Locator: 48716GERMANY.
China played Germany perfectly. China was doing the same thing to the US. China would have also succeeded in the US had Biden been re-elected.
Interactive graph: Germany saved the planet, an interactive graphic. Link here.
Locator: 48443GREEN.
Global climate change economy teeters: Bloomberg link here.
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For The Archives
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For The Archives
I flew with the 525 TFS, Bitburg Air Base, Germany, from 1984 - 1986, and again, from 1989 - 1993, also Bitburg AB, Germany. My primary a/c was the F-15.
In the photo below, the F-15 is the second a/c from the POV of the aircrew member pictured.
Themes: link here.
European de-industrialization:
In boreal forests above the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Hydro-Quebec is building a series of dams that will generate enough electricity for more than one million homes. The $5.2 billion project on the Romaine River is part of a sweeping expansion the government-owned utility began in 2007, with the intention of selling power to the U.S. where nuclear reactors are closing.
It’s not clear Americans will buy. While New York and Massachusetts want to avoid fossil fuels when they replace the soon-to-be-shuttered Indian Point and Pilgrim nuclear plants, wind and solar developers are also jockeying for the job.Merckel: world's #1 eco-vandal --
The [London] Guardan, September 19, 2017
... perhaps the most embarrassing is Germany’s shocking failure, despite investing hundreds of billions of euros, to decarbonise its electricity system. While greenhouse gas emissions in other European nations have fallen sharply, in Germany they have plateaued.The reason is, once more, Merkel’s surrender to industrial lobbyists. Her office has repeatedly blocked the environment ministry’s efforts to set a deadline for an end to coal power. Coal, especially lignite, which vies with Canadian tar sands for the title of the world’s dirtiest fuel, still supplies 40% of Germany’s electricity. Because Merkel refuses to restrict its use, the peculiar impact of Germany’s Energiewende programme has been to cut the price of electricity, stimulating a switch from natural gas to lignite, which is cheaper. (In Germany they call this the Energiewende paradox). But Merkel doesn’t seem to care. She has announced that “coal will remain a pillar of German energy supply for a prolonged time span”.National Review, September 24, 2017
Merkel’s energy policy was based upon a combination of nuclear power and “renewables” in order to close down power stations dependent on fossil fuels, and help Germany lead the European Union and the world toward a carbon-free future.She had been a strong defender of nuclear energy against SPD chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s attempts to phase it out. Within a few weeks of the Japanese nuclear disaster at Fukushima, though, she panicked, reversed herself, and closed down Germany’s entire nuclear program.Her Energiewende since then has led to a massive increase in power bills for consumers and industry, the movement abroad of German companies heavily reliant on energy, and, more recently, a phasing out of the phasing out of coal-fired power stations. Merkel and the nuclear companies are still haggling over how much the German government will pay for the estimated €23 billion cost of shutting down their plants. Meanwhile, no one believes that Germany and Europe will meet their official goal of reducing carbon emissions 80-95 percent from their 1990 levels by the year 2050.InvesterVillage, October 22, 2017: most countries ignoring Paris accord
According to the analyst, popular opinion against German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Energiewende” (energy transition) policies, which had doubled electricity prices, played no small part in Merkel’s terrible showing in last month’s national elections.Costs of the ill-fated Energiewende now total some €650 billion, a bill that weighs heavily on the shoulders of German taxpayers.Late last year, to their national embarrassment, the Germans had to be bailed out of a small energy crisis by Poland when the wind failed to blow for several days and a thick fog surrounded many parts of Germany, driving the output from renewables to just 4 percent of total demand. It was coal-fueled Poland that had to rescue Germany from its self-induced energy crisis.“Merkel may now be unable to form a government without the support of the libertarian Free Democratic Party, which demands an end to renewables subsidies,” Solomon notes.
Whiting Petroleum Corp, North Dakota's largest oil producer, can remain profitable and increase production even at current crude prices, Chief Executive Jim Volker said on Wednesday.
The bullish comments come after weeks of uncertainty about the company's future following rumors it was about to be sold and that Volker would retire.
Those rumors, which left many on Wall Street concerned about the potential for a fire sale, were ultimately put to rest in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week that denied any transaction.
Volker declined to comment on the rumors on Wednesday, instead using a speech at the DUG Conference in Denver to tout Whiting's growth potential.
