“A woman at the wheel, that’ll cost you!”

Who would have thought that? According to Germany’s Federal Agency for Electricity, the German electricity grid is in a thoroughly chaotic condition these days. No one can explain why. And the cost of purchasing needed electricity (nuclear generated) at the European Energy Exchange has already gone up 10 percent and further increases are expected to follow soon. It’s bizarre. It’s almost as if some crazy person had shut down eight nuclear power plants here or something.

Yup, Angie Merkel’s Fukushima-driven German angst Atomaustieg (nuclear phase-out) may have indeed been absolutely necessary and of critical urgency (opinion polls, folks, you gots to give the people what they want), but hysteria does have its price. Even in Germany, I mean. But who cares? I know the Germans pretty well and I am convinced that they are all going to be more than willing to pay radically higher electricity bills in order to avoid the, uh, tsunami threat on the home front.

What I really don’t understand is the economics at play here. There is clearly an overabundance of hysteria in this country, right? Shouldn’t that make the price of hysteria, like, cheaper or something? I’d ask an economist but you know how the adage goes: For every economist there is an equal and opposite economist.

“Das Bundeskartellamt erwartet als Folge des Atomausstiegs steigende Strompreise. An der Strombörse sind die Preise bereits um zehn Prozent gestiegen.”