..AND WHATEVER IT IS, if you don't get it, blame ex-President George W. Bush. He is responsible, check it out here... Ask the German greens, and greens worldwide who have been barking mad and nuclearphobic since their conception. Their fear of nuclear energy arises from the fact that nuclear energy represents the spectre of cheap electricity, and cheap electricity represents unbridled and unrestricted capitalism. They have a similar aversion to oil and the private car (for everyone except themselves of course) which has given billions of people the freedom the green left detest, a freedom to do as they wish - even to travel to their corporate capitalist workplace. Now, German greens have been granted their anti-nuclear wish - a nuclear free future. The German people have been told that a conversion to alternative energy sources, ie solar and wind power, will cost the average German consumer no more than the price of one latte per month... Surprise ! the truth may be a tiny bit different, and with the truth it may well be that the voting public, in Germany and around the world, will at last see the hypocritical greens for what they really are, the last faintly glowing embers of their red beginning...Chancellor Angela Merkel's government insists that electricity bills will only grow modestly as a result of the nuclear energy phase-out. Experts, however, disagree, with many pointing to Berlin's massive subsidies for solar power as the culprit...According to an assessment by the Rhenish-Westphalian Institute for Economic Research (RWI), the politicians' estimate of the costs of expanding renewable sources of energy is far too low, while the environmental benefits have been systematically overstated. RWI experts estimate that the cost of electricity could increase by as much as five times the government's estimate of one cent per kilowatt hour. In an internal prognosis, the semi-governmental German Energy Agency anticipates an increase of four to five cents. According to the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, the additional cost could easily amount to "five cents or more per kilowatt hour." An internal estimate making the rounds at the Economics Ministry also exceeds the official announcements. It concludes that an average three-person household will pay an additional 0.5 to 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, and up to five cents more in the mid-term. This would come to an additional cost of €175 ($250) a year. "Not exactly the price of a latte," says Manuel Frondel of the RWI. The problem is the federal government's outlandish subsidies policy. Electricity customers are already paying more than €13 billion this year to subsidize renewable energy. The largest subsidies go to solar plants, which contribute relatively little to overall power generation, as well as offshore wind farms in the north, which are far away from the countries largest electricity consumers in Germany's deep south..."We are dumping billions into the least effective technology," says Fritz Vahrenholt, the former environment minister for the city-state of Hamburg and now the head of utility RWE's renewable electricity subsidy Innogy. In its most recent report, the expert council on environmental issues assembled by the federal government advocates sharply reducing subsidies for solar power... "From the standpoint of the climate, every solar plant is a bad investment," says Joachim Weimann, an environmental economist at the University of Magdeburg. He has calculated that it costs about €500 to save a ton of CO2 emissions with solar power. In the case of wind energy, it costs only €150. In combination with building upgrades, the cost plummets to only €15 per ton of CO2 emissions savings. Environment Minister Röttgen did in fact intend to significantly reduce solar subsidies through the Renewable Energy Act. But then came the nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant in Japan, which lead to Germany's radical change of course. Now, in order to phase out nuclear energy as quickly as possible, every kilowatt hour of electricity is badly needed , no matter what the cost...The electricity that was once generated by those German nuclear power plants now comes primarily from the Czech Republic and France -- and is, of course, more expensive. The demand for electricity is expected to increase in the coming years, particularly with growing numbers of electric cars being connected to the grid as they charge their batteries.Experts can only shake their heads in disbelief at the notion that solar roof panels could satisfy demand in the foreseeable future..read the full article from der Spiegel online here...