"In periods of low oil prices like we have today, we can still make money," Volker said, adding he is "rigging the company" to run with oil prices at $45 to $55 per barrel. Whiting is spending only $2 billion this year, about half 2014 levels.
Still, Volker said he is confident better technology and processes can help production rise in 2015.
"We continue to drive that well cost even lower," he said. Whiting became the largest North Dakota producer with its buyout of rival Kodiak Oil & Gas last December, helping it eclipse Continental Resources Inc for the top spot in the Bakken.
The deal gave Whiting more than 7,500 well sites to develop across North Dakota. For 2015, Whiting plans to use 13 drilling rigs, a number that could drop or rise depending on where prices go, Volker said.
The company, though, does not plan to close, or "shut in," existing wells as their economics, even at current oil prices, still fuel margins of at least $25 per barrel, Volker said.Reuters/Rigzone is reporting Germany sets very high standards for fracking.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet signed off on a draft law on Wednesday that imposes an effective ban on the controversial technique of fracking for shale gas.
Opposition is strong in densely populated Germany due to concerns about the risk of contaminating drinking water.Anyone who thought the Germans would do something else hasn't been paying attention. The Germans like coal.
Germany accounts for 2.4% of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. A lot of pain for making absolutely no difference. And now it seems, they don't even feel good about it.Now, read the article posted by Reuters today:
Germany's cabinet approved a new plan on Wednesday to slash CO2 emissions in order to meet its ambitious climate targets, but environmental groups criticised the government for not going further in reducing its reliance on coal-fired power plants.
The package, which includes an energy efficiency programme that could trigger billions of euros in investment, is essential if Germany is to hit its goal of a 40 percent drop in emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels. The broader EU is aiming to cut emissions by the same amount by 2030.This is absolutely insane. Right now, Germany's CO2 contribution to the global atmosphere is about 2.4%.
The September jobs report was huge; it was the first time in six years the rate has dropped below 6.0%.Now, today, in this week's issue of BloombergBusinessweek (it will be on newsstands Monday): "In many states, jobs aren't coming back."
How do we get to 5.9%? Easy: remove 93 million people from the labor force.
While by now everyone should know the answer, for those curious why the US unemployment rate just slid once more to a meager 5.9%, the lowest print since the summer of 2008, the answer is the same one we have shown every month since 2010: the collapse in the labor force participation rate, which in September slid from an already three decade low 62.8% to 62.7% - the lowest in over 36 years, matching the February 1978 lows.And while according to the Household Survey, 232,000 people found jobs, what is more disturbing is that the people not in the labor force, rose to a new record high, increasing by 315,000 to 92.6 million!
Kevin Yearout has added about 80 jobs at his Albuquerque contracting company since July 2013. That still leaves him with fewer than half the 750 workers he employed in 2009..."Another data point:
1) because of the Japanese debacle, Merkle turned off the nuclear energy switch a few years ago and made the decision to go "green"
2) German utilities are going broke because of net metering and renewables
3) to survive, or make a profit, the German utilities must use cheap coal -- even cheaper than natural gas
4) Russia shutting off Europe's main source of natural gas due to sanctions
5) German utilities have little recourse but to use coal to survive (Russia cutting natural gas deliveries; fracking not allowed in much of Europe; nuclear energy verboten)
6) German utilities, to survive, or make a profit, are generating more electricity than the country needs, using cheap coal
7) to survive, or make a profit, German utilities are selling their cheap, excess electricity made from very dirty coal to countries like the Netherlands, destroying the natural gas industry there (remember the article on the Netherlands and natural gas?)
and, the result, the Rube Goldberg outcome:Perception is important: the Germans and the world think highly of Ms Merckle, but it certainly seems she took the wrong fork in the road.
a paradox of Germany's "Energiewende," the energy revolution aimed at weaning the country off fossil fuel by 2050, that CO2 emissions were now rising despite the rapid expansion of solar and wind power. In 2014, the surcharge on electricity bills will provide some $30 billion of subsidies for renewable energies. A four-person household will pay a surcharge of almost $275 this year.
In 1990, Germany's brown coal-fired power stations produced almost 171 billion kilowatt hours of power. At the time, many old eastern German plants were still in operation.
It was a situation that the German government wanted to change, with the aim being that of radically reducing the output of the CO2-polluting lignite plants, but that's not happening.
In 2013, it rose to 162 billion kilowatt hours, the highest level since reunification in 1990.
As a result, Germany's CO2 output is expected to have risen in 2013, even as power from renewable sources has reached 25 percent of the energy mix. [That's quite a feat.]
