Germany's Bad Energy Choices Leading into Cul de Sac?

Previously published on Al Fin Energy


Big wind and big solar are hopelessly intermittent and unreliable forms of energy production. But Germany has rashly committed itself to supplying 40% of its power from the intermittent unreliables by 2020. As a result of this giant leap of faith, German energy planners are scrambling for ways to convert big wind and big solar energy to more reliable forms of energy that can be stored, and used whenever needed.

P2G Electricity to Methane Scheme

As seen in the diagram above, a new €3.3 million project aims to produce methane from wind and solar generated electricity, using alkaline electrolyser stacks.

Once the hydrogen has been produced it passes through a methanisation process. The resulting methane can be injected directly into the natural gas grid, thus allowing for renewable energy storage on a timescale of months or more. The gas contributes to decarbonising the grid, and can be used for electricity generation or to fuel natural gas vehicles. _FuelCellToday

Here is more information about an earlier, preliminary research project to prove the concept:

The Centre for Solar Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) has inaugurated a research facility to convert solar power to methane. The methane is then added to the natural gas grid.

The project uses solar power to electrolyse water in a pressurised alkaline electrolyser, producing hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen gas then undergoes methanation, and with the facility able to produce up to 300 cubic meters of renewable methane per day, it is the largest of its type in the world. _FuelCellToday

More information from ZSW (in German)

Needless to say, the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere is vanishingly small (0.04%) -- making atmospheric CO2 far too rare and expensive as a CO2 source, for an industrial-scale project. This being the case, it is clear that the project will have to use concentrated CO2 effluent from a hydrocarbon-burning power plant, cement plant, or other industrial scale plant.

And as it happens, Germany is burning much more coal lately, as a result of its impulsive decision to shut down its nuclear power plants. All of which brings up a very good question: "If Germans want to produce methane from CO2 and H2 from the electrolysis of water, why not use nuclear power as your source of electricity?" Nuclear power is cheaper, more reliable, and more potentially abundant than the intermittent unreliables -- big wind and big solar.

Perhaps the answer to the question is that the Germans are not actually serious about all of this, but are merely posturing for the energy and environmental media -- and for green oriented voters and power blocs.

That would be a shame. Germany is in dire need of competent people who are willing to take a serious approach to present and future electrical power needs.

Today's bad choices by German leaders will have the effect of limiting possible good choices in the future. Germany is being painted into a corner, led into a cul de sac, by faux environmental greens who have been given too much power across the EU.

The green ideology is doing for Germany and the EU what the communist ideology did for the former USSR.

Europe Exhausting Herself Running From Energy Boogeymen

Cross-posted from Al Fin Energy


Europe's high energy costs are driving increasing numbers of industries and large employers overseas. Most of Europe's high energy costs are caused by Europe's reflexive flight from inexpensive energy of the hydrocarbon and nuclear varieties.

High energy costs are emerging as an issue in Europe that is prompting debate, including questioning of the Continent’s clean energy initiatives. Over the past few years, Europe has spent tens of billions of euros in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

“We embarked on a big transition to a low-carbon economy without taking into account the cost and without factoring in the competitive impact,” says Fabien Roques, head of European power and carbon at the energy consulting firm IHS CERA in Paris. “I think there will be a critical review of some of these policies in the next few years.” _NewYorkTimes

Carbon dioxide is boogeyman #1 for the European greens who control much of the continent's energy policy. But Europe's ineffectual attempts to reduce carbon emissions amount to suicidal self-flagellation and self-strangulation. It is all grand theatre, with the end result being self righteous self-immolation.

Boogeyman #2 is nuclear power. Germany is the poster boy of sacrificial self-castration in this regard.

The changes have been rapid. Nuclear power supplies 17 percent of the country’s energy needs, down from 23, while renewables have climbed from 20 to 25 percent in just months.

...Despite technological advances, wind, solar, hydro and other green energy sources still remain an unprofitable investment in a fair market. The way to encourage their exploitation is through a set of feed-in tariffs, a policy where energy companies are forced to buy electricity from green generators at a price set by the government (which is usually legislated to remain the same for two decades).

The German government has passed the cost of the payment from the energy companies to the consumer... This week, energy companies announced that the charge would go up by 47 percent for next year. The average Germany household will now pay €250 a year to sponsor green energy producers, four times more than in 2009. _RT

But green energy is expensive and unreliable. Which means that big industries whose profit margins depend upon the use of inexpensive energy, must move overseas -- and take their good paying jobs with them.

On Dec. 19, Voestalpine, an Austrian maker of high-quality steel for the auto industry, announced that it would build a plant in North America that would employ natural gas to reduce iron ore to a kind of raw iron that would then be used in the company's European blast furnaces.

...Energy-intensive industries like chemicals and steel are, if not closing European plants outright, looking toward places like the United States that have lower energy costs as they pursue new investments.

BASF, the German chemical giant, has been outspoken about the consequences of energy costs for competitiveness and is building a new plant in Louisiana.

“We Europeans are currently paying up to four or five times more for natural gas than the Americans,” Harald Schwager, a member of the executive board at BASF, said last month. “Energy efficiency alone will not allow us to compensate for this. Of course, that means increased competition for all the European manufacturing sites.” _NYT

Europeans have unwittingly handed their futures over to saboteurs in high places. Green government officials and their advisors are pushing European economies over a cliff, for the sake of faux environmental fear mongering. They are running from the energy boogeymen, and in the process are destroying the economic futures of their people.

Europeans are no longer living in a democracy, but are being controlled by a non-representative quasi-feudal system known as the European Union, based in Brussels. And the EU is essentially in thrall to the faux environmental power interests.

With such suicidal leadership, it is no wonder that demographic projections show most European populations rapidly withering away.

The future of Europe rests in the hands of her people, although Europeans have not been noted historically for understanding that fact -- except for the popular uprisings against communist governments in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And there is very little time.

Haughty Huns Threaten Czechs and Pols: The Energy Wars

This article is cross-posted from Al Fin Energy

Erratic Nature of Wind

Germany is conducting an energy war, using the erratic and unpredictable wind as a covert weapon against its neighbors.

Germany is dumping electricity on its unwilling neighbors and by wintertime the feud should come to a head...

...Central and Eastern European countries are moving to disconnect their power lines from Germany’s during the windiest days. That’s when they get flooded with energy, echoing struggles seen from China to Texas over accommodating the world’s 200,000 windmills.

...Renewable energy around the world is causing problems... At times, the glut can be so great that utilities pay consumers to take the power and get rid of it.

