‘Green’ ruse in Germany

Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh: Germany’s much-ballyhooed, nearly 30-percent wind and solar power-grid conversion isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And it carries devastating costs for nations less fortunate.

Praised by President Barack Obama and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, it imposes a “simply brutal” burden on the poor, Pioneer Energy President Robert Zubrin writes for National Review. With an average residential electricity rate about twice those in neighboring Poland and France and almost two-and-a-half times the U.S. rate, annual electricity bills average $1,700 per German. Figuring two per household on average, that exceeds 10 percent of Germany’s $33,000 median household income — and is a far greater income percentage for Germans “just scraping by.”

The 30-percent-green claim is overstated, too. Factor in wind and solar power’s intermittent nature and they produced just 14.8 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2014. And with the Fukushima disaster leading Germany to unplug nuclear power plants, it’s actually producing less carbon-free electricity now than in 2011 — and meeting demand by burning more coal.