The High Price Germany Is Paying For The ‘Net Zero’ Fantasy
Germans stopped counting long ago, but the rest of the world still might be interested in what Europe’s largest economy is paying to accomplish its transition to net-zero ‘carbon’ emissions
The short answer: There’s a reason Germans prefer not to know.
Consider the construction of new green electricity generation capacity, which is a small part of the net-zero transition.
The latest estimate, from the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne, is that Germany faces a €60 billion ($65.5 billion) financing gap up to 2030 to build sufficient power generation.
That’s the investment that can’t be funded via utilities’ and generators’ retained earnings, which means that plugging the hole will require either higher electricity rates or more taxpayer subsidies.
About €10 billion of that will have to be spent on new gas-fired and hydrogen backup plants to keep the lights on when low wind or clouds keep windmills and solar panels from contributing to the grid.
That subsidy bill is the good news. Separate research from the same think tank recently estimated the total cost of approaching net zero at €1.9 trillion between now and the end of 2030.
That’s around €240 billion a year, for those keeping score at home. We couldn’t believe it either, but we checked and this is only for Germany, not for the entire European Union.
Also, this counts only new investment. Older windmills or solar panels that require replacing in coming years will cost extra.
That enormous figure is worth putting on the record because in practice it will remain hidden from the public.
The report counts both private investment (including spending households will have to undertake to improve their energy efficiency) as well as public spending.
If anything, more of the burden is likely to shift to the private economy in higher prices and more expensive mandates after a recent court ruling has made it harder for Berlin to offer direct subsidies.
This is a warning for everyone else because Germany, and Europe generally, is much further down the path of the ‘net-zero’ transition than the U.S.
Two decades and uncountable hundreds of billions of euros into its energy transformation, Germany’s net-zero bills never shrink and the promised boom in green industries and jobs never materializes.
Does Washington feel any luckier?
See more here climatechangedispatch
Header image: Die Welt
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Tom
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The world is being run into the ground by clueless idiots. The cost of green energy is outrageous and it seems that many countries just can’t wait to add to their mountain of debt by the total waste of money on renewables.
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aaron
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money’s only purpose is control,
the US is 30 trillion + in debt but continue to get ‘loans’
what bank would give more money to a dead beat that can’t even pay the interest on previous loans?
For us that would mean bankruptcy, that is if you can come up with the money to prove you have none
The ponzi scheme rolls on ……
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Kevin Doyle
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A bit ironic, Germany was once considered to be the ‘European Leader’ in science and engineering.
Now, rather than follow sound science and engineering practice, they allow children (aka Environmentalists) to destroy their people, nation, and continent with fake science and dreams of Don Quixote…
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