...The problem may intensify with the approaching winter. With an insufficient north-south connection, Germany’s power network came close to a collapse last February when high winds in the Baltic sea flooded it with power and the Czech Republic and Poland threatened to disconnect their grids.

...“The Germans are using our infrastructure in an excessive manner,” CEPS board member Zbynek Boldis said in an interview in Prague. “At this point they’re getting a free lunch.”

...“Electricity follows a path of least resistance in the grid, according to the laws of physics,” Boldis said. “The result is that our transmission system is overloaded, we have security threats.” _Bloomberg

Big wind energy generates large and erratic power irregularities in the grid, on an almost instantaneous basis. These large power shifts cause expensive damage to critical power backup infrastructure, and significantly shorten the useful lifetimes of backup systems worth tens of billions of Euros or more.

Wind advocates claim that the problems of big wind can be solved using geographical averaging, supergrids, and energy storage. But a close analysis demonstrates that such is not the case.

The wind does not generally blow at times when the power grid needs the most power. And it tends to blow the most when the power grid is already well supplied -- forcing the grid to dump excess power at significant cost.

This de facto energy war is actually a religious war -- a crusade. Underlying green philosophies which drive the compulsion to overbuild wind and solar infrastructure, are equivalent to religious dogma, unsupported by science or empirical observations.

Over the past hundred years, Germany has had a tendency to start wars that devastated large areas of the world, leaving most of Europe in tatters for decades. Let us hope that this German-instigated war does not achieve the same dismal result. Preliminary analysis, however, does not provide much hope.

Germany Screws the Energy Pooch Bigtime

German Consumers Pay Big Price for Government's Energy Mistakes




Germany is attempting the impossible: It is attempting to replace safe and reliable nuclear power with exorbitantly expensive intermittent unreliable energy sources such as big wind and big solar. German consumers of electric power are already paying the price of this ill-advised policy of quasi energy suicide.

Oddly for a so-called green government, the Germans are rapidly building up their coal generation capacity, in an effort to avert total energy disaster from the intermittent unreliables.

Germany’s foray into renewables has not converted most of its neighbors and a number of them are planning to construct nuclear power plants of their own, just as Germany is getting rid of hers. _Germans Pay the Price

Of course most intelligent leaders would not follow Germany's path to energy suicide. It is easy to understand what happens to industrial economies when their power grids can no longer supply high quality, reliable electric power: They lose their industries to other countries that are still capable of supplying industrial quality power.

Despite technological advances, wind, solar, hydro and other green energy sources still remain an unprofitable investment in a fair market. The way to encourage their exploitation is through a set of feed-in tariffs, a policy where energy companies are forced to buy electricity from green generators at a price set by the government (which is usually legislated to remain the same for two decades).

The German government has passed the cost of the payment from the energy companies to the consumer. Every German on the grid pays something called Umlage, a special surcharge for supporting green fuels that covers all the green energy subsidies, however much energy is produced.

_RT

Germany is one of the worst conceivable places to build solar power infrastructure. Constantly cloudy, at relatively high latitude -- with almost no useful sun over large parts of the year.

Wind is even worse, with an erratic unpredictability that is said to be more threatening to power grids than throwing live hand grenades into grid control centres.

Industries are already leaving Germany, and more will soon follow. The loss of energy and jobs will damage the German economy almost as much as the exploding cost of new infrastructure required to deal with the intermittent unreliables. And the cost -- THE COST!!! Hundreds of thousands of lower class workers in Germany already cannot afford to pay their skyrocketing power bills. That number will only grow larger.

In an effort to stay in power just a few years longer, Germany's leadership has made one of the worst decisions that a modern government can make.

Germany was unlikely to be destroyed by outsiders, in the absence of another provocateur such as Hitler. But in this case, it is the Germans who are doing it to themselves.

With Germany as the pivot point for the European power grid and the European economy, what does this tell you about the future of Europe?

h/t The GWPF

More:

Germany faces power blackouts this winter

More energy price explosions confronting German rate payers

One may wonder, "what is the point of all this, if global warming stopped 15 years ago?"

Political left crucifies itself on a great green cross

Pathetic Germany: Who Can Save You Now?

This article is cross-posted from Al Fin Energy blog

Germany intends to produce 40% of its electric power from big wind and big solar by 2020 -- and 80% of its power from big green by 2050. German politicians say it will work. They are betting the entire country on it. The cost of Germany's great energy experiment -- Energiewende -- has risen to upwards of $250 billion over the next 8 years. That is about 7% of Germany's 2011 GDP. Electricity costs are already going up, and German electricity consumers must pay a 15% renewable-energy surcharge tax with every monthly bill.

Germany's government is betting its industry and its economy that green energy technologists can somehow pull a herd of rabbits out of a thimble, and save the day. Pathetic Germany: Who can save you now?

In 2010, the German government declared that it would undertake what has popularly come to be called an Energiewende—an energy turn, or energy revolution. This switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the most ambitious ever attempted by a heavily industrialized country: it aims to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent by midcentury. The goal was challenging, but it was made somewhat easier by the fact that Germany already generated more than 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, which produces almost no greenhouse gases. Then last year, responding to public concern over the post-tsunami nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered the eight oldest German nuclear plants shut down right away. A few months later, the government finalized a plan to shut the remaining nine by 2022. Now the Energiewende includes a turn away from Germany's biggest source of low-­carbon electricity.

To some German economists, the country's energy policy is simply wrong-headed. Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, is especially scathing. "The Energiewende is a turn into nowhere-land, because the green technologies are just not sufficient to provide a replacement for modern society's energy needs," he says. "It is wrong to shut down the atomic power plants, because this is a cheap source of energy, and wind and solar power are by no means able to provide a replacement. They are much more expensive, and the energy that comes out is of inferior quality. Energy-intensive industries will move out, and the competitiveness of the German manufacturing sector will be reduced or wages will be depressed." _TechnologyReview

The problems with Germany's plan are too many, too obvious, and too grave to dismiss. And yet that is exactly what Germany's politicians are doing, to the ultimate demise of the nation's industrial might and its economy. And when Germany goes, it will drag the rest of Europe down with it.

There is much about the current policy that arguably isn't logical. In the short term at least, the decision to close the nuclear plants means that the Energiewende will actually push utilities to rely more heavily on coal. Last year, for example, RWE fired up two long-planned new boilers at an existing facility near the Belgian border that burns the dirtiest fossil fuel of them all: brown lignite coal. Though these boilers are cleaner than the ones they're replacing, the coal plant is the largest of its kind in the world, and it's going full blast these days to keep up with power demand.

