Germany Gambles on Alternative Energy-Video

Kent

Kent

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This is a well presented short video by RT. It does an impressive compare/contrast between Germany and the USA. Germany's current embracing of alternative energy, with a defined national goal, sets an example of a country moving forward as a result of a shared vision. This compares unfavorably with the USA with its infighting, lack of a common purpose and vision, and it's obsession with all mighty profit above the common good:

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/12/15/germany-gambles-alternative-energy/
 
germany made a laughing stock out of itself by shutting in all of their nuclear reactors and then making solar panels and windmills the future source of power for their economy. now their independent electrical suppliers are going bankrupt and when they do there will be no one to carry the electricity to peoples homes and businesses. this poor planning has wrecked the strength of the german economy. there was never a need for them to shut in all of their nuclear plants. just playing into the hands of public hysteria which was totally irrational and unfounded. this has left them burning even more brown coal than ever and polluting the atmosphere with CO2 even more than they did before fukashima.
 
I think the point here, and the reason I posted it, is that it shows what a country (Germany) can do when it is united behind a single effort...

Sure there will be some hiccups on a transition that large. But to hang ones hat on the status-quo and declare that a continuation of coal, oil and nuclear is the wise choice, is outdated thinking which is part of the problem.

Carter tried to steer this country in a new direction and to get us at least partially off oil. Instead, succeeding administrations and our corrupted congress has allowed the oil cartel to run a muck and gain total control of our economy.

Its refreshing to see that other countries are not paralyzed and are making a sincere effort to embrace positive change. It doesn't mean you have to like or agree with everything they do or the manner in which they do it.
 
positive change in combatting global warming does not include shutting down the nuclear plants which are the basis of 30% of the electrical supply and instead burning brown coal in thermal plants to make the electricity.

solar contributes almost nothing by comparison in a country as far north and cloudy as germany.

just poor planning and actions by the guvment. has nothing to do with my opinion, just stupid behavior by politicians.
 
The only gamble would be spending another day of reinforcing a non-sustainable system.

Burning coal or natural gas or whatever for power is ensured long term failure.
 
dnmun said:
germany made a laughing stock out of itself by shutting in all of their nuclear reactors and then making solar panels and windmills the future source of power for their economy. now their independent electrical suppliers are going bankrupt and when they do there will be no one to carry the electricity to peoples homes and businesses. this poor planning has wrecked the strength of the german economy. there was never a need for them to shut in all of their nuclear plants. just playing into the hands of public hysteria which was totally irrational and unfounded. this has left them burning even more brown coal than ever and polluting the atmosphere with CO2 even more than they did before fukashima.
Click to expand...

Renewable energy accounted for over 25.4 per cent of Germany's total electricity in 2013. They look to have increased that number in 2014.

Uranium is getting more and more costly to mine and prices will only increase.

The battery storage problem and a European-wide High Voltage DC grid are the only limitations for renewables and they will be solved. Germany has plenty of infrastructure problems to worry about. I'm not so certain this constitutes one of them. Short-term of course you're right. Long term, well, we will find out soon enough I suppose.
 
Kiriakos GR said:
Kent said:
is that it shows what a country (Germany) can do when it is united behind a single effort...
Click to expand...

Germany is ready to collapse, most of all of their industry has today Chinese owners.
If China produces solar panels ? Germans will buy solar panels.
If China start producing blue water? Germans will start drinking blue water.

The German government tried to shown some dominance inside of Europe as leader of the pack, and instead collaborating in fair play bases with other EU countries it sabotage them.
Today Germany is all alone and lonely, and basically after WWII there is no plan Germany to be a state, nor today is a legal state, every funds moving their economy is in pockets of called investors, and the state is almost bankrupt.
Click to expand...

That's full of hyperbole and wishful thinking. There are tariffs on Chinese solar panels beyond a minimum cost that negates China's subsidies. China have accumulated a mountain of debt that will probably see them out of the game in a short while - subsidising loss-making industries is one way of guaranteeing failure. $100 billion in foreign reserves fled the country in just three months starting in July. They have got the world's worst housing bubble and they have massive public debt that they can't hide away forever.

