After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany abandoned most of its nuclear power generation. At the same time, the U.S. ramped up its natural gas production from the shale revolution. Now German plants find themselves at a
disadvantage in competing against U.S. manufacture.
Thanks in large part to Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power and push into green energy, companies there now pay some of the highest prices in the world for power. On average, German industrial companies with large power appetites paid about 0.15 euros ($0.21) per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity last year, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistics agency.
In the United States, electricity prices are falling thanks to natural gas derived from fracking - the hydraulic fracturing of rock. Louisiana now boasts industrial electricity prices of just $0.055 per kWh, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
German companies are responding by shifting production to the U.S. It seems unfair, but with any luck the new U.S. energy policies will fix all that.
7 comments:
It's not helping the German citizen, either, who has to pay higher prices for personal electricity and who also has to pay higher taxes for the increased subsidies for those higher energy prices.
It's part of what contributed to the shift in Merkel's coalition. It's also part of what's keeping Germany trapped in the Russian orbit.
Eric Hines
I just don't understand the irrational fear of nuclear power- Fukushima was just about the ultimate test scenario, and no one died even with a failure and difficulty of containment. This with an older plant with design flaws regarding the placement and defensibility of the auxiliary power,and lack of connections for remote power generation. Three Mile Island resulted in no ill affects to any human also, but it's still some kind of bogeyman to people. If France can get 80% of it's power from nuclear, we ought to be able to.
The only problem I have with nuclear power is disposing of the spent cores. We can solve that, though, by blasting through the red tape, NIMBY, and general obstructionism by opening the Harry Reid Memorial Storage Facility, FKA Yucca Mountain, and get on with the storage.
Eric Hines
France recently put in some votes for the nationalist party and they are still using nuclear power for electricity.
It's kind of like the asymmetrical fear of aircraft and automobiles. Cars kill more people, but it's here and there, in small numbers. When aircraft go down, it's a lot of people at once, in a way that punches all kinds of primitive buttons, including the atavistic fear of falling. Coal plants may kill more people with nasty mercury emissions (I discount completely the carbon-emission non-issue), but they never do anything dramatic; they feel like a big version of a nice, homey furnace, with some smoke. When a nuclear plant goes bad, even though it's very rare, the damage is mysterious, fast, cancer-related, and conjures up images of every end-of-the-world nuclear holocaust story you've ever seen or read.
The general failure of global warmenongerists to embrace nuclear power is right up there with their failure to liquidate their beachfront holdings as a reason I can't take seriously the sincerity of their ostensible beliefs.
Odd that the French, usually so certifiably insane, have got this issue knocked. They don't even have a big nuclear waste disposal problem; they re-recycle their spent fuel, which drastically reduces the problem.
I think the French nationalists did that first, and then they just coasted along on that interest for awhile until now.
Power and fuel is a critical logistical blocking point for nationalists. They want to secure that first, usually, before starting wars or internal purges.
There's also new reactor technology that can reuse the traditional spent fuel to get more out of it, and make it much easier to dispose of.
Post a Comment