The 30 Percent Solution

August 27, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Energy, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Ideology, Renewable energy, Solar energy, The Energy Turnaround, The Greem Shirts, Wind Energy 1 Comment

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.”

World’s Largest Brown Coal Power Plant Inaugurated In Germany To Help Save Environment

August 16, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Brown Coal, Clean Energy, Coal, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Humor, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy, Satire, The Energy Turnaround, The Green Shirts Leave a comment

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.”

Clean Power Cleaning Us Out

August 15, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Energy, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Government Intervention, Green energy, Humor, Ideology, Renewable energy, Satire, Taxation, The Green Shirts Leave a comment

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.”

What’s 20 (30? 40?) Billion Euros These Days?

May 29, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hustle (Hoax), Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, CO2, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy, Solar energy, The Energy Turnaround, The Green Shirts, Wind Energy 1 Comment

It’s peanuts, man. Renewable peanuts.

Damn. This gives power madness a whole new meaning.

Germany mapped out a 20 billion euro ($25 billion) plan on Tuesday to expand its power grid and avoid a “power gap” as Europe’s largest economy switches away from nuclear to renewable energy.

Germany’s government, the federal energy network regulator and transmission grid firms unveiled joint plans for thousands of kilometres of new electricity lines to 2022, to help distribute volatile renewable energy.

Operators say some 3,800 kilometers of new power lines needed through 2022.

Energy Revolution Not Taking Place Quite Yet

May 23, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helections, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Humor, Ideology, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy, Satire, Solar energy, Technology, The Green Shirts 2 Comments

German energy turnaround revolutionaries everywhere are turning around more than usual these days, burning more energy than planned trying to answer all the dumb questions those dumb energy reactionaries are always asking them.

Dumb questions like:
How come the energy turnaround isn’t making any progress?
How come the taxpayers continue to foot the bill?
How come all these renewable energy companies are going broke now that the subsidies are being cut?
How come made in Germany renewable energy technology is now being made in China these days (and German subsidies are actually helping the Chinese)?
How come Germany isn’t in the position to create the power-transmission lines needed to connect these new energy sources to the German power grid?
How come the energy-storage facilities needed for these new technologies are so extremely expensive and, well, just aren’t being built?
How was that again? How come Germany is in the process of turning off all its nuclear power plants?
How come the construction of dozens of new coal-burning power plants will therefore be necessary?

And how could ideology get the upper hand on reality (yet again) in a nation full of such sober, experienced thinkers?

And on and on and on these dumb questioners go. These reactionary types just don’t get it, you see. They don’t have visions like us revolutionary folks do. And they don’t hear the voices, either.

Germany Stalled on the Expressway to a Green Future

Bye Bye Birdie

April 26, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Birds, Conservation, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Nature, Renewable energy, Technology, The Green Shirts, Wind Power, Wind Turbines 2 Comments

Those damned Americans again. The shocking news just came out over here that some 6.8 migrating birds die each and every year over there due to all those awful and yucky radio towers they feel compelled to put up all over the place all the time (for conservative talk radio shows, we must assume).

When will they ever learn?

And when will anybody over here ever learn to start publishing the numbers for all those birds that get killed each and every year due to German wind turbines? Hey, you know the deal. One standard for North American radio towers, another for green energy sources.

Wenn die ständig leuchtenden Lampen an den 4500 Türmen, die höher als 150 Meter sind, durch blinkende ersetzt würden, könne die Zahl der daran sterbenden Vögel um 45 Prozent sinken.

German Offshore Wind Farms More Deadly Than Fukushima

April 22, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Health, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Alternative Energy, Berlin, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy, Technology, The Green Shirts, Wind Farms, Winde Energy Leave a comment

Nobody promised the Germans a rose garden when the so-called “energy turnaround” turned around the corner here last year.