Secondly, very little of the German industry is owned by the Chinese. These are the biggest foreign investors - United States, Britain, Switzerland, France and Austria. China comes after Austria.

Thirdly Germany only imports 6.7 per cent of Chinese goods - a number small enough to do without.

Fourthly, Germany exports 5.1 per cent of its products to China. Sure, it would lose a lot of money if it lost China as a trading partner but it's not the be-all and end-all you have made it out to be.

As for the rest of your post. I don't even know what Germany is not a legal state means. :? You should inform the UN so if you believe Germany isn't a state. France is a close and powerful ally of Germany and has been for quite some time so its not all alone.

It's up to the other EU countries to stand up for themselves. No one put a gun to anyone's' head. Germany didn't force Ireland to go on a house buying rampage. They didn't force the Greek government to hide all its debt and commit widespread tax evasion. The malaise of austerity and exclusive bank-led stimulus is not just a German problem - lots of countries have bought into this. If you want to blame anyone for this start with Thatcher and Reagan. Everyone else has just followed the lead of those two morons. It is what it is but it was also up to Ireland to stand up for itself and we didn't. Despite all the incompetent stunts the Greek government pulled you got quite a good deal in comparison to us with a write-off of 100 billion euro.

The Germans have been around a long time. They are one of the world's business heavyweights they have been crippled on numerous occasions in the past and they are experts at rebuilding.

I wouldn't spend so much time worrying about them. Instead you should be more worried about your own country and how it can fix its own mess because the Greek crisis begins and ends with Greece.
 
Kiriakos GR said:
Today Germany is all alone and lonely, and basically after WWII there is no plan Germany to be a state, nor today is a legal state, every funds moving their economy is in pockets of called investors, and the state is almost bankrupt.
Click to expand...


While it's not as rich as Switzerland, Germany seemed like a higher average standard of living than the SF Bay area from my own visits to various places up and down the autobahn.

I think causing your "state" to go bankrupt is likely best case scenario, they are the largest pointless squanders of peoples resources.
 
Kent said:
This is a well presented short video by RT. It does an impressive compare/contrast between Germany and the USA.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/12/15/germany-gambles-alternative-energy/
Click to expand...
That website appears to be a tad dubious, its freshly dated news but those youtube video were uploaded over 2.5 years ago Published on Mar 21, 2012

Spending $240billion on clean energy is an impressive number. In Melbourne they spent $6 billion on a desalination plant that started being built in 2008. Despite scientists saying the drought should break soon the state government didn't believe it and commenced its building anyway, if I was a more stupid I can see how they fell for it with all the climate change news that was happening at the time they just believed it was never really going to rain again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Desalination_Plant

Anyway by time it got finished 2012 it just sits idle as we got all the rainfall we need at %80 dams full compared to %25 in the drought. But I can't believe how much my water rates bill is. Just to have water connected even if I only use 1 drop of water a year it still costs $150 every other month, we got a new mailman and he seems pretty unreliable, I can miss the bill and get a nasty warning letter demanding the money. First time I have really noticed the pinch of stupid government.

Anyway, I can't help but wonder what kind of taxes/rates are costing people in Germany get $240 billion worth of clean energy, I can't help think but a lot.
 
germans are paying like 30 cents/kWh as i recall. that is why BMW does their carbon fiber layups in moses lake washington because of the cheap electricity. Wacker siltronics who make the silicon ingots using the special vacuum rf induction furnaces is located here in portland because of the cheap electricity they can buy from bonneville power administration. they get it for 2 cents/kWh and i pay 7 cents/kWh plus $10 billing fee.

my point is that by allowing the public anxiety that started after fukashima to cause them to shut down all of the nuke plants the politicians have failed their constituents and stuck them with super high cost power and the CO2 emissions are now even higher than before imo.

