... the former Socialist-Green coalition government ...enacted the so-called Renewable Energy Feed-In Act in 2000 ... [which] requires electric utilities to buy all renewable energies, such as solar and wind power, from all producers at fixed, exorbitant rates ... for a period of 20 years. [Sounds familiar]. ... [T]housands of homeowners, businesses, and investors have installed thousands of megawatts of solar and wind power.
...The problem is that these energy sources are weather-dependent and thus their sporadic supply is starting to wreak havoc on Germany’s power grid and is even now threatening to destabilize power grids all across Europe. The other problem: the power grid needed to distribute the decentrally produced green power is simply not there yet. They forgot to build it! ...
... in a fit of panic and hysteria, the German government shut down 8 of its older 18 nuclear reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, ... Germany had been a net power exporter; today it is a net power importer ...
... how could such absurd decisions have been made to begin with? Were there no experts involved in the planning of the new power generation infrastructure? ... Power executives are viewed as evil, dirty and greedy polluters, and thus were never really consulted. ... the decision to shut down the German nuclear power plants and to massively support renewables was done unilaterally by the government...
... Offshore wind parks, but no transmission lines to industrial regions!
... Activists groups blocking grid expansion
... In a death spiral…”will fail spectacularly”Dalton McGuinty, are you paying attention?
[via FOS]
2 comments:
This tells it all
The construction of offshore wind parks in the North Sea has hit a snag with a vital link to the onshore power grid hopelessly behind schedule. The delays have some reconsidering the ability of wind power to propel Germany into the post-nuclear era.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,805505,00.html
Good article in Der Spiegel.
With gullible politicians and government bureaucrats so anxious to 'go green' it's easy for the snake-oil (wind turbine) salesmen to flog their seriously defective product. That wind could economically replace nuke and fossil-fuel energy has been highly dubious from the get-go.
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