Germany's much-ballyhooed,
nearly 30-percent wind and solar power-grid conversion isn't all it's
cracked up to be. And it carries devastating costs for nations less
fortunate.
Praised by President Barack Obama and
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, it imposes a “simply brutal”
burden on the poor, Pioneer Energy President Robert Zubrin writes for
National Review. With an average residential electricity rate about
twice those in neighboring Poland and France and almost two-and-a-half
times the U.S. rate, annual electricity bills average $1,700 per German.
Figuring two per household on average, that exceeds 10 percent of
Germany's $33,000 median household income — and is a far greater income
percentage for Germans “just scraping by.”
The 30-percent-green claim is
overstated, too. Factor in wind and solar power's intermittent nature
and they produced just 14.8 percent of Germany's electricity in 2014.
And with the Fukushima disaster leading Germany to unplug nuclear power
plants, it's actually producing less carbon-free electricity now than in
2011 — and meeting demand by burning more coal.
“Germany's green-energy program is
neither green, nor an energy program,” but “a form of ultra-regressive
taxation — in effect, a state-sponsored cult of human sacrifice for
weather control,” Mr. Zubrin says.
Source: http://triblive.com