The Political Page, T+112 -- May 12, 2017 -- Germany's Atrocious History With Solar Energy

Apparently the US mainstream media can't find the "Rod Rosenstein" letter and based on their questions and statements about the letter, it appears some/many/most US journalists haven't read it. I do a lot of surfing on the net and I never came across the letter. A reader was able to find it over at BBC.com and sent me the link. Thank you.

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Microsoft, Again

While the NSA is looking for non-existent evidence for any collusion between the Trump campaign and Putin, malware/ransomware pretty much shuts down Great Britain's National Health Service and cripples computers worldwide. And where did the malware come from?

Cybersecurity experts said the malicious software works by exploiting a flaw in Microsoft software that was described in NSA documents stolen from the agency and leaked publicly in April by a criminal group called Shadow Brokers.

Many, many questions here: once Microsoft was aware of this flaw, did it take steps to provide a patch to Microsoft users to prevent this from happening? If so, I missed it. Glad I don't use Microsoft products. When does Apple report its 2Q17 earnings? LOL.

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Ebola -- It's Back

WHO declares new epidemic: Democratic Republic of Congo. Three dead. Data points:

• The disease was first identified in 1976
• The largest outbreak has been the recent epidemic in West Africa from December 2013 to January 2016 which killed more than 11,000 people
• In 2014, a three-month outbreak of Ebola in the the DR Congo killed 49 people
• It was declared no longer an emergency in March 2016

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Solar Energy: Nameplate Capacity Vs Achieved Renewable Energy Output 

The European solar experience:

• Germany: 78 GW / 10.4 GW (13.2%)
• Spain: 27.7 GW / 6.8 GW (24.4%)
• Italy: 27.1 GW / 4.4 GW (16.2%)
• UK: 16.7 GW / 4.0 GW (24.4%)
• France: 14.9 GW / 2.6 GW (17.3%
• Sweden: 5.5 GW / 1.2 GW (22%)
• Denmark: 5.4 GW / 1.4 GW (25.6%) 
• Rest of Europe: 39.5 GW / 7.9 GW (19.8%)

This is not news. It has been reported many times on the blog -- data sent to me be a regular reader -- that "achieved renewable energy output" vs nameplate capacity works out to about 25% at best.

Overall, the effective capacity factor in Europe for solar energy was 18%.

Does anyone know the similar number for natural gas? Answer: 87%

The chart for 2014:

Much, much more at the link. This will be re-posted at a stand-alone site and will also be archived.

For what it's worth, Germany's CO2 emissions increased in 2015 (the most recent data available) over that of 2014. Germany uses a lot of coal.