yet the germans are the best at managing nuclear power plants of all the engineering/management coalitions in the world. it was the incompetence of the management of TEPCO in japan that led to the loss of the fukashima plants. it was not the inherent weakness of the design that caused the failure of the backup power needed to drive the cooling pumps. the fukashima engineering staff had already convinced management to add a generator on the hillside above the plant for backup power which took them 10 years to implement along with the increase in the sea wall to protect from the expected tsunami. but the sea wall was not high enuff so it flooded. but the engineering staff had also recognized that the one weak point in their moving a backup generator up the hill was that the power from that backup generator went through a switchyard which was still exposed to risk of flooding so they tried to get management to approve a new switchyard for power above the expected flood line but management would not approve the cost and they blamed it on their fear of the antinuclear protesters so they never approved the switchyard above the flood zone. if that switch had been in place during the flooding of the primary backup generators then they could have used power from the backup generator which was in place higher up the hill and none of the reactors would have overheated and damaged containment.

so a management failure common in the japanese management system that prevented a $100k switchyard was what led to this 200 billion liability. this would not have happened in germany. the safety systems would have been approved and implemented in weeks, not decades. that is why it would be best for the germans to be using nuclear for power.
 
dnmun said:
germans are paying like 30 cents/kWh as i recall. that is why BMW does their carbon fiber layups in moses lake washington because of the cheap electricity. Wacker siltronics who make the silicon ingots using the special vacuum rf induction furnaces is located here in portland because of the cheap electricity they can buy from bonneville power administration. they get it for 2 cents/kWh and i pay 7 cents/kWh plus $10 billing fee.

my point is that by allowing the public anxiety that started after fukashima to cause them to shut down all of the nuke plants the politicians have failed their constituents and stuck them with super high cost power and the CO2 emissions are now even higher than before imo.

yet the germans are the best at managing nuclear power plants of all the engineering/management coalitions in the world. it was the incompetence of the management of TEPCO in japan that led to the loss of the fukashima plants. it was not the inherent weakness of the design that caused the failure of the backup power needed to drive the cooling pumps. the fukashima engineering staff had already convinced management to add a generator on the hillside above the plant for backup power which took them 10 years to implement along with the increase in the sea wall to protect from the expected tsunami. but the sea wall was not high enuff so it flooded. but the engineering staff had also recognized that the one weak point in their moving a backup generator up the hill was that the power from that backup generator went through a switchyard which was still exposed to risk of flooding so they tried to get management to approve a new switchyard for power above the expected flood line but management would not approve the cost and they blamed it on their fear of the antinuclear protesters so they never approved the switchyard above the flood zone. if that switch had been in place during the flooding of the primary backup generators then they could have used power from the backup generator which was in place higher up the hill and none of the reactors would have overheated and damaged containment.

so a management failure common in the japanese management system that prevented a $100k switchyard was what led to this 200 billion liability. this would not have happened in germany. the safety systems would have been approved and implemented in weeks, not decades. that is why it would be best for the germans to be using nuclear for power.
Click to expand...

dnmun, those German electricity prices are what domestic consumers pay. They are not representative of industrial prices. Large industries pay just 4.8 cent per kilowatt in Germany.

http://energytransition.de/2014/07/german-industry-electricity-prices-more-competitive/
 
Kiriakos GR said:
Kent said:
That's full of hyperbole and wishful thinking.

I wouldn't spend so much time worrying about them. Instead you should be more worried about your own country and how it can fix its own mess because the Greek crisis begins and ends with Greece.
Click to expand...

I just need back few tenth of billions of Euro that Germany has to return to Greece in cash, which was stolen at the end of WWII in a form of loan that Greece payed to Germany so to rebuilt it self.
When getting them, I will pay my bills and buy you a coffee too.
Click to expand...

My friend, I didn't write that!

