Categories: Environment

There’s unforseen and then there’s unforseen

Quite obviously somethings do indeed have unforseen effects. This must be so otherwise we humans would never make a mistake, would we? However, there’s unforseen and unforseen:

As a Green party member in Germany’s national parliament, Fell eventually helped create a policy that looks a lot like part of the Green New Deal some Democrats are proposing in the US. His law allowed Germans to sell the renewable energy they create to the grid at a high fixed price — a price that would more than cover the cost of installing a solar panel, or investing in a wind turbine. Germany paid for this through a surcharge on every electricity consumer’s bill.

So, everyone had to pay more money for expensive electricity to be fed into the grid. We can forsee an effect or two of this, no? Like, perhaps, electricity bills are going to rise?

But the law has also had some unintended consequences. Because of amendments to the law and technological improvements, the surcharge on Germany’s electric bills have skyrocketed. Now, Germany has the highest electric bills in Europe. Electricity has become a burdensome expense for some Germans living on welfare, and the high cost has left a few spending a lot of time in the dark.

Electricity bills rose. Really, what’s unforseen about that?

Of course, the interesting thing is elsewhere. Germany’s spent over a trillion euros on this grand change to renewables. Germany’s emissions have gone up, they’re actually using more coal than they did to start with. But that’s just another thing forseen and ignored.

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Tim Worstall

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  • At some point, people are going to finally grasp what an utter disaster Merkel has been for Germany.

  • Yup, your source is mixing up "No one anticipated the result" with "The bill's sponsor chose to paper over the obvious result."

    By the way, this business of selling electric back to the utility at full retail price is the same as me taking home-grown apples to the supermarket and going to the till for a refund at full retail. It assumes the supermarket has no overhead (as a good socialist would).

  • Same issue in California. Our electricity rates are much higher than any neighboring state's. Doesn't mean much to those along the balmy coast, but if you live inland it can get blazing hot and A/C runs up the electricity bill. It's also the poorest part of the state, but anything to encourage them to move, eh?

  • And... non of their warming models match observed temperature which is trending down where the predictions are trending up, despite increasing CO2 emissions, which despite all the taxes, regulation, windmills and solar have steadily increased, so what exactly is the point of reducing emissions?

    There is a determination to continue fixating on what is claimed is happening when what is actually happening is the opposite.

  • But that’s just another thing forseen and ignored by politicians

    FTFY and spot on

    I do not believe the problems arising from politicians decisions are Unforeseen. They know, but good headline today more important and politician will have moved on when consequences hit and have no financial liability

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Tim Worstall

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