…with this example of “committing journalism“:
Sun and Wind Alter Global Landscape, Leaving Utilities Behind
Of all the developed nations, few have pushed harder than Germany to find a solution to global warming. And towering symbols of that drive are appearing in the middle of the North Sea…
Electric utility executives all over the world are watching nervously as technologies they once dismissed as irrelevant begin to threaten their long-established business plans…
A reckoning is at hand, and nowhere is that clearer than in Germany. Even as the country sets records nearly every month for renewable power production, the changes have devastated its utility companies, whose profits from power generation have collapsed…
The Achilles’ heel of renewable power is that it is intermittent, so German utilities have had to dial their conventional power plants up and down rapidly to compensate…
In fact, the problems with the energiewende (pronounced in-ur-GEE-vend-uh) have multiplied so rapidly in the past couple of years that the government is now trying to slow down the transition…
Guess how far down the “news” story those final two paragraphs are.
At this time friends, when there is so much demand for gas-fired generators to back up the intermittent windmills and solar collectors, let us not forget that fracking is a tool of Satan.
Chant with me now my friends! Wind yes, fracking no!
“Watching nervously” comes from the massively distorting influence of huge government subsidies and disruptive effects like first transmission access rights that are making a complete shambles of any sensible power planning. It also comes from the resulting highly increased threat of service interruptions for which they, not the governments causing these problems, will be blamed.
The giveaway is this bit of drivel from an Irishman in a Berlin think-tank (not an actual utility).
“The question is: How can we turn the energy transition into a success story?”
In short, how can we get our hands on more tax money to fatten our bank accounts at the expense of utilities and ratepayers alike.
The NYT went all in for global warming hysteria and far mongering and is as bd or worse than the CBC or BBC.
And in addition to being intermittent, it is killing the German economy
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html
In short, if you plunder the actual workers and producers rapaciously enough, you can keep the parasites going for quite some time.
We will look back at this as the tiem when the world was being run by assholes of the highest oreder.
This winter could be very interesting in Europe.
Britain is facing electrical capacity shortages.
Germany and its neighbors could have blackouts if the wind is too erratic.
And it will all be the fault of the evil electric companies. /sarc
If Europe sanctions Russia over Ukraine, they’ll shut off the gas and let them run on wind sun and coal or freeze in the dark. The predicted cold winter will be a good lesson in the folly of greenwashed hubris.
Germany has been in turmoil over green energy for a while now and is trying to figure out how to back out gracefully without losing more seats to the green party whose members are still in full brainwashed mode. They also made commitments to the various “save the planet” snake oil salesmen, much like Ontario has done.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/06/germany-in-skeptical-turmoil-on-both-climate-and-windfarms/#more-56069
When you are full crusted on stupid, freezing in the dark will be seen as a mark of the success.
Of course the utilities are in turmoil, they know whats coming and cannot see how to avoid being the scapegoats.
A few unscheduled shut downs of base load plant might help.
A cool, leave aside cold, Euro winter will focus any number of minds. Assorted Europeans and their national enablers slapping their foreheads and mumbling “Doh, what were we thinking?” will be fun to watch. Frozen grannies less so.
The last line of the article says it all:
“Indeed, the German people are paying significant money,” said Markus Steigenberger, an analyst at Agora, the think tank. “But in Germany, we can afford this — we are a rich country. It’s a gift to the world.”
Typical socialists, more than willing to give someone else’s money away!!!
The New York Times had to print a correction which is probably the number one all time winner in a long line of their recent corrections: “Correction: September 8, 2014
An earlier version of a summary that appeared with this article misstated the former title of Dick Cheney. He was vice president, not president.”
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=252029
Much of the now collapsed industrial infrastructure for supplying components
to all this green nonsense German electrical generation was originally “gifted”
to regions that were formerly part of the DDR. The very costly “go slow” ex-DDR
integration plan has now been shown to have been a ridiculous farce and failure.
A country capable of such bad planning makes its claims of having the massive
economic strength to ride out all possible fiscal downturns involving itself and
its vassals more than a little suspect.
“…when the world was being run by assholes of the highest order.”
Let me finish that sentence
…because a stupid, cowardly, selfish public permitted it to be so.
I was in Germany in the sixties, coldest winter in eighty years. The were still getting their coal mines going and nothing from Poland. The the American Senate saw the problem and sent ship loads of Anthracite coal (from companies owned by certain PA and WV senators). That type of coal is called metallurgical coal for smelting, but is useless for heating (gets too hot and melts the heating stove). It ent to American troops, who used it in their pot stoves so whatever peat there was went to the freezing Germans. The DB (railroad) tracks had women and children walking them all the time to pick up the odd piece of coal to heat a room of their house. I’m sure at that sight, much coal was accidently spilled by the railroad firemen. The woods and forests were filled with old people picking up sticks. We even flew bags of coal into Berlin when the Communists cut them off before.
The German people will survive. If Senator Byrd were still alive, he would have collier loads of coal going to Europe right now. But the Greenies in Europe would not let them unload it. Butt sense (notice the pun) our president would not let us mine it in the first place, there is no reason even to try.
The Sgt. said: “A country capable of such bad planning makes its claims of having the massive
economic strength to ride out all possible fiscal downturns involving itself and
its vassals more than a little suspect.”
You’re making it sound like incompetence. More like they f-ed over the commies while looking like saints to their constituents. This is what passes for genius in the political realm. They laughed all the way to the bank, and are now retired on the French Riviera. Dividing their time between crooked banking and boinking aspiring actresses, no doubt.
According to Dante these clowns have their own special circle of H3ll all to themselves. Fear the Reaper, boys.
Looks good on ’em. Wait til vladdie turns off the gas this winter.
Schadenfreude (pronounced – you got it coming)