Germany's Green Energy Revolution May Be on Verge of Failure

Germany's Green Energy Revolution May Be on Verge of Failure

by The Daily Bell

Angela Merkel's Vice Chancellor Stuns, Declares Germany's 'Energiewende' To Be On 'The Verge Of Failure' ... The green energy orgy in Germany is over. The music has stopped and the wine that once flowed freely has long run out. The green energy whores and pimps can go home. In a stunning admission by Germany's Economics Minister and Vice Chancellor to Angela Merkel, Sigmar Gabriel announced in a recent speech that the country's once highly ballyhooed transformation to renewable energy, the so called Energiewende, a model that has been adopted by a number of countries worldwide, is "on the verge of failure." – NoTricksZone.com


German green fanaticism turned into national policy some years ago and the largest economy in Europe created a political blueprint to reach truly utopian goals. And now it's all falling apart. That's what happens when politicians substitute their judgment for the market's Invisible Hand. And it must be far worse than Sigmar Gabriel admits to force this kind of admission out of him.


What exactly is Energiewende (German for energy transition)?
According to Wikipedia: "It is the transition by Germany to a sustainable economy by means of renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable development. The final goal is the abolition of coal and other non-renewable energy sources."

And here's some history:

The key policy document outlining the Energiewende was published by the German government in September 2010, some six months before the Fukushima nuclear accident. Legislative support was passed in 2011. Important aspects include:

• greenhouse gas reductions: 80–95% reduction by 2050

• renewable energy targets: 60% share by 2050 (renewables broadly defined as hydro, solar and wind power)

• energy efficiency: electricity efficiency up by 50% by 2050

• an associated research and development drive

Sounds good? Here's more from the article:

... Gabriel was once the country's environment minister and a devout believer in global warming and in Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. In the speech Gabriel tells the audience how the energy transformation is on the verge of failure: "Those who are the engines of the transformation to renewable energies, that's you, you don't see how close we are to the failure of the energy transformation."

Gabriel says that major reforms are thus unavoidable, and he calls efforts for energy consumers to get off the grid "pure madness". That's not what they want after all. Gabriel is now calling on companies who produce green energy for their own use to ante up as well: The complete exemption from paying feed-in tariffs is a model that is wonderful for you as a business model, but is one that is a problem for everyone else."

... Many in attendance seemed unable to fathom what Gabriel was unloading: the heady days at the green energy feeding trough are over – live with it. The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) here writes: The responsible persons in attendance at the Hessen-based photovoltaic SMA Solar and all the other profiteers of the EEG feed-in act saw their jaws drop when this late and blunt admission was made."

No doubt, many in the audience had a hard time digesting Gabriel's news because they were previously subject to a kind of groupthink that stubbornly refused to take into account various economic principles.

In fact, economic illiteracy is an inherent part of green mythology. The entire belief system is based on the idea that government force can be used for good, and that certain ends, and certain enforcers, are entitled to wield that force.

This is certainly a kind of sociopathic groupthink, but it is common in government because there are no countervailing forces. In today's Western, expansionist government systems, the media, colleagues, even much of the electorate is focused on legislative results. The idea is that once a law has been passed it will miraculously adjust surrounding society in predictable ways.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Real economics – Austrian, free-market economics – shows us there are certain immutable economic rules. The most important rule is that for outcomes to be predictable and utile, the process itself must be subject to the rigor of competition, what Adam Smith called the Invisible Hand.

Unfortunately, the entire modern, democratic process has been designed to circumvent the Invisible Hand of competition. Over and over, laws and regulations are created and imposed on the populace without any consideration as to whether these are viable.

Green energy itself stands as a good example of the dysfunction of this sort of process. In Germany, wind, solar and other "environmentally friendly" forms of energy production were mandated without regard to cost factors. But it is impossible to long continue to generate energy when the process itself is not efficient.

In other words, if the creation of energy is in the long term more expensive than the goods and services being produced, the entire effort is doomed to failure. Rather than being sustainable, the process ITSELF will be unsustainable. And that is the position in which Germany now apparently finds itself.

According to Wikipedia and other sources, German officials and legislators created laws that "guaranteed a fixed feed-in tariff for 20 years, guaranteeing a fixed income" for producers. Yet this guarantee was probably generated without doing a proper cost-benefit analysis. Now German taxpayers are stuck paying bills they cannot afford.

Not only that, but Germany is closing coal and nuclear powered plants at an accelerated rate. And the new energy creation must be deployed via power lines that must either be built or upgraded.

The result is that German consumers are facing ever higher energy bills, so much so that a rising percentage of Germans are choosing to have their power shut off rather than pay escalating fees.

Notice, in the excerpted article, Gabriel calls "efforts for energy consumers to get off the grid 'pure madness'." The implication seems to be that those who have created the mess are not about to let those who might pay for it find other forms of energy consumption.
All of this sounds both desperate and amateurish, but as the article informs us, "Gabriel is not only the national economics minister and vice chancellor to Angela Merkel, he is also head of Germany's socialist SPD party, which is now the coalition partner in Angela Merkel's CDU/SPD grand coalition government."

Thus, this pronouncement is not one being made by a junior minister but by an official at the very highest level of German government. And in reading the feedback below the article, one is made aware that Gabriel himself, despite his desperate pronouncements, recently made clear his support for a further expansion of the program – including additional windmills, wind power and solar power!

It is to be expected that Gabriel will continue on his destructive course, because he is beholden – as are most important Western politicians – to globalist priorities. Internationalism seeks to control human behavior by controlling the fundamental building blocks of life ... food, water, air, etc.

Green energy is an important part of this agenda. However, that does not make green solutions any more efficient, practical or economical.

This is one reason why High Alert sorts through numerous elite dominant social themes to find which ones may be practical and profitable and which ones probably are not.
Alternative energy on a large scale will probably not prove any more practical today than it proved the last time these sorts of solutions were tried out, in the 1970s.

Others solutions, however, featuring marijuana and organic food are far more feasible. Sometimes, of course, these solutions are directly in line with elite memes and sometimes they have developed to counter them.

In the case of green energy, Germany is showing us once again that the energy oriented dominant social themes are not be easily imposed, and even when imposed are very difficult to sustain. That doesn't mean that the globalists will stop trying ...

Conclusion
The feedback – cited above – concludes: "Beatings will continue until morale improves – the eternal motto of Social Democracy. Equal suffering for all."