...Inevitably, some hot July week will come when a high-pressure system stalls over Europe, stilling turbines just when sunburned Germans reach for their air conditioners. Until large-scale, cheap storage is available, gas power plants, which can start up quickly and efficiently, will be the most practical way to cope with these situations. But there's little incentive to build such plants. Owners of gas plants meant to meet peak power needs can no longer count on running for a certain number of hours, since the need will no longer fall on predictable workday afternoons but come and go with the sun and wind. Says ­Ottmar ­Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, "The design of the electricity market will change fundamentally. You have fluctuating demand, and at the same time a fluctuating supply. The linkage and the interplay in these two dimensions has become the subject of intense research. There could be new and emerging market failures." _TechnologyReview

Market failures? Certainly. But more importantly, power failures. As power blackouts and cascading failures become more common across Germany -- and thus across Europe -- Germans will find themselves immersed in the true experience of big green: Freezing or roasting in the dark.

Without enough cheap, reliable power to support the high-technology industry and the transportation system, Germany's economy—and that of Europe as a whole—could be in trouble. Already some German firms are building new manufacturing facilities elsewhere; for example, last year the chemical producer Wacker ­Chemie decided to build a polysilicon plant in Tennessee, partly because energy costs in Germany were so high. Weale says, "The quality of the supply would only have to deteriorate a little bit and it would be quite serious for this high-­technology industry. We've already seen, even without the lights going out, that industry is getting nervous." _TechnologyReview

Not long ago, German politicians were talking about having to spend $25 billion on new power infrastructure to facilitate new offshore wind installations and new solar power plants. Now, they are talking about up to $250 billion -- a significant portion of German GDP.

But in reality, German economists admit that no one knows how high the ultimate cost of the Energiewende will grow to be.

And in the end, what will Germany have? A former economic powerhouse of Europe, reduced to dependency upon intermittent unreliable forms of energy. A nation in demographic decline, stripped of its most profitable industrial producers -- because these producers could not depend upon Germany's power supply.

Rarely has a nation gone through the rapid ups and downs that Germany has undergone over the past century. It is not certain that the much depleted German character can survive the next collapse.

Germany's Strange Case of Energy Anorexia Nervosa

The following article is adapted from an article on Al Fin Energy

“If Germany succeeds, it could be a role model for economies all over the world,” said Claudia Kemfert, DIW’s senior energy expert. “If it fails, it will be a disaster for Germany’s politicians, society and economy.” _Bloomberg

Germany will serve as a test case to show whether industrialized countries can compete while relying on renewables _TechnologyReview

Germany -- the economic powerhouse of Europe -- has settled upon a risky energy strategy, staking its industrial future on intermittent and unreliable forms of energy: big wind and big solar. Germany is turning away from nuclear power, and aims to use intermittent renewables to generate 33% 35% of its electric power by 2020, and 50% of its electric power by 2050.

Unfortunately for the future of German industry, the intermittency of big wind and big solar will make it almost impossible for German utilities to provide clean, affordable, and reliable power to industry and other consumers, at the high levels of penetration by intermittent renewables that Germany is trying to achieve. Clearly, some form of utility-scale storage would be needed to make such a scheme "work." That is why German planners are considering the "hydrogen option."

The hydrogen option involves using intermittent renewables to convert water into H2 and O2 using electrolysis, then converting the H2 back to electricity when needed, using fuel cells. Unfortunately, the round trip conversion efficiency of the "hydrogen option" is only about 20 or 25% -- in other words, Germans will lose 75% to 80% of the total energy generated by the intermittent renewables. Which is precious little to begin with.

With that information in mind, here is more about the German plan from Technology Review:

If Germany is to meet its ambitious goals of getting a third of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, it must find a way to store huge quantities of electricity in order to make up for the intermittency of renewable energy.

Siemens says it has just the technology: electrolyzer plants, each the size of a large warehouse, that split water to make hydrogen gas. The hydrogen could be used when the wind isn't blowing to generate electricity in gas-fired power plants, or it could be used to fuel cars.

Producing hydrogen is an inefficient way to store energy—about two-thirds of the power is lost in the processes of making the hydrogen and using the hydrogen to generate electricity. But Siemens says it's the only storage option that can achieve the scale that's going to be needed in Germany.

Unlike conventional industrial electrolyzers, which need a fairly steady supply of power to efficiently split water, Siemens's new design is flexible enough to run on intermittent power from wind turbines. It's based on proton-exchange membrane technology similar to that used in fuel cells for cars, which can operate at widely different power levels. The electrolyzers can also temporarily operate at two to three times their rated power levels, which could be useful for accommodating surges in power on windy days.

Germany, which has led the world in installing solar capacity, isn't just concerned about climate change. Its leaders think that in the long term, renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels, so it could give the country an economic advantage, says Miranda Schreurs, director of the Environmental Policy Research Center at the Freie Universität Berlin. Germany will serve as a test case to show whether industrialized countries can compete while relying on renewables. _MITTechnologyReview

A Policy of Energy Starvation in Germany: A Cautionary Tale

Last spring, Chancellor Angela Merkel set Germany on course to eliminate nuclear power in favor of renewable energy sources. Now, though, several industries are suffering as electricity prices rapidly rise. Many companies are having to close factories or move abroad. _Spiegel

When governments embrace the green fantasy, their economies inevitably suffer. Germany's government went even more deeply into energy starvation than US President Obama's government. Germany actually closed its cleanest and most reliable source of electric power: nuclear plants.

Since Chancellor Angela Merkel's government abruptly decided to phase out nuclear energy last spring in the wake of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the situation for industries that consume a lot of electricity has become much more tenuous.

Energy prices are rising and the risk of power outages is growing. But the urgently needed expansion of the grid, as well as the development of replacement power plants and renewable energy sources is progressing very slowly. A growing number of economic experts, business executives and union leaders are putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of Merkel's coalition, which pairs her conservatives with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP). The government, they say, has expedited de-industrialization.

The energy supply is now "the top risk for Germany as a location for business," says Hans Heinrich Driftmann, president of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). "One has to be concerned in Germany about the cost of electricity," warns European Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger. And Bernd Kalwa, a member of the general works council at ThyssenKrupp, says heatedly: "Some 5,000 jobs are in jeopardy within our company alone, because an irresponsible energy policy is being pursued in Düsseldorf and Berlin."

...There is no sign yet of the green economic miracle that the federal government promised would accompany Germany's new energy strategy. On the contrary, many manufacturers of wind turbines and solar panels complain that business is bad and are cutting jobs. Some solar companies have already gone out of business. The environmental sector faces a number of problems, especially -- and ironically -- those stemming from high energy prices.