So that’s why the three deaths and 80 serious accidents that have taken place so far while building Germany’s so badly needed offshore wind farms are being registered here with such stoic equanimity (or are being ignored altogether). Progress must march on or something. Keine Widerrede (no talking back)!

Do me a favor and wake me once this energy turnaround nonsense has finally turned around (as in over) and died itself.

Der Leiter des Havariekommandos in Cuxhaven, Hans-Werner Monsees, forderte gegenüber FOCUS ein „besseres und dichteres Rettungssystem“. Sonst drohe die Zahl der Toten und Schwerverletzten weiter zu steigen – in den nächsten Jahren werden bis zu 7000 Windräder vor der deutschen Küste installiert.

We’ll Import Power From Anywhere

January 5, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: Atomic energy, Austria, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Humor, Nuclear power, Satire, The Green Shirts, Wind Energy Leave a comment

Even from Austria, if need be. And need there be.

“Missing power lines” are the cause behind the missing energy being missed in Southern Germany these days, we are told. That’s why Austria is being asked to help big buddy Germany out with a little “emergency energy,” pretty please.

But Austrians do this gladly, I think, because they know that if those missing German power lines weren’t missing than those missing power lines would be transporting tons of wonderful wind energy from the high German north to those energy-hungry factories in the south (and beyond to Austria?) where it’s missing at the moment, the energy. Like I said. Or so the theory.

The missing German nuclear power plants that were shut off after Fukushima (that’s in Japan) aren’t being missed by anybody here, though. Forget about them. It’s not the missing German nuclear power plants. It’s the missing power lines that are missing, I mean messing everything up around here.

Die Bundesnetzagentur hatte vor langfristigen Engpässen bei der Stromversorgung gewarnt. Die Versorgungssicherheit bleibe durch den Atomausstieg für eine Reihe von Jahren angespannt.

Too Much Sun, Son

December 22, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Alternative Energy, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Humor, Renewable energy, Satire, Solar energy, The Green Shirts, The Greens 1 Comment

Now if we could only learn to harness the power of falling solar energy company stocks…

Solar Millennium AG plunged by a record in Frankfurt trading after becoming the second publicly traded German solar company to file for insolvency.

Let’s face it, people: The sun and Germany just don’t mix.

Solar Millennium war ein grüner Börsenstar. Beim Solarkraftwerk-Hersteller klang immer alles nach Weltrettung, ständig ging es um die Zukunft der Menschheit. Seit Donnerstag ist das Unternehmen pleite und es wird klar: Viele hundert Millionen Euro sind weg. Es droht einer der größten Anlageskandale der Geschichte.

Green Electricity Threatening Energy Turnaround

June 26, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hustle (Hoax), Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Fukushima, German, Germans, Germany, Green energy, Greens, Humor, Nuclear power, Renewable energy, Satire, Solar energy 2 Comments

Yeah, I know. You thought that Germany’s Energiewende (energy turnaround) was synonymous with green or eco-power (I did too). But if you listen to what some scientist types are saying (Rheinisch-Westfälischen Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung or RWI, for instance)–and you won’t, and nobody else will either–the present state of renewable energy in Germany is so clearly deficient and so way too costly (especially when it comes to generating solar energy) that they recommend rethinking the whole big turnaraound thang (not that all that much thinking had gone into it in the first place or anything, that rethinking part was just a figure of speach).

Some of these folks are even starting to call this mess Der große Solarschwindel (The Great Solar Energy Scam). But, like I said, nobody is particularly interested in hearing about things like this. Or do you want the Green Shirts to come knocking on your door one night? And after all, money is no object here. It never is when it isn’t your own.

Es bestehen derzeit in Deutschland so große Defizite in Bezug auf Leitungsbau, Speicherkapazitäten und bei der Vernetzung mit den europäischen Nachbarn, dass es vorerst nicht ratsam erscheint, mit dem Ausbau regenerativer Stromerzeugungskapazitäten fortzufahren.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Green energy