Solar and wind not only don't work, they can't work as long as old technology is subsidized. It prevents better technology from being developed because that is not where the easy government money is.
Germany's fate was sealed when they listened to environmentalists and abandoned nuclear completely after a tsunami and earthquake in Japan caused a reactor shutdown. The shutdown turned out to be harmless, more people will harmed fleeing than from the water or air, but German greens still saw the opportunity to win their war on nuclear. They succeeded.
![](/files/images/german_nuclear_multiverse.jpg)
Had Germany stuck with nuclear instead of reanimating failed relics from the past, their energy cost and emissions would be much different.
Russia was playing chess while Europe was playing checkers. Anyone with a smattering of engineering knowledge knows solar and wind can't work, and Russia knew German politicians would have to mask that with more gas from Russia via Ukraine, so decided to take Ukraine and cut out the middleman. When that went into truce, Germany scrambled to build a pipeline from Russia around Ukraine, so they could hang Ukrainians out to dry economically and strategically. For that pipeline they ignored their own environmental laws to get it done fast but Russia beat them to the punch again, and went into Ukraine one more time. Now Germany was stuck. German gas plants were collecting billions each year to ride out the flaky wind and solar politicians were claiming was working great. They were getting that gas from Russia. And lying about their emissions.
Germany became not just the Sick Old Man Of Europe in their eternal war with France to be least intelligently run, they became non-viable even to Germans. Energy costs rose 95%. Despite the pandemic economy and rampant inflation during the Biden administration, it was still a better investment than being at home, and German investments flooded into the US market. They had to ask President Biden to reverse Trump's block on Russian gas exports, right after Democrats had spent four years insisting Trump was a Russian puppet.
The cost to Germans with their alternative energy misadventure just in the last 20 years is over $500,000,000,000. Their carbon emissions would be over 70% lower than now if they had invested in nuclear instead. For less investment cost, nuclear would have far out-paced solar and wind in every metric.
Comments