The main point in the video is that here is a country-it doesn't matter which one-at least who is trying to formulate a national energy policy with united national action-unlike the USA which has no energy policy and weak leadership.
 
again, my point is that the germans are the best at managing nuclear because of their ability to manage industrial/nuclear plants better than anyone else so they are the last place to shut down nukes. i can see where nuclear plants should not be built in countries like greece where they are not capable of running an effective organization or according to the japanese management principals that made it impossible for the engineering staff to implement needed changes.

the problems at fukashima originated back at the very beginning when the plants were built after the war. i expect they were loaned the money by the US to build them so they had to use GE high pressure boiling water reactors that were what GE made then. so the design was flawed from the beginning by using backup generators which were built into those underground bunkers as though in preparation for another war almost.

it took the japanese engineers about 4 decades to finally convince management to upgrade the sea defenses and build the backup generator upslope. they tried for another decade to get the switchyard moved uphill too but it never was approved by TEPCO management because they were afraid to confront the anti nuclear protesters who were performing large scale demonstrations at the time because that was the hip thing to do just like the anti fracking hysteria now.

so my point was that german politicians folded in the face of irrational fears when they should have educated the public instead about the need to use nuclear power for energy to combat global warming. instead they copped out and sank to the level of the demonstrators.

this just happened today when the NY state board of health said they thought there was a risk of contamination of the water table from fracking and the guvner said he would then make it illegal in NY based on 'science' when no scientific evidence exists to show there is a risk. now science itself has become overwhelmed by public opinion influencing scientific proof that it has not and cannot occur.
 
Kiriakos GR said:
I just need back few tenth of billions of Euro that Germany has to return to Greece in cash, which was stolen at the end of WWII in a form of loan that Greece payed to Germany so to rebuilt it self.
When getting them, I will pay my bills and buy you a coffee too.
Click to expand...

Interesting - I was not aware of the Greek War Loan to Nazi Germany. However, upon doing a little reading, it was paid during the war to fund military activities. It was also more than repaid by the U.S. under the Marshall Plan.

Let's please leave the political rhetoric out of this thread..
 
it is hard to believe that the land of Pericles has sunk so low. to think of how we consider greece as the source of the 'western tradition' and it is now nothing but an inbred fester of greed and corruption that starts at the very top and permeates every level of interaction with bribes and illegal black market economics so people never have to pay taxes to the guvment and the guvment puts everybody and their uncle in a no work needed job and they expect the rest of the world to pay for it.
 
Punx0r said:
Kiriakos GR said:
I just need back few tenth of billions of Euro that Germany has to return to Greece in cash, which was stolen at the end of WWII in a form of loan that Greece payed to Germany so to rebuilt it self.
When getting them, I will pay my bills and buy you a coffee too.
Click to expand...

Interesting - I was not aware of the Greek War Loan to Nazi Germany. However, upon doing a little reading, it was paid during the war to fund military activities. It was also more than repaid by the U.S. under the Marshall Plan.

Let's please leave the political rhetoric out of this thread..
Click to expand...

It wasn't a loan it was war reparations. West Germany paid a portion of it back in finished goods. What's more Greece signed an international treaty in 1990 to waiver the rest of the reparations.

This is exactly like the Elgin Marbles dispute. The Greek government sold them to the British Museum and now claims it did no such thing.
 
I can well imagine the Nazis called it "war reparations" when demanding money from the Greek government. What I read called it a forced "0% interest loan", so I went with that. Either way I figure it was money extorted during the occupation.

Kiriakos, I do not believe I owe you any money? Also, I find reading an excellent way to learn. If I was to simply take the word of one man for all learning I could rely on the apparent word of God via the Holy Bible ;)

Dnmun, way to keep the peace, bud...
 
Punx0r said:
I can well imagine the Nazis called it "war reparations" when demanding money from the Greek government. What I read called it a forced "0% interest loan", so I went with that. Either way I figure it was money extorted during the occupation.
Click to expand...

Ah found a reference to it. Doesn't matter anyway as the Greeks signed the treaty in 1990 renouncing all reparation claims. Besides that was seven decades ago. All this nonsense is just deflecting responsibility and blaming others.
 
Kiriakos GR said:
...
Yes I do understand your motives, but the same loving Germans formulated another policy which converted CO2 in to taxation, end suddenly the end consumer become victim of some thieves in Brussels which converted plain smoke in to money.
The story about saving the planet due CO2 is an illusion, Germans was having hard time to hide radioactive garbage from their reactors, they send some of them in India and to other third world countries.
They even trying to dispose some of them in the Mediterranean sea.
Nothing is as innocent as it seems.
Click to expand...

I would recommend to eat less of these pills you have...
 
