If the green energy plans by the German Federal Government are implemented, the expansion of onshore wind energy will soon come to a standstill and then go into reverse. In early March, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel presented a draft for the amendment of the Renewable Energies Act (EEG). The new rules regulate the subsidy levels for renewable energy. The new regulations are to be adopted in coming months. A study by consultants ERA on behalf of the Green Party’s parliamentary group concludes that under these provisions the development of wind energy will collapse fairly soon. --Frank-Thomas Wenzel, Berliner Zeitung, 7 April 2016
China’s proposed investments in long-distance, ultra-high voltage (UHV) power transmission lines will pave the way for power exports as far as Germany, the head of the national power grid said on Tuesday as he launched an initiative for cross-border power connections. Talk of exporting power is a reversal for China, which as recently as 2004 suffered rolling blackouts across its manufacturing heartland. But huge investments in power in the decade since, and the construction of a number of dams, nuclear reactors and coal-fired plants due to begin operating in the next 10 years, mean the country faces a growing surplus. --Lucy Hornby, Financial Times[Pay site], 31 March 2016
The latest hardcopy issue of flagship news magazine Der Spiegel reports how Germany’s green energy revolution has bitterly divided the country’s environmental movement. Enoch zu Guttenberg, one of Germany’s most prolific environmentalists has become an outspoken critic of wind energy in Germany. Guttenberg, a symphony conductor, told Spiegel the movement against wind turbines has exploded over the past months and years and that his speeches against wind turbines are attracting ever larger crowds: “When I started 60 or 70 would come, now there are more than 1000.” Moreover Guttenberg talks of “hundreds of local citizens’ initiatives” that are now mobilizing against wind projects. Spiegel writes of a whole “new quality” of resistance that governments now need to confront as many traditional environmentalists now rail against what they view as a “corruption of green party members, environmental groups, local politicians and city councils.” --Pierre Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, 7 April 2016
The high cost of energy in the UK must be addressed for the steel industry to be saved, the businessman considering buying the under-threat Tata Steel plants in Newport and elsewhere has said. After Tata announced last week it would sell its entire UK operation, putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk, head of Liberty Group – which owns Newport’s Uskmouth plant – Sanjeev Gupta came forward as a potential buyer. He said the biggest hurdle he faced in the process was the high cost of energy in the UK. --South Wales Argus, 7 April 2016
Coal use in China has fallen for the past two years in a row. And yet, new coal plants are still being planned and constructed at a frenetic pace. In 2015 authorities approved three times as many new coal plant projects as the previous year. Analysts are predicting that as a result, many of the 1,500 plants being planned for construction in the coming years worldwide will not be built. The coal industry disputes the report’s assumptions, noting that both India and China have made future coal use a central part of their emissions reduction plans submitted in Paris. --Deutsche Welle, 30 March 2016
For me, the two most important take-home messages from this ugly affair are as follows. First, the green movement is ideologically opposed to Western industrial civilisation: so these factory closures are not a regrettable by-product but the very deliberate aim of its policies. Second, just like the Social Justice Warriors, and just like the Islamists, the environmental movement has absolutely no problem with telling outright lies in the service of its cause. If you deliberately drive up energy prices by replacing cheap fossil fuels with expensive renewables costing three or more times than standard rate, then of course you are going to drive up the cost of living and of course you are going to penalise especially heavy industry users. Only someone with absolutely zero respect for the truth would have the gall even to pretend to argue otherwise. --James Delingpole, Breitbart London, 7 April 2016