Part of the reason is the low price of CO2 emissions permits in EU trading scheme. Another reason is that new brown coal plants, with a capacity of 2,743 megawatts, came on line in 2012, far exceeding the 1,321 megawatts from old plants shut down that year.
"Brown coal power stations, after nuclear plants, are the main source of profit for RWE and Co.," said Höhn, referring to Germany's major utilities. "So they don't even switch off the really old power stations."
Power output from anthracite coal also rose, by eight billion kilowatt hours to over 124 billion, while output from gas-fired plants fell by 10 billion to 66 billion. That means that coal plants are making up for the bulk of the energy production lost due to the 2011 shutdown of eight nuclear plants, while gas plants, which emit less CO2 but are more expensive to run, are barely profitable at present.
The increase in coal-generated power also led to a new record in German electricity exports to around 33 billion kilowatt hours.
"In 2013 Germany exported more power than it imported on eight out of 10 days. Most of it was generated by from brown coal and anthracite power stations," said Patrick Graichen, a power market analyst at Berlin-based think tank Agora Energiewende.
"They are crowding out gas plants not just in Germany but also abroad -- especially in the Netherlands."
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden apologized Saturday to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was angry over comments in which Biden said Erdogan had admitted that Turkey had made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.
Erdogan denied ever saying that and told reporters in Istanbul before Biden's apology that he "will be history for me if he has indeed used such expressions."
Biden spoke with Erdogan by phone on Saturday, the White House said.
"The vice president apologized for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth of ISIL or other violent extremists in Syria," the White House said, referring to an acronym for the Islamic State group.
| Pool | Date | Days | BBLS Oil | Runs | BBLS Water | MCF Prod | MCF Sold | Vent/Flare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BAKKEN | 8-2014 | 30 | 10878 | 10902 | 15772 | 9594 | 9416 | 178 |
| BAKKEN | 7-2014 | 31 | 21374 | 21425 | 34983 | 17163 | 13213 | 3950 |
| BAKKEN | 6-2014 | 20 | 11716 | 11059 | 26807 | 9201 | 0 | 9201 |
“Indeed, the German people are paying significant money,” said Markus Steigenberger, an analyst at Agora, the think tank. “But in Germany, we can afford this — we are a rich country. It’s a gift to the world.”
G-20 countries are largely liable for keeping this from happening, as they contribute about 85 percent of global carbon emissions. This chart shows the breakdown by country, with China coming in at a whopping 27.6 percent, and the U.S. trailing close behind at 16.7 percent:
The Euro was deep under water on Friday having suffered its steepest daily fall in three years after the European Central Bank stunned markets by cutting interest rates and embarking on a trillion-euro asset-buying binge.Hmmm....sounds like the US Fed some years ago.
The aggressive shift sent short-term bond yields into negative territory in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Austria, giving investors an overwhelming incentive to sell euros for higher yigher yielding assets elsewhere.
| 7/29/2014 | 07/29/2013 | 07/29/2013 | 07/29/2013 | 07/29/2012 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 194 | 179 | 179 | 179 | 207 |
The current capacity of incoming crude pipelines into the Houston refining region is about 1.4 MMb/d. By the end of 2015 that will have more than doubled to 2.9 MMb/d.
Add to these flows crude railed into new and developing unloading terminals as well as barges of Eagle Ford crude from Corpus Christi in south Texas and the prospects for congestion build up.
Foreign waterborne imports into Houston are falling as pipelines supply more refineries but in the process a lot of floating storage flexibility is being lost. Today we describe the Houston crude distribution system that could be overwhelmed by the new flows.
In Part 1 of this series covering the changing crude storage situation at the Gulf Coast – home to 50 % of US refining capacity. In Part 2 we began a deeper dive analysis of Houston area refineries to understand how important floating storage provided by waterborne crude imports can be. Our analysis showed that the typical imported waterborne barrel delivered to Houston refineries spent 17-20 days in transit. That floating storage period provides refiners with flexibility to withstand supply shocks such as refinery outages. We also calculated “storage days” for crude delivered to Gulf Coast region refineries at 32 in April 2014 - the same as the national average since 2011 but about 68 percent higher than other waterborne fed regions like PADD I (East Coast – 19 days) and 28 percent higher than PADD IV (West Coast – 25 days).
