Well that didn’t take very long. Now it’s “Germany’s offshore fiasco.”
Germany wants to pepper its northern seas with offshore wind turbines as part of its ambitious energy revolution. But strict laws, technology problems and multiple delays are turning the massive enterprise into an expensive fiasco. Investors and the public are losing patience.
After years of deliberation, the German Justice Department has finally decided to take a bold leap into uncharted legal waters and official declare that theft should be punishible. OK, in this case it’s “data theft.”
Wow. Talk about a great leap forward for German Gerechtigkeit (justice) or something. The background: Like junkies in need of their next fix, German tax officials (usually from SPD led state governments) have been regularly purchasing stolen goods in recent months; data CDs containing lists of German tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts. Needless to say, the SPD & Co. are unhappy about this rather belated juristic revelation.
Is this the beginning of the end of the means justifying the end? Or was it vice versa?
“Datendiebstahl soll strafbar sein.”
And just keep on paying. Or how about grid and bare it?
Germany’s power grid hasn’t kept up with the explosion of new alternative energy sources — particularly the offshore windparks being built in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea off the country’s north coast. Many of those projects are at a standstill, with no way to deliver the power they generate to the mainland.
On Wednesday Merkel’s cabinet hopes to agree on a stop-gap measure to compensate power companies for losses accrued as a result of the delays, but again it will be German consumers who will ultimately suffer.
“The primary reason for the problem lies in the ‘third path’ policymakers have chosen to lead us into the renewable future. There is neither a centrally planned economy to steer the energy system nor are the rules of the market economy allowed to regulate the system according to the laws of supply and demand. Instead, a model of ‘decentralized planned economy’ is being pursued. Municipalities, states, the federal government and the European Union are all creating plans independent of each other and of those affected. There is no coordination…. The result is a fair amount of chaos with policymakers struggling to keep up. Everyone is aware that the situation cannot continue if the renewable energy revolution is to be a success. As such, the question is whether we want to move from where we are today in the direction of a centrally planned economic model or rather in the direction of market economy principles.”
That’s how much more German households will likely have to pay for energy in the coming years due to the country’s way cool “energy turnaround.”
Investments of at least 150 billion euros will be needed in the next few years and that’s just the beginning and absolutely positively nothing is working out reibungslos (smoothly) as not planned. And that’s the crux of the biscuit: This is what happens when you do your panicked decision making first and your planning later.
“Wir müssen davon ausgehen, dass die Gestaltung der Energiewende länger dauert als geplant.”
Withdrawal, I am told, can refer to any sort of separation, but is most commonly used to describe the group of symptoms that occurs upon the abrupt discontinuation/separation or a decrease in dosage of the intake of medications and recreational drugs.
In order to experience the symptoms of withdrawal, one must have first developed a physical/mental dependence (often referred to as chemical dependency).
„Notenbankfinanzierung kann süchtig machen.“
Finally, German TV for the rest of us. Hot diggity dog.
A new mini-series is starting on ZDFneo called “German Angst” and promises to finally and definitively answer a question that has been puzzling me for many years: “Are Germans really as neurotic as everybody thinks they are and just what is it that they are afraid of?” Actually, it’s the second part of that question I’m interested in. I already know the answer to the first part.
Of course if the show can actually hold that promise or not, that’s another thing. And how the hell are they going to find all this out in just 6 short episodes?
“Ich bin Autor und Reporter auf der Suche nach der Angst.”
Late for a delayed press conference, which was then delayed again, Berlin officials have now announced their decision to delay their decision to delay Berlin’s delayed Airport’s latest delay.
Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, a Social Democrat who has made the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport his flagship project, wasted no time in delaying further comment for later, unless delayed.
“Wowereit is making the city look more and more ridiculous in international eyes.”
But as far as I can tell, it seems to have begun sometime shortly after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Sudden fluctuations in Germany’s power grid are causing major damage to a number of industrial companies. While many of them have responded by getting their own power generators and regulators to help minimize the risks, they warn that companies might be forced to leave if the government doesn’t deal with the issues fast…
The problem is that wind and solar farms just don’t deliver the same amount of continuous electricity compared with nuclear and gas-fired power plants. To match traditional energy sources, grid operators must be able to exactly predict how strong the wind will blow or the sun will shine.
“Every company — from small businesses to companies listed on the DAX — are buying one (APC emergency power generators) from us.”
This German energy turnaround stuff can get really complicated, I find.
But as far as I can tell, dirty energy is clean energy here, too. As long as it’s German-made, that is.
“Dieser Neubau ist ein herausragender Beitrag zum Gelingen der Energiewende.”
The German textile industry, among others, is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore. Not when it comes to having to pay billions into the governments way cool Ökoenergie-Förderung (clean energy surcharge = tax).
That is why three companies now plan to challenge this surcharge subsidizing renewable energy in court.
More good government in action again, I guess. Energy companies have to pay the price for electricity generated through renewable technologies, and transfer the extra cost on to their customers. While energy-intensive industries like aluminum or steel are free from the surcharge, most of the textile industry has to pay.
“You cannot get an energy turnaround for free.”