...the immediate shutdown of seven nuclear power plants last March is affecting supply, as the Krefeld example shows. The steel mill requires massive amounts of electricity to produce stainless steel, used in such products as sinks and auto bodies. The metal is heated to more than 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 degrees Fahrenheit) in giant furnaces. A single smelter consumes about as much energy in an hour as 10 single-family homes in an entire year. Electricity makes up a fifth of the mill's total costs, says Harald Behmenburg, the plant manager.

The price of electricity is moving in only one direction: steeply up. For the Krefeld plant, the cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity has tripled since 2000.

And there is no end in sight. When Merkel's new energy policy was introduced last year, says plant manager Behmenburg, planning for the future became virtually impossible. Behmenburg says that it is impossible now to know what will happen to the supply situation and the price of electricity in the coming years. The mill, steeped in tradition, didn't stand a chance of surviving, he says.

..."The promotion of renewable energy has led to substantial displacement effects on employment in the conventional energy production sectors, as well as in downstream industries that are particularly energy-intensive," concludes the report on a conference held at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research last year. The political opposition has also recognized the importance of the issue. Some believe that the green economy is everything, warns Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). "But they forget that they can't make a wind turbine without steel, plastic, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering."

It is equally important to stabilize the power grid as quickly as possible to prevent blackouts from occurring. Until now, the reliability of the German electricity supply was seen as a significant advantage for doing business in the country. But the loss of several nuclear power plants, coupled with the unpredictability of electricity from wind and solar sources, has changed the situation. _Spiegel

Germany's ongoing demographic decline will only be made worse by such abysmally irresponsible policies as the current energy starvation policy. Shutting down reliable sources of large scale power makes a wide range of important industries instantly untenable. The inevitable loss of industry and jobs is accompanied by a tragic loss of opportunity at all levels of society.

US president Obama has embarked upon a similar path to green oblivion, but fortunately for the US, he has been more tentative and cautious than Germany has been. Obama has also been lucky, in that his government has been unable to shut down oil & gas fracking of tight hydrocarbons. As a result of Obama's fortunate failure to shut down the North American shale bonanza, the US economy is still able to tread water.

But Obama has shut down several coal energy plants -- de-stabilising the power grid to a small but significant degree. He has delayed the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, thus unnecessarily reducing global supplies of crude. Future US nuclear development under Obama and NRC chairman Jaczko has been set back many years. But at least they have not shut down the crucial existing nuclear plants. Not yet.

Extra Bonus: Here is a summary of a recent set of 5 future scenarios for the year 2050, from the Deutsche Post DHL. Al Fin futurists find it fascinating that the German futurists failed to include the ongoing demographic decline in the German welfare state, or the ominous consequences of German green policies such as carbon hysteria and anti-nuclear hysteria.

It is possible that the scars from 1930s and 1940s Nazism, and from Communist dysfunction in the East, have not yet healed cleanly in the national psyche of Germany. Wiser Germans had best find a solution quickly, because it is the dysfunctional German psyche that is at the root of the nation's problems.

Germany's Sunshine Fairy Fantasy

Germans have paid about $130 billion for a climate-change policy that has no impact on global warming. They have subsidized Chinese jobs and other European countries’ reliance on dirty energy sources. And they have needlessly burdened their economy. As even many German officials would probably attest, governments elsewhere cannot afford to repeat the same mistake. _GWPF

Germany has been caught up in a dreamy fantasy of a golden shiny green future, full of sunshine fairies and wind sprites. But artificial, made-up euphorias have a way of turning into despair, eventually. Bjorn Lomborg has more:

Sunshine Fairy Image Source

Germany once prided itself on being the “photovoltaic world champion”, doling out generous subsidies – totaling more than $130 billion, according to research from Germany’s Ruhr University – to citizens to invest in solar energy. But now the German government is vowing to cut the subsidies sooner than planned, and to phase out support over the next five years. What went wrong?

There is a fundamental problem with subsidizing inefficient green technology: it is affordable only if it is done in tiny, tokenistic amounts. Using the government’s generous subsidies, Germans installed 7.5 gigawatts of photovoltaic (PV) capacity last year, more than double what the government had deemed “acceptable.” It is estimated that this increase alone will lead to a $260 hike in the average consumer’s annual power bill.

According to Der Spiegel, even members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s staff are now describing the policy as a massive money pit. Philipp Rösler, Germany’s minister of economics and technology, has called the spiraling solar subsidies a “threat to the economy.”

...Germany – like most of the world – is not as sunny as the Sahara. And, while sunlight is free, panels and installation are not. Solar power is at least four times more costly than energy produced by fossil fuels. It also has the distinct disadvantage of not working at night, when much electricity is consumed.

In the words of the German Association of Physicists, “solar energy cannot replace any additional power plants.” On short, overcast winter days, Germany’s 1.1 million solar-power systems can generate no electricity at all. The country is then forced to import considerable amounts of electricity from nuclear power plants in France and the Czech Republic. When the sun failed to shine last winter, one emergency back-up plan powered up an Austrian oil-fired plant to fill the supply gap.

Indeed, despite the massive investment, solar power accounts for only about 0.3% of Germany’s total energy. This is one of the key reasons why Germans now pay the second-highest price for electricity in the developed world (exceeded only by Denmark, which aims to be the “world wind-energy champion”). Germans pay three times more than their American counterparts. _Bjorn Lomborg_via_GWPF

Even if photovoltaic panels were 100% efficient and given away free of charge, utility-scale solar power would be a hugely wasteful and exorbitantly expensive mistake. Remember that every time you read a headline trumpeting "dramatic gains in photovoltaic efficiency" or "huge reductions in solar panel costs." Solar power is okay for off-grid applications of relatively small scale. But the intermittency of solar power (and wind power) is a deal-killer in terms of large scale grid power.

Germany would have known that if not for its green euphoric fantasy facade. What is the facade obscuring? You probably do not want to know.

Rethinking Climate Doom in Germany: Chaos in Climate Camp

One of the fathers of Germany’s modern green movement, Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, decided to author a climate science skeptical book together with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Vahrenholt’s skepticism started when he was asked to review an IPCC report on renewable energy. He found hundreds of errors. When he pointed them out, IPCC officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned, he asked himself, “Is this the way they approached the climate assessment reports?”

Vahrenholt decided to do some digging. His colleague Dr. Lüning also gave him a copy of Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. He was horrified by the sloppiness and deception he found. Persuaded by Hoffmann & Campe, he and Lüning decided to write the book. Die kalte Sonne cites 800 sources and has over 80 charts and figures. It examines and summarizes the latest science. _No Tricks Zone

Germany's climate community is in turmoil as one of its leading leftist environmentalists is vocally rejecting the IPCC climate orthodoxy in a new bestselling climate expose', Die Kalte Sonne.