In Part 3 we compared that 32 storage days for the Gulf Coast as a whole with Houston area refineries where working storage is roughly 21 days if refineries run at 95 percent of capacity and 22.5 days if refineries run at the 5 year average 89 percent of capacity.Today:
That’s a total of about 1.4 MMb/d capacity today and double that or 2.9 MMb/c capacity by the end of 2015 – on top of ongoing waterborne and rail unloading deliveries.
As we determined in the previous episode in this series, Houston already suffers from a shortage of available storage capacity to handle this flood of crude.
Once the pipelines reach close to capacity, the incoming flows will exceed refining capacity – even after planned additions, so some of that incoming crude will make its way to refineries outside the Houston area – probably in Louisiana.
One of Germany's newest coal-fired power plants rises here from the banks of a 100-year-old canal that once shipped coal mined from the Ruhr Valley to the world.
Now the coal comes the other way.
The 750-megawatt Trianel Kohlekraftwerk Luenen GmbH & Co. power plant relies completely on coal imports, about half from the U.S. Soon, all of Germany's coal-fired power plants will be dependent on imports, with the country expected to halt coal mining in 2018 when government subsidies end.
Coal mining's demise in Germany comes as the country is experiencing a resurgence in coal-fired power, one which the U.S. increasingly has helped supply. U.S. exports of power plant-grade coal to Germany have more than doubled since 2008. In 2013, Germany ranked fifth, behind the United Kingdom, Netherlands, South Korea and Italy in imports of U.S. steam coal, the type burned in power plants.And then the article quickly turns into an op-ed piece (LOL):
On the American side of the pollution ledger, this fossil fuel trade helps the United States look as if it is making more progress on global warming than it actually is. That's because it shifts some pollution — and the burden for cleaning it — onto another other country's balance sheet.
Last year, Germany's carbon dioxide emissions grew by 1.2 percent, in large part because the country burned more coal. German environmental officials say the recent boom in coal-fired power is making it harder for the country to meet its climate-protection goals, even as it has increased renewable energy and participates in a carbon market that has lowered emissions throughout Europe.
Ms Merkel shuts down Germany's nuclear energy program, turns back to coal, and now the activists blame Mr Obama for sending coal to Germany. How precious. I can't make this stuff up. No wonder Mr Obama has decided to step away from geo-politics and simply go golfing. I would do the same thing.Activists put some of the blame on the U.S. and President Barack Obama.
Consumer energy bills have been spiking for years to the point where electricity in the country has been called a “luxury good” by major media outlets. German households have seen electricity prices more than double in the last decade “increasing from €0.14/kilowatt hour (kWh) ($0.18) in 2000 to more than €0.29/kWh ($0.38) in 2013,” according to FAA. This is compared to U.S. household prices, which have been stable at $0.13 per kilowatt hour over the last decade.
FAA also reports that German consumers will pay $31.1 billion for energy subsidies this year alone. Furthermore, in the past five years Germany has suffered $67.6 billion in net export losses from high energy costs — a huge blow to an export-led economy like Germany.The good news: coal is so cheap, it will more than make up for the "luxury tax" Germans are paying for their electricity. Remember this rule of thumb: for every 1 megawatt of "green energy," public utilities need to install a half megawatt of coal-energy as backup when the sun ain't shining; and the wind ain't blowin'. Just another inconvenient truth.
Germany’s ministers for energy and the environment are seeking a ban on shale gas and oil drilling over the next seven years because of worries that the practice could pollute drinking water and damage the environment.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government had planned to introduce legislation in the autumn to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, bringing an end to a de facto moratorium on the practice.
But Barbara Hendricks, minister for the environment and a member of the Social Democratic Party, part of the governing coalition, said at a news conference on Friday that a framework of key points on the legislation agreed to with Sigmar Gabriel, the economy and energy minister, would result in the “strictest regulations we have ever set.”
“There will be no fracking for economic purposes in Germany in the near future,” Ms. Hendricks said. But she said that shale drilling could be used for exploration.
A clutch of countries is breaking ranks with the EU's efforts to put economic and diplomatic pressure on Russia over Ukraine and building a pipeline meant to carry huge amounts of Russian gas to their doorstep.
Their defiance of a European Union stop work order is more significant than just another missed chance for Europe to call out the Kremlin. Russian natural gas already accounts for around a third of the EU's needs. The South Stream pipeline could increase Russian supplies to Europe by another 25 percent, potentially boosting Moscow's leverage long after the Ukraine crisis fades.