Kiriakos GR said:
Kent said:
is that it shows what a country (Germany) can do when it is united behind a single effort...
Click to expand...

Germany is ready to collapse, most of all of their industry has today Chinese owners.
If China produces solar panels ? Germans will buy solar panels.
If China start producing blue water? Germans will start drinking blue water.

The German government tried to shown some dominance inside of Europe as leader of the pack, and instead collaborating in fair play bases with other EU countries it sabotage them.
Today Germany is all alone and lonely, and basically after WWII there is no plan Germany to be a state, nor today is a legal state, every funds moving their economy is in pockets of called investors, and the state is almost bankrupt.
Click to expand...

:roll:
Well Kiriakos, how about you educate us and describe Greece's Energy Plan and show us how it plans to get off fossil fuels.

While your at it, compare and contrast in documented detail the difference between Greece's Energy Plan and that of Germany's.

Only Facts.

Not opinions. Not politics. Not anger.
 
so in other words you wanna threaten and bully him but you feel like you cannot do that on a public forum so you wanna send him private emails threatening and insulting him?

you have no basis for making these claims that germany has shorted the greek people in any way and instead germany continues to waste money by pouring it through the EU stabilization funds into the black hole of corruption and tax evasion that is the greek guvment and is matched for corruption by no other country in the world except russia.
 
Kiriakos GR said:
Well if you can prove to me that you are a man with some authority and capable to assist my country, it would be my pleasure to chat with you in private.
My policy is to not engage in serious conversations when the other party is anonymous.
It is crucial to me to be absolutely aware when I am communicating thru Internet with whom I am talking with? .. with my son ?... with an equal to me? .. to a grandfather?

The national energy plan is a strategical choice totally attached to financial and political interests.
Therefore your own restrictions of where this conversation can deploy restricts this conversation.

Regards !
Click to expand...

Why are you hiding?

You have gone out of your way to bad mouth Germany repeatedly, so why not take this opportunity for you to educate us about Greece's progressive and enlightened energy policy? And show us how, unlike Germany, Greece is setting an example and is leading the world?

Are you fearful that what you will discover will challenge your firmly held beliefs?

Or perhaps you will find, as you suspect, a mess of entangled special interests who don't give a damn about the well being of your country. Your elected representatives.

In any case, those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
 
dnmun said:
again, my point is that the germans are the best at managing nuclear because of their ability to manage industrial/nuclear plants better than anyone else so they are the last place to shut down nukes. i can see where nuclear plants should not be built in countries like greece where they are not capable of running an effective organization or according to the japanese management principals that made it impossible for the engineering staff to implement needed changes.

the problems at fukashima originated back at the very beginning when the plants were built after the war. i expect they were loaned the money by the US to build them so they had to use GE high pressure boiling water reactors that were what GE made then. so the design was flawed from the beginning by using backup generators which were built into those underground bunkers as though in preparation for another war almost.
Click to expand...

I get that there were serious problems in Japan and these may not occur in Germany, or France for that matter. Although the latest revelations about Sellafield in Cumbria are hardly comforting as I don't think the German's are much different from the British.

Putting safety concerns aside, I think that it may not be a simple case that German politicians gave into public hysteria, though this may have somewhat informed their decisions.

I think that they did the calculations and realised that uranium is going to get more scarce and costly to mine and refine. I think they looked at their renewable energy and the quick progress that they've made and decided that they could be ready in time. They also would have looked at the European HVDC grid and its potential as well as battery storage technology. I've no doubt they heavily considered biomass and wood gas. Germany is 31 per cent forest and growing - so they have room for manoeuvring.

Based on all that knowledge they formed an energy policy and concluded that nuclear wasn't the best option for them. Now in hindsight they may be wrong but going nuclear is only going to postpone the same problems that using oil and gas creates - mainly a supply that is ever diminishing. Whether they are right or wrong is open to speculation but they probably have more safeguards than you'd imagine upon first glance.
 
Going with distributed solar arrays and grid-tied chargers with a population driving EV's could eliminate the need for a the crude ancient power grid systems we're used to today that waste something like 70% of the power generated through distribution losses.
 
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