Germany’s Top Environmentalist Turns Climate Sceptic, saying

“I couldn’t take it any more. I had to write this book.”

Doubt came two years ago when he was an expert reviewer of an IPCC report on renewable energy. “I discovered numerous errors and asked myself if the other IPCC reports on climate were similarly sloppy.”

“THE CO2 LIES … pure fear-mongering … should we blindly trust the experts?”

That’s what Germany’s leading daily Bild (see photo) wrote in its print and online editions today, on the very day that renowned publisher Hoffmann & Campe officially released a skeptic book – one written by a prominent socialist and environmental figure.

This is huge. More than I ever could have possibly imagined. And more is coming in the days ahead! The Bild piece was just the first of a series.

Mark this as the date that Germany’s global warming movement took a massive body blow. _WattsUpWithThat

SPIEGEL: You are an electric utility executive by profession. What prompted you to get involved in climatology?

Vahrenholt: In my experience as an energy expert, I learned that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is more of a political than a scientific body. As a rapporteur on renewable energy, I witnessed how thin the factual basis is for predictions that are made at the IPCC. In one case, a Greenpeace activist's absurd claim that 80 percent of the world's energy supply could soon be coming from renewable sources was assumed without scrutiny. This prompted me to examine the IPCC report more carefully.

SPIEGEL: And what was your conclusion?

Vahrenholt: The long version of the IPCC report does mention natural causes of climate change, like the sun and oscillating ocean currents. But they no longer appear in the summary for politicians. They were simply edited out. To this day, many decision-makers don't know that new studies have seriously questioned the dominance of CO2. CO2 alone will never cause a warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. Only with the help of supposed amplification effects, especially water vapor, do the computers arrive at a drastic temperature increase. I say that global warming will remain below two degrees by the end of the century. This is an eminently political message, but it's also good news.

SPIEGEL: You make concrete statements on how much human activity contributes to climatic events and how much of a role natural factors play. Why don't you publish your prognoses in a professional journal?

Vahrenholt: Because I don't engage in my own climate research. Besides, I don't have a supercomputer in my basement. For the most part, my co-author, geologist Sebastian Lüning, and I merely summarize what scientists have published in professional journals -- just as the IPCC does. The book is also a platform for scientists who apply good arguments in diverging from the views of the IPCC. The established climate models have failed across the board because they cannot cogently explain the absence of warming.

SPIEGEL: You claim that the standstill has to do with the sun. What makes you so sure?

Vahrenholt: In terms of the climate, we have seen a cyclical up and down for the last 7,000 years, long before man began emitting CO2 into the atmosphere. There has been a warming phase every 1,000 years, including the Roman, the Medieval and the current warm periods. All of these warm periods consistently coincided with strong solar activity. In addition to this large fluctuation in activity, there is also a 210-year and an 87-year natural cycle of the sun. Ignoring these would be a serious mistake …

SPIEGEL: … but solar researchers are still in disagreement over whether the cycles you mention actually exist. What do you think this means for the future?

Vahrenholt: In the second half of the 20th century, the sun was more active than it had been in more than 2,000 years. This "large solar maximum," as astronomers call it, has contributed at least as much to global warming as the greenhouse gas CO2. But the sun has been getting weaker since 2005, and it will continue to do so in the next few decades. Consequently, we can only expect cooling from the sun for now. _DerSpiegel

We are supposed to be willing to relinquish control of our economies and our lives to a cabal of fudgy computer modelers and their kleptocratic bureaucracies. We are supposed to risk the backbone of industry -- energy and power -- on green schemes of big wind and big solar, which are clearly unable to reliably and affordably support modern power grid demands. We are supposed to be willing to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars for "climate reparations" to the third world on the basis of little more than hand-waving and bombastic claims of doom. And we are supposed to do all that based on faith in people who consistently refuse to provide transparency into their methods and data.

More people are waking up. In the end, it is likely that there will be a reckoning.

More

The cracking climate consensus

Angela Merkel: "I Picked the Wrong Century to Give Up On Nuclear Energy!"

German abandonment of nuclear energy in response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan could cost 1.7 trillion euros ($2.15 trillion) by 2030 if renewables replace much of the power, Michael Suess told Reuters Tuesday. That amounts to about two thirds of Germany’s 2011 GDP. If natural gas plants replaced much of the lost electrical generation, he said the estimate would be considerably lower, at 1.4 billion euros.

German legislators voted in May to eventually decommission all 17 of the Siemens-built reactors that once provided nearly a quarter of the country’s electricity. In response, Siemens announced in September that it would withdraw from the nuclear power industry. At the consumer level, the German Energy Agency (Dena) recently estimated the nuclear withdrawld could hike electric bills 20 percent by 2020. _NuclearStreet

Among the other countries opting out of nuclear power are Belgium, Switzerland, and Mexico. The costs of these plans vary _IEEE Spectrum Lite

All of this is happening at a time when the World Bank is warning of a potential global economic doomsday, originating in Europe. As the economies of Europe are hit harder, in succession, Merkel is likely to rue her rash choice.

Here is the punchline: While the Siemens estimate of the transition costs to the German economy are higher than what greens and sycophants have been telling the German government, the estimate of over a $2 trillion penalty paid by Germany is almost certainly too low. Perhaps by an order of magnitude or larger. Why? Because Siemens is only looking at the capital costs involved in converting to a nominal equivalent power capacity in renewables. It is not looking at the details where the devil resides, details which largely derive from the destructive intermittency and unreliability of wind and solar, and the much shorter lifetimes of the resource-intensive machinery of big wind and big solar..

After Fukushima, the German government jumped away from nuclear like a hysterical girl jumping from a spider or a mouse -- reflexively, and without thinking it through. If the Germans persist in pursuing this perverse green policy, the butcher's bill will be well into the $trillions and tens of $trillions, over the years. And Merkel's will be a name damned by future generations of Germans -- not the forgotten names of the greens who drove the woman to promote such a fateful choice.

Taken from a previously published post on Al Fin Energy

Germany's Nuclear Phobia is Too Stupid for Words

Dan Yurman has published an excellent review of the German government's decision to close down all of its nuclear power plants by the year 2022. The decision's costs to German society and the German people will be incalculable, and once again call to our attention the fact that ordinary humans have no valid perspective on risk.