For a related post on this chess match between Putin and Obama, click here.Adding to the skein of Russian pipelines already ending in Europe, South Stream would go through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria and Italy in one leg and Croatia, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey in a second. The European Commission, the EU executive, has ordered a construction moratorium over concerns with Russia's dual role as pipeline owner and gas supplier. It has also delayed some political talks on the pipeline amid the crisis in Ukraine.
I don't know if we sufficiently understand how weird and strange, how historically unparalleled, this presidency has become.
We've got a sitting president who was just judged in a major poll to be the worst since World War II. [That list would include ... George W. and ... drum roll ... Jimmy Carter.]
The worst president in 70 years! Quinnipiac University's respondents also said, by 54% to 44%, that the Obama administration is not competent to run the government.
A Zogby Analytics survey asked if respondents are proud or ashamed of the president. Those under 50 were proud, while those over 50, who have of course the longest experienced sense of American history, were ashamed.
We all know the reasons behind the numbers. The scandals that suggest poor stewardship and, in the case of the IRS, destructive political mischief. The president's signature legislation [ObamaCare], which popularly bears his name and contains within it the heart of his political meaning, continues to wreak havoc in marketplaces and to be unpopular with the public. He is incapable of working with Congress, the worst at this crucial aspect of the job since Jimmy Carter, though Mr. Carter at least could work with the Mideast and produced the Camp David Accords. Mr. Obama has no regard for Republicans and doesn't like to be with Democrats. Internationally, small states that have traditionally been the locus of trouble (the Mideast) are producing more of it, while large states that have been more stable in their actions (Russia, China) are newly, starkly aggressive. That's a long way of saying nothing's working.
Which I'm sure you've noticed.Yes, I did notice. This op-ed dovetails perfectly with a note I posted the other day about military commanders taking an oath, as it were, to make things better than they found it when they take a new command. More from Peggy Noonan:
This is a president with 2½ years to go who shows every sign of running out the clock. Normally in a game you run out the clock when you're winning. He's running it out when he's losing.
All this is weird, unprecedented. The president shows no sign—none—of being overwhelmingly concerned and anxious at his predicaments or challenges. Every president before him would have been. They'd be questioning what they're doing wrong, changing tack. They'd be ordering frantic aides to meet and come up with what to change, how to change it, how to find common ground not only with Congress but with the electorate.
Instead he seems disinterested, disengaged almost to the point of disembodied. He is fatalistic, passive, minimalist. He talks about hitting "singles" and "doubles" in foreign policy.I assume everyone, on both sides of the aisle have seen this; it's just that Ms Noonan articulates it so well. I said the same thing, a long time ago, that Mr Obama is simply "hoping" that the last two years of his administration is uneventful.
On October 21, 2013, I had a post on the lame duck presidency. Recently I posted a note suggesting that years from now one might be able to go back and determine the "exact" day the president walked off the international stage. Peggy Noonan also wrote about that which I linked on July 6, 2014.
I was reminded of all of this when I read the story that the president has penciled in a two-week August vacation at Martha's Vineyard. The fact that he has booked a two-week vacation does not bother me in the least: a president is never on vacation; a two-week vacation is the American norm; and, everything pretty much comes to a stop in Washington, DC, anyway, in August.
However, what caught my attention was that the mainstream media is starting to catch up with Peggy Noonan, noting that "the president shows no sign—none—of being overwhelmingly concerned and anxious at his predicaments or challenges." The AP writes:
The White House says Obama will head north on August 9 and stay until August 24, when he returns to Washington. It will be the longest summer vacation of his presidency [and could have added, "coming right at the time there are three shooting wars overseas, and an OPEN BORDERS / OPEN ARMS policy closer to home that seems to be running out of control"].There are three shooting wars -- all of which are pretty significant -- Iraq, Israel-Hamas, and the Ukraine -- and the US is pretty much taking a spectator role in all three. Not that the US could do much even if it wanted, but the president seems very, very aloof. His aides suggest that aloofness reassures the American public that things are not in dire straits internationally. Today's Gallup poll shows the president has a 39% approval rating.
I don't think the actual fact -- that he's going on an extended vacation -- is as interesting as the fact that the mainstream press is starting to report -- by extension, define -- a new chapter in the Obama presidency.
