- German’s electricity bills have doubled since 2000. (Germans pay about 40c a KWH.)
- Up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they couldn’t pay their bills.
- Germany’s renewable energy levy rose from €14bn to €20bn in one year as wind and solar expanded. German households will pay a renewables surcharge of €7.2bn this year alone.
- Germany has more than half the worlds solar panels. They generated 40% of Germany’s peak electricity demand on June 6, but practically 0% during the darkest weeks of winter.
- Seimens closed it’s entire solar division, losing about €1bn. Bosch is getting out too, it has lost about €2.4bn.
- Solar investors have lost almost about €25bn in the past year. More than 5,000 companies associated with solar have closed since 2010.
- Germany has phased out nuclear, but is adding 20 coal fired stations. Gas power can’t compete with cheap coal or subsidized renewables and 20% of gas power plants are facing shutdown.
- Despite the river of money paid to renewables, emissions have risen in Germany for the last two years.
The price of moral-vanity: A catalogue of Green economic disaster unfolds across Europe « JoNova
h/t to Dave G
Not only does Bloomberg want to take law abiding citizens guns, the NYPD has no “special duty” to protect anyone.
In NY: No Duty to Protect
(GunNews.com) — A man who was brutally stabbed by Brooklyn subway slasher Maksim Gelman two years ago had his negligence case against New York City dismissed in court, despite the fact that two transit officers had locked themselves in a motorman’s car only a few feet from him at the time of the attack.
Gelman stabbed Joseph Lozito in the face, neck, hands and head on an uptown 3 train in February 2011, after fatally stabbing four people and injuring three others in a 28-hour period. Lozito, a father of two and an avid martial arts fan, was able to tackle Gelman and hold him down, and Gelman was eventually arrested by the transit officers.
Lozito sued the city, arguing that the police officers had locked themselves in the conductor’s car and failed to come to his aid in time.
The city claimed that the NYPD had no “special duty” to intervene at the time, and that they were in the motorman’s car because they believed Gelman had a gun.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Margaret Chan sided with the city, noting that there was no evidence the cops were aware Lozito was in danger at the time.
http://www.gunnews.com/in-ny-no-duty-to-protect/
The Germans are no slouches when it comes to technology, particularly industrial technology. So it was foolish to think that throwing money at US solar and wind companies would suddenly result in a technological leap that would make it competitive. Germany had an 8 year head start due to the German Renewable Energy Sources act of 2000.
http://www.climatelaw.org/laws/germany/germanyenergyact
Even dumber is that once the Chinese started selling solar panels for significantly less, the Administration slapped a tariff on them. Which proved that the “investment” wasn’t about cheap solar, but about rewarding major donors. The first people who should be cheering about cheap Chinese solar panels is those who want to force energy suppliers to use solar panels.
Germans pay about 40c a KWH
Holy Cow! The highest rates in the US are in Hawai’i (0.35 – 0.46 per kWh), but they’re on islands in the middle of an ocean and most of their electricity comes from Diesel generators. I pay about 0.08/kWh, and most of the country is around 0.20/kWh. I don’t see how a large industrial economy can be competitive at German rates.
Check the peak rates in California – you may be surprised at the amount.
0.40c is indeed extremely expensive. Electricity prices in Finland are around 0.07c/kWh. I guess it would be politically impossible to make it much more expensive because the amount of people freezing to death during winter would be quite something.
Socialists here are stupid, but not quite that stupid. Our left is mostly middle class rural homeowner socialists. They understand that making heating more expensive in a country as cold as this will mean death amongst their poorest voters.
The out-of-touch green urban-liberal-left is not yet very influential here and by the looks of it they never will.
You realize of course that if Romney had asked Rice to be his running mate and she’d accepted, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.