The chart below comes from an an article out of the Journal of Physicians and Surgeons, in PDF format. Risks from a wide range of events and phenomena are ranked according to days of lost life expectancy. The risks at top are measured in thousands of days in lost expectancy. As you drop down through the chart, lesser risks are measured in days of lost life expectancy. As you can see, risks from nuclear power occupy the very lowest position -- a small fraction of a single day of lost life expectancy on average -- if calculated by government sources.

Journal of Physicians and Surgeons (US) PDF
And yet, Germany's government and much of the entire nation of Germany has panicked itself into a dangerous and expensive restricting of its own future energy resources. Sometimes government can undo damage that government has done previously -- at least in part. Future German governments will curse what Merkel's government has done, but they will deal with it -- and almost certainly return to nuclear power out of necessity.

But they will be forced to buy massive amounts of power from neighboring countries at much higher rates than would have been necessary if they had preserved their nuclear power resources. And when Germany does choose to go nuclear again, it will have to buy reactors and fuels from other countries -- countries which instead of panicking, chose to develop safer, cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable nuclear reactors.

Cross-posted from Al Fin Energy

We will revisit the issue of risk in the near future, since the abuse and misuse of risk continues to play such a devastating role in governmental, non-governmental, and inter-governmental policymaking in Europe and the Anglosphere.

France, Germany, UK Agree: Multiculturalism Has Failed

France's Sarkozy declared, just yesterday, that multiculturalism has failed.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Thursday that multiculturalism had failed, joining a growing number of world leaders or ex-leaders who have condemned it.

"My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure," he said in a television interview when asked about the policy which advocates that host societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious immigrant groups. _AFP

The UK's Cameron had asserted just this past Saturday, that multiculturalism is a failure:

Prime Minister David Cameron, in a speech attended by world leaders, on Saturday criticized his country’s longstanding policy of multiculturalism, saying it was an outright failure and partly to blame for fostering Islamist extremism. He said the U.K. needs a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to extremism. "If we are to defeat this threat, I believe it's time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past," he told an international conference in Munich. _MSNBC

Only this past October, Germany's Angela Merkel stated outright that multiculturalism had utterly failed:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a gathering of young members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party this weekend that the "multikulti" concept – where people of different backgrounds would live together happily – does not work in Germany. _CSM_More_

For many years, lonely and persecuted writers, politicians, and speakers have attempted to convey this message -- this utter failure of multiculturalism and European self-abnegation -- to no avail. Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh were assassinated for speaking this truth. Geert Wilders has been threatened with death by Muslim hate groups, and is being persecuted by his own government and by the UK Labour government which preceded Cameron's.

Europe has long been a weak-kneed patsy for an increasingly militant third world presence. In the face of decreasing birth rates among Europeans, both legal and illegal third world immigrants have flooded European schools and birthing wards with the coming waves of another Muslim youth bulge -- this time a threat from within.

Prisons of Europe are beginning to fill with newcomers and children of newcomers, as the native children of Europe find themselves in the minority on schoolgrounds and on the streets. Young girls of Europe are increasingly under threat from rape gangs and worse. Young native boys are beaten by gleeful immigrant gangs who laugh their victory over the natives -- a fading demographic.

Multiculturalism has failed? Of course it has bloody well failed, you pathetic political panderers and fools. For some of your countries it is already too late for anything meaningful to be done, even if your men had it in them to stand up. Sadly, your police forces themselves have been so overrun and subdued by multiculturalists, that any European with the temerity to stand up for himself or his family against outsider violence, would be treated worse by the police than the offenders themselves.

The demographic collapse of Europe was necessary in order to leave the continent helpless to assault from without, and increasingly from within. Now there is little that most European countries can do to reverse the decay and eventual overthrow.

Europe as Lebanon? Europe as Eurabia? Islam is a religion of fertility as it is a religion of hatred and violence. If Islam is involved in the particular multiculturalism that has invaded your country, then you will have a very difficult time coping -- particularly if your own birthrates are failing.

Cameron, Sarkozy, and Merkel can make all the noises against multiculturalism they wish. Unless they are willing to back those words with meaningful action -- and to be willing to go against the political correctness of their own decaying societies -- the effort will be too feeble, and ultimately futile.

Thilo Sarrazin Still Shaking the Continent: 1.2 Million and Counting!

German banker and politician Thilo Sarrazin's book about German immigration policy continues to shake Europe to its foundations. An early offensive by German politicians against Sarrazin failed to stop Sarrazin or shut down book sales. The book continues near the top of best-seller lists in Europe, after 1.2 million books sold and counting . . . It looks as if Sarrazin has triggered a debate which politically correct authorities are unable to shut down.

Sarrazin’s book is no tract. It is a subtle, well-documented, almost literary argument about the failings of the German welfare state by a top-rank labour economist. Inevitably, though, it is also an attack on the political correctness that has constrained German political discourse for decades. Half a century ago Germany’s citizens — with good reason — came to a consensus that they could not soon afford another freewheeling Teutonic discussion on the matter of, let’s say, Lebensraum.

Today, though, this limited scope for public discussion stymies the tiniest steps to fix problems that have been obvious in other countries for decades. You cannot say that Germany’s asylum policy draws idlers as well as refugees. You cannot say, as Sarrazin discovered during his time as a ‘finance senator’ in Berlin a few years ago, that welfare payments are more than sufficient to feed and shelter all but the most extravagant poor person, and ought to be reduced. Sarrazin apparently came to believe his country was dying of its etiquette, and spoke up. ‘I don’t have to respect a person who lives off the state while expressing contempt for it,’ he said in 2009, ‘who doesn’t plan for the education of his children in a rational way, and is constantly producing new little headscarf girls.’

Rough stuff, but really there is little in Deutschland schafft sich ab that has not been said at a respectable free-market think tank some time in the last quarter-century. Two things, though, are new about this book. First, Sarrazin is more comprehensive than his predecessors. Much like the German constitution, the German welfare state is elaborate and complicated by design. So this book is an interconnected discussion, at a very high level of sophistication, of German anti-poverty policy (which has promoted the growth of an underclass), the globalised labour market, the modern education system, the (small) successes and (big) failures of the Turkish guest-worker programme, and the predicament of Germany’s low birthrate.

Second, Sarrazin is not a conservative but a Social Democrat who believes in ‘emancipation through education, organisation and dogged, persistent efforts at reform’. Sarrazin considers the welfare state a mismanaged triumph, not, like most Anglo-Saxon conservatives, a sentimental mistake. Where a conservative would quote De Maistre, he quotes the Indian Nobel Prize-winner and theorist of justice Amartya Sen. Mr Sarrazin does occasionally say hurtful things (in a discussion of my own writing on Muslim immigration to Europe, for instance, he wrongly describes me as British), but never with any glee. This is the work of a social scientist, who happily deploys page after page of statistics and tables that assume you know the difference between Hartz IV and Arbeitslosengeld II unemployment payments, or between Kindergeld and Elterngeld.