I think one can argue that the date can be easily pinpointed; a very specific date, in fact. I think it was when he turned down Maliki's request for fighter aircraft to go after the insurgents building up in the north of Baghdad. That decision made it clear that Obama had decided "enough was enough" and that he was no longer interested in "big events" and was going to enjoy the last two years of his presidency.
So, I think he decided some time ago to "quit" as it were, and enjoy the good life. The press is now finally starting to realize that. Whether that is accurate or not, if the press "believes" that and starts to write articles with that common them, that will define Obama's last two years as president.
The president runs the risk of letting the mainstream media define his last two years as president. He better start writing another book.
Predicting water levels more than six months into the future is all but impossible.Except for Algore and The National Geographic which can predict how much the oceans will rise one hundred years from now. LOL.
Lake Superior may be the one spot in this waterlogged state where people are happy to see the waters rising.
After years of parched shorelines, water levels in the Great Lakes have come rushing back. The crowds that flock to the Superior shoreline this holiday weekend will find harbors deeper and beaches narrower than they’ve been in 15 years.
“I hope this lasts,” said Dave Tersteeg, director of parks and recreation for the Arrowhead resort town of Grand Marais. Water levels have been so low in recent years, he said, “there was some real fear that we’d have to dredge the harbor.”
Boats bob in the town harbor beside ramps that are nearly level with the lake surface. Last summer, the ramps tilted toward the depleted waterline at such a steep angle, Tersteeg worried for boaters’ safety. The water’s deep enough now that even the largest sailboats can pull in to refuel. Last year, he said, they risked scraping the harbor floor.
And, yes, the writer says it's all due to global warming (now called climate change, apparently since the earth stopped warming in 6 A.G.Superior’s water levels are almost a foot higher than they were at this time last summer and 7 inches higher than average.
The waters have rushed back at speeds that astonished and delighted residents, scientists, ports and resorts. Heavy rainfall fed the lake’s tributaries and the severe winter capped Superior with thick sheets of ice that slowed evaporation.A reader points out that whether the ice is one-half inch thick or six feet thick, there is no evaporation from the water below the ice.
The Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network says a 2.5-magnitude earthquake was recorded at 10:46 in a heavily wooded area of Garrison, about 3 miles beneath the Appalachian Trail and a few miles north of Peekskill in Westchester County.
Seismologist Leonardo Seeber told the Journal News it wasn’t along any known fault lines.
The United States Geological Survey told 1010 WINS the tremor is “normal” and such occurrences happen around the world all the time.That's interesting: I thought earthquakes were found only where they were fracking.
Obviously, that's bad news for EVs, which brings us back to Tesla. Tesla's made a name for itself as the future of "green" cars, and as of the time of this writing, its stock price is trading as if that's true. However, according to Climate Central, in 46 states Tesla's Model S is the least climate-friendly EV, and it's worse than all but two hybrids when it comes to CO2 emissions over 100,000 miles of driving. When you couple that with the above information from the EPA, it's clear that Tesla isn't nearly as "green" as it wants you to believe.I remember all the grief Apple used to get regarding its environmental footprint. It appears the issues folks brought up regarding Apple and the environment pale in comparison to Tesla.
EVs sound promising on the surface, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, they're not nearly as environmentally friendly as they seem, nor do they help America become energy independent. Further, thanks to its battery, the Model S is even less environmentally friendly than most other EVs. As such, it doesn't meet the requirements for "green car of the future."
Generous state incentives for solar, wind and biogas that have driven up prices, now among Europe's highest, would be trimmed from this year under Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel's much-anticipated proposals.
Gabriel, a Social Democrat who is Merkel's vice chancellor and also economy minister, is mulling a new law encapsulating the energy changes that would take effect from August 1.
Speaking on ZDF public television, he sought to dampen any consumer hopes that the proposals would lead to a reduction in electricity prices, according to early excerpts of the interview to be broadcast Sunday.
"Falling electricity prices there will not be, but we will finally put the brakes on the increase," Gabriel told the "Berlin Direkt" programme.
Subsidies for new producers of wind energy would be reduced while those for biogas would practically disappear.
As usual, with these types of stories the comments are always the best part. One such comment:Producers would also gradually be forced to sell green energy competitively on the market from next year rather than enjoying priority treatment with guaranteed prices.
