 20 years. This has led to a boom as thousands of homeowners, businesses, and investors have installed thousands of megawatts of solar and wind power capacity over the years. The current Conservative-Liberal government, not to be outdone by its predecessor, is also gleefully pushing the Feed-In Act to the limit.

Enough to warm the freezing heart of any 'Greenie' but there is a teensy-weensy problem:

The problem is that these energy sources are weather-dependent and thus their sporadic supply is starting to wreak havoc on Germany’s power grid and is even now threatening to destabilize power grids all across Europe. The other problem: the power grid needed to distribute the decentrally produced green power is simply not there yet. They forgot to build it! [My emphasis] So far, after tens of billions of euros spent on renewable energy systems and higher prices for consumers, not a single coal or gas-fired power plant has been taken offline. To the contrary, old inefficient plants have been brought back into service in an effort to stabilize the grid.

And just to add to their woes:

Before the shutdown of the nuclear reactors, Germany had been a net power exporter; today it is a net power importer and is at times severely straining neighboring power grids. To compensate for the missing nuclear power, the government is now heavily promoting even more weather-dependent wind power, which is further destabilizing the German and European power grids. A solution to the problem of storing electricity is still at least a generation away.

Still, not to worry, eh?  Surely Convict 101's Mr. Huhne's windmills will do the trick over here, no problem.  Well, not according to this useful table provided by Richard North at EU Referendum, which indicates that on 'Freezing Monday' they supplied a less than magnificent 0.9% of the total power used:

Another excellent source for keeping tabs on the lunacy of windmills as an energy source is the indefatiguable Autonomous Mind who offers this table showing the contribution from wind sources last Sunday when the big freeze began:

Somewhat plaintively he asks:

Is there any more clear a demonstration of the folly of the government’s plans to spend billions of pounds adding more wind capacity, when it cannot come close to replacing the amount of energy generated by coal-fired and nuclear power plant that will be decommissioned?

What compounds this folly is that additional gas-fired power will have to be built just to act as back up for the wind power on days like this.  There is no economic sense to paying twice to install capacity, particularly given the extent of taxpayer subsidy being devoted to wind turbines to make them more ‘affordable’ – code for helping generators make money from them at our expense.

And one senses and sympathises with the note of desperation in his tone when he asks:

If this doesn’t convince those who favour wind of their nonsensical folly, what will?

 

Comments

[A K Haart]

I caught that note of desperation too. It may have been rhetorical of course, but climate change hysteria is a genuinely crazy world full of genuinely crazy people - plus quite a few charlatans and rogues.

[David Duff]

Yes, and unfortunately, AK, quite a few politicians who should know better. I think Frau Merkel has taken leave of her senses and considering she is in charge of the New Frankish Empire it's all a bit worrying!

[H]

Good to see coal holding its end up. The stuff of the industrial revolution still as good now as it ever was.