‘Poverty’, Sarrazin shows, is a powerful tool of governmental mobilisation even though it does not, strictly speaking, exist. Today’s ‘poverty line’ measures inequality, not want. It is set at 60 per cent of average income — higher than the German average income in the 1970s. If everyone in Germany saw his income quadruple tomorrow, the poverty rate would not budge. And the payments to the poor create incentives for childbearing and against work. _More at Spectator

Sarrazin commits the sin of urging Germany's wealthier and more intelligent citizens to have more children. Foolhardy man! By giving such common sense advice, he offends not only the dieoff.org leftists, but the feminists as well. It's a wonder the man is still walking around in public on two legs.

Sarrazin also offends the growing armies of "diversity opportunists" -- bureaucrats and consultants intent on hamstringing entire societies with their own demented handicapping philosophy of impoverished monoculturalism (which they falsely call "multiculturalism").

So we either “celebrate” diversity, or get put out of business; but if something has to be enforced by law, then it can’t really be called a celebration as such. Is it any wonder people across Europe are rejecting “diversity”, if it comes at the cost of freedom, and requires a standing army of Gutmenschen to govern our lives? And they are rejecting it. As Caldwell writes: “A decade or so from now, Germans will be surprised that they ever looked on Sarrazin’s observations as anything but common sense. And that will be true whether they act on them or not.” _Telegraph

That would be an optimistic way of looking at it. I mean, the part where he assumes that there will be any Germans left in a decade or so . . . ;-)

Of course, the US under Obama has accelerated the schedule for its own train wreck along the same lines. Fortunately for the US, most of its third world immigrants merely want opportunities to succeed -- not opportunities to blow up their host country.

The German "Bell Curve" Becomes European Best-Seller

Thilo Sarrazin, a minor German politician on the technocratic wing of the country’s Social Democratic party, has just written what is probably the bestselling political book in postwar Europe (1m copies in hardback and counting). Everyone in Germany knows at least a simplified version of what Germany Abolishes Itself says, and the reaction to the book is helping to drive government policy on minority integration. _Prospect

Thilo SarrazinA German politician -- a Social Democrat -- has gained fame in Europe by authoring the German equivalent of Charles Murray's controversial book, The Bell Curve. If The Bell Curve was too much for the 1990s US politically correct pseudo-intellectual community, imagine how a German equivalent must be faring amid the suicidally PC intellectual communities of Europe!

The message of the book, in headline form, is that Germany is becoming smaller (thanks to the familiar story of a falling birthrate among native Germans) and stupider (thanks to the fact that educated Germans are having fewer children and the fastest growing part of the population are poorly-integrated Muslim immigrants). That “stupider” is, of course, contested and has led to accusations of a flirtation with eugenics—of which more later.

But Sarrazin is no right-wing populist in the image of Jörg Haider, the late Austrian politician, or even Geert Wilders, the anti-Islamic leader of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands. Much of the book is a dry compendium of economic and social data. [editor: like The Bell Curve]

...The political and media class’s initial instinct was to denounce the book, and Sarrazin was forced out of his job at the Bundesbank. But as sales started to take off and as the new social media—the bloggers and emailers—lined up overwhelmingly behind Sarrazin, the reaction of political Germany shifted, albeit grudgingly. Chancellor Angela Merkel opportunistically declared the happy-clappy multikulti of the German left to have “failed utterly.” There was even a respectful and self-critical essay in Der Spiegel magazine by a leading liberal, Peter Schneider.

...Sarrazin’s policy solutions are relatively mainstream, echoing some of the new Labour reforms in Britain: tighter control of immigration and language tests for newcomers; steps towards compulsory citizenship for long-term residents; a sharp focus on teaching German at immigrant-dominated schools. Sarrazin is also concerned at how the welfare system creates alienation, saps initiative and prevents the workplace integration that countries like America are famous for, and so he recommends probationary periods before immigrants are entitled to benefit. The government is already acting on some of these points.

Ultimately, Sarrazin’s hard-headedness is a welcome counterpoint to the wishful thinking of the 1968 generation. The former finance minister of Berlin, who looks like a soldier in the Kaiser’s army, is a member of the awkward squad. You can imagine him causing minor riots at liberal Berlin dinner parties. Most of his argument is clear-eyed and well-informed, but he could not resist the provocations both on intelligence and on the nature of the underclass... _Prospect

The author of the profile piece above, David Goodhart, is oblivious to much of the scientific evidence supporting statistical group differences in IQ and behavioural tendencies such as crime and poverty. But he performs a useful service by pointing the reader toward a sea change in German public discourse -- which is slowly becoming a new European discourse. While Goodhart's piece is full of misinformation based upon outdated societal prejudices, the information that slips through is quite important.

The politically correct policies of the left have led to a developing demographic catastrophe in Europe, which can no longer be denied. More of the same political correctness will not stop the slow motion train wreck from reaching its bloody conclusion. But a rude awakening -- even a belated one such as seems to be occurring -- can help to mitigate some of the inevitable destruction.

Sarrazin has started the boulder rolling down the mountainside. Now, neither he nor anyone else has control of where it will go. Once a popular discontent grows into a popular movement, all bets are off. Will it turn into a nightmare of terror like the French or Russian revolutions? Or will it turn into a multi-century success story, like the better planned aftermath of the American revolution? Only time will tell. The future of Europe hangs in the balance, and the recent PC history of European thought leaders in general, offers no reassurance.

Review of Sarrazin's book from an Aussie perspective

The Future of a Europe Without Babies.

Time
Europeans want cradle to grave security guaranteed by the state. But lately there are a lot fewer cradles in Europe, with the EU beginning to look more like a continent-sized grave. What do you say to a continent that refuses to have enough children to replace its population -- yet is willing to riot and strike to prevent the state from reducing generous handouts and pensions? There is very little left to say.

Germany is shrinking — fast. New figures released on May 17 show the birth rate in Europe's biggest economy has plummeted to a historic low, dropping to a level not seen since 1946. As demographers warn of the consequences of not making enough babies to replace and support an aging population, the latest figures have triggered a bout of national soul-searching and cast a harsh light on Chancellor Angela Merkel's family policies.
According to a preliminary analysis by the Federal Statistics Office, 651,000 children were born in Germany in 2009 — 30,000 fewer than in 2008, a dip of 3.6%. In 1990, German mothers were having on average 1.5 children each; today that average is down to 1.38 children per mother. With a shortfall of 190,000 between the number of people who died and the number of children who were born, Germany's birth rate is well below the level required to keep the population stable.

