"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Thursday, July 31, 2014

"Energy Companies"? You're Joking, Right?

Via David Atkins at Hullabaloo, an interesting point on how Germany is leaving us in the dust -- again. This time, it's energy from renewable sources. From Motherboard:

Germany is now producing 28.5 percent of its energy—nearly a third—with solar, wind, hydro, and biomass. In 2000, renewables accounted for just 6 percent of its power consumption.

This is further proof that Germany is, essentially, the world leader in renewable energy. No other country has demonstrated such a dedicated, accelerated drive toward transitioning to clean power—in Germany's case, away from nuclear to solar and wind. It has done so by intensely incentivizing private and commercial solar, aggressively pursuing wind power contracts, and, yes, by raising, slightly, the cost of energy in the process.

One point: Portugal has gotten as much as 70% of its energy from renewable sources (the first quarter of 2013) and overall for 2013, derived nearly 60% of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources.

Could we do the same? Sure -- we get a lot more sun than Germany, and the Great Plains have a lot of wind to spare, all the time. Do we want to? No -- our "entrepreneurial job-creating class" is locked into oil and gas because they don't have a lot of imagination and they're all about easy, fast cash.


1 comment:

Pieter said...

If the petroleum-based corporations had any imagination, they would transform themselves into nonspecific energy-based corps and get into the clean power business. I'll buy stock in the first one that does that. And the second. And the third. Easy for a poor man to say, because we know they're not going to do it.