Amazing. No matter how many times it's shown that there is no global warming, the left demands more. If wind and solar was such a great idea, why would Siemens, Germany's single largest power management firm dump that entire division? Without the government funding them, there is no way they'd exist. They produce power 20% of the time. It's so dirty, when it comes to the harmonics, they can't even run the basic PLC processors in the wind machines. They need conventional power plants to make them work. Well, boutique won't work, you don't like nuclear, that pretty much leaves a bunch of coal plants.I believe I posted this "companion story" a couple of days ago. SpiegelOnLine is reporting the same for the entire EU:
It seems that the climate is no longer of much importance to the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, either. Commission sources have long been hinting that the body intends to move away from ambitious climate protection goals. On Tuesday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported as much.
At the request of Commission President José Manuel Barroso, EU member states are no longer to receive specific guidelines for the development ofrenewable energy. The stated aim of increasing the share of green energy across the EU to up to 27 percent will hold.
But how seriously countries tackle this project will no longer be regulated within the plan. As of 2020 at the latest -- when the current commitment to further increase the share of green energy expires -- climate protection in the EU will apparently be pursued on a voluntary basis.The US will go it alone, and following his presidency, President Obama will move to center stage, Climate Control, ousting Algore.
Quick, name the investment firm that has had the best annual performance from its "Top Stock Picks" lists over the past decade. Would you guess Merrill Lynch? Credit Suisse? Citi? UBS? Actually it is little known Raymond James. Its annual 'Best Picks' list, has outperformed the S&P 500 by an average of 8.5 percent over the past 10 years including producing a return of 44% in 2013.A return of 44% last year and beat the S&P by an average of almost 10% over the past ten years. And the North Dakota Legacy Fund is invested in cash. Raymond James provided its top 13 picks for 2014; here are three, according to Jensen: Copa Holdings, JP Morgan, and Apple.
We hear a lot about the well-publicized increases in oil production in America’s top two oil-producing states: Texas (2.752 million bpd in October, and now as a separate country would be the 9th largest oil-producer in the world) and North Dakota (973,280 bpd in November, on its way to the one million bpd milestone). But the recent breakthroughs in advanced drilling technologies have also brought dramatic increases in shale oil output over the last three years (October 2010 to October 2013) to the five oil-producing states of: Oklahoma (73%), Utah (38%), Colorado (96%), Wyoming (26%) and New Mexico (50%).
German utility company E.ON SE says it plans to spin off its nuclear, oil, coal and gas operations to focus on renewable energy and power distribution.
E.ON said in a statement late Sunday that the new strategy will see it quit conventional power generation, global energy trading, exploration and production.
The move comes against the backdrop of Germany's plan to shut down all nuclear plants by 2022 and ramp up power generation from renewable sources.
E.ON, which is struggling with massive debts, also says it expects to book a 4.5-billion euro ($5.62 billion) charge on its operations in southern Europe this year. The company says it will sell its businesses in Spain and Portugal to Australian investment firm Macquarie for 2.5 billion euros ($3.12 billion).November 30, 2014: Germany goes brown.
Russian gas exports to Europe in 2013 jumped 16 percent year on year to reach a record high of 161.5 billion cubic metres, preliminary data from Gazprom Export showed on Monday, as shipments from Norway and other sources decreased.
Europe, where the Kremlin-controlled company meets a quarter of gas demand, is a source of over 50 percent of Gazprom's revenues, which stood at almost $56 billion in 2012. Gazprom's previous record high for exports to Europe was 159 bcm hit in 2008, just before a global financial crisis hit.I track Europe's big energy issues here.
German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe.
But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energy policy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon.
German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier’s predecessor once claimed that switching Germany to renewable energy wasn’t going to cost citizens more than one scoop of ice cream.
Today Altmaier admits consumers are paying enough to “eat everything on the ice cream menu.” The government predicts that the renewable energy surcharge added to every consumer’s electricity bill will increase by 20 percent.And because energy underpins everything else in the economy, one can safely say that "green" energy will raise the cost of living in Germany by 20 percent over time.
This year, German consumers will be forced to pay €20 billion ($26 billion) for electricity from solar, wind and biogas plants — electricity with a market price of just over €3 billion. Even the figure of €20 billion is disputable if you include all the unintended costs and collateral damage associated with the project.
Solar panels and wind turbines at times generate huge amounts of electricity, and sometimes none at all. Depending on the weather and the time of day, the country can face absurd states of energy surplus or deficit.
If there is too much power coming from the grid, wind turbines have to be shut down. Nevertheless, consumers are still paying for the “phantom electricity” the turbines are theoretically generating.Go to the linked article to see just how bad this had gotten.