...The Federal Statistics Office says Germany's population of 82 million could drop by up to 17 million over the next 50 years. Demographers fear a shrinking workforce will stymie growth and struggle to foot the bill for a rapidly aging population. "Germany's working-age population is likely to decrease 30% over the next few decades," says Kröhnert of the Berlin Institute for Population Development. "Rural areas will see a massive population decline and some villages will simply disappear — Germany will become a weak economic power in the future."_Time

There are limits to the state-supported urban lifestyle, and the shrinking populations of Europe, Russia, Japan, and other "advanced" nations are starting to feel the squeeze. Germany is very close to the point of no return.

But why focus on Germany? Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Japan, and Eastern Europe are worse off than Germany in almost every way.

But it is precisely for that reason that one must focus on Germany's demographic meltdown. Germany is the most successful country in Europe -- and yet it has chosen the path of childless national suicide. What hope, therefore, do the rest of the hyper-indebted, under-procreating, proudly entitled, union obligated state disasters of Europe have?

Not that North America is doing much better. California, Michigan, and Illinois are drowning in public sector union debt and corruption. New Jersey has the chance to save itself, with a rare governor willing to go out on the political limb to save the state -- even at the risk of his own career. And what do New Jersey's unions do? Threaten to strike, riot, and even joke about assassinating the governor. The California governator has turned into a wimp in the face of public sector union threats. The US president is a Chicago Way machine politician steeped in the corrupt, fascist, populist pandering, union dominated, self-defeating styles of government that are bringing so much of the western world down.

North American demographics are slightly better than Europe's, but that is due to immigration -- and the significantly higher birthrates of new immigrants to America compared to multi-generational North Americans.

Can new technology save the developed world from itself? Automated industry and commerce? Nanotechnological fabricators? New longevity procedures and technologies for longer and healthier lives? Artificial wombs to allow high achieving women to have children AND continue their career paths? A partial reversal of urbanisation, with new farm and ranch technologies that allow for more pleasurable and profitable urban lifestyles?

We need new frontiers, big new challenges that can bring out the atavist in the young and the young at heart. We need to find tasks and places that force us to tap the deep strength of the primitive drives within ourselves at the same time we are utilising advanced skills and technologies undreamed of even a few years ago. Most of all, we need to raise our children to seek these new challenges and risks.

What we are doing now clearly isn't working.

More:

"The current welfare state is unaffordable," said Uri Dadush, director of the Carnegie Endowment's International Economics Program...."We have to adjust our social security systems in a way that they motivate people to accept regular work and do not give counterproductive incentives," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told news weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Saturday.

The uncertainty over the future of the welfare state is undermining the continent's self-image at a time when other key elements of post-war European identity are fraying. Large-scale immigration from outside Europe is challenging the continent's assumptions about its dedication to tolerance and liberty as countries move to control individual clothing — the Islamic veil — in the name of freedom and equality....

...Demographers and economists began warning decades ago that social welfare was doomed by the aging of Europe's baby boomers. Some governments had been trimming and reforming, but now almost all are scrambling to close deficits in order to prevent a wider collapse of confidence in the euro...

...Southern European countries that have not moved toward reforming welfare in the same ways are paying a steep price. _SFEx

Cross-posted to abu al-fin

European Nations Sign Suicide Pact

Across Europe, once-mighty and ambitious nations are singing a siren song of death and oblivion. Once great empires that spanned the globe are now dedicated to passing from the world stage without leaving a trace. A sad benediction to societies and cultures that once looked forward to an unending ascent of the human spirit.

In Britain, a government commission has drawn up plans for a "steady state economy" that forgoes future economic growth in the name of sustainability by cutting work hours and banning TV commercials (to reduce consumerism). In Germany, new bestseller called Exit: Prosperity Without Growth is just the latest in a growing body of literature pleading for Germans to learn to live with less. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy—who once came to power exhorting the French to work harder and earn more—has thrown his weight behind an expert report that declares the pursuit of GDP growth a "fetish" and strives to replace the GDP statistic with a broader measure of national contentment.

...today's no-growthers seem to make the same mistakes as their many predecessors, from Thomas Malthus—who predicted in 1798 that rising populations would inevitably starve—to the Club of Rome, a group of scientists who warned in 1972 that the world would start running out of key resources in the 1980s. Such movements extrapolate growth rates for resource use and pollution but don't take enough account of technical innovation, environmental regulation, greater efficiency, and behavioral change. Take Exit author Meinhard Miegel's claim that the world is running out of food. It largely ignores, among other things, the barely tapped potential of genetic engineering and other plant-breeding technologies.

Such faults are often overlooked because the no-growthers resonate in Europe today for intellectual and political reasons, not economic or technological ones. Critiques of growth have always been, at their core, about uneasiness with capitalism itself. That this critique becomes mainstream when capitalism seems to be failing us is no surprise. After all, the Club of Rome made its first splash in the 1970s, during a long slowdown when people were also becoming newly aware of environmental degradation.

...the no-growthers are unrealistic about how painful a no-growth reality would be. As the Harvard scholar Benjamin Friedman argues eloquently in The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, a society that gives up on growth invites nasty fights over the distribution of limited resources and paves the way for intolerance and populism. That economic growth isn't everything—it doesn't measure the value of our relationships, our communities, our culture—is obvious. But so is the correlation between prosperity and quality of life, including health, longevity, and the freedom to pursue happiness. _Newsweek

Indigenous Europeans are failing to replace their own numbers through rudimentary childbirth, and are steadily being replaced -- at least in their cities -- by Muslim immigrants who may be on welfare, but can reproduce all the same.

The failure of Europeans to reproduce is part and parcel of the dying Euro spirit, the culture of the human dieoff. It is the essence of the modern green left, which is strongest and most suicidal in Europe. But it is almost as strong in Toronto, Seattle, and Sydney. The Obama - Pelosi reich is fanning the flames of the dieoff with every legislative drive and push -- in the quest to catch up with Europe.

But do Americans really want to be like Europe in that regard? Perhaps of those who voted for Obama, half do. But of those who did not vote and those who voted for other candidates, it is likely that over 80% oppose the dieoff mentality.

Certainly China, India, Brazil, and other third world nations trying to emerge into a more modern era have no wish to share the Luddite dreams of death with Euro-greens. The billions of the third world, in all of their wasteful polluting splendour, will hardly miss Europe when it is gone. They will simply move in and call it something else, something more populated and polluted, to be sure.

Cross posted at abu al-fin