Conspirasea

Solar power has overtaken wind to become the biggest source of renewable electricity in the northern hemisphere this year. Hooray for solar and the planet’s position relative to the Sun, and to all those who made that possible — so much so that European solar generators have been struggling with negative prices as we discussed in an earlier post here.

Solar’s dominance won’t last forever, though, because “once solar output levels dip from next month due to the changing angle of the sun's rays, wind output will regain its spot as the top renewable power globally,” per this highly informative analysis from Reuters.

The report, with data supplied by tireless Ember, reads like one of the Communist Party progress reports from the 1980s. Achievements have been made and more achievements will be made on the path to eternal glory. Alas, not everyone sees these the same way.

Take German businesses, for example. A recent survey cited by Bloomberg this week revealed that interest in setting up new companies in Germany was at a record low.

“We are witnessing a gradual decline due to intensified production cutbacks and a tendency to move abroad,” the president of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Peter Adrian said. “If now fewer and fewer people want to set up companies in this country, we will lose important potential for growth and innovation.”

The reasons most commonly cited for this pessimistic sentiment are not the ones you’re thinking about. Apparently, prospective business owners are most put out by regulations and taxes. High costs are mentioned casually as a third reason, after the other two.

Funny thing, that, because in another report, Bloomberg wrote that the secret behind Germany’s success as a wind and solar superpower was fast permitting thanks to laxer regulation. And this fast permitting happened in the last couple of years. Before that, getting even a small wind installation built required — wait for it — an alleged 36,000 pages of documents to be submitted to the authorities. After 2022, this has apparently declined considerably — because the German government prioritised the buildout through new laws and regulations.

So, it may not be a good time to build a business in Germany right now — but only unless you want to build a wind or solar business. Some misinformed individuals may see this as a double standard but that’s because these individuals don’t understand the fundamental rule of the energy transition, which states “This is different.”

It is, indeed, different, for whatever functioning businesses remain in Germany. Because thanks to this wind and solar buildout, the government has had to change the rules again — in this case, the rules for consuming energy, and more specifically, the rules governing the price-setting process. I would love to build the suspence further but patience has never been among my few virtues.

Here it is per The Telegraph: “The country is pushing the use of solar power and other forms of renewable energy, and as part of that has said people should pay more for electricity usage on days with no sun – a concept companies say will harm their competitiveness.”

Let us take a moment to relish the German government’s inimitable genius in all things energy. They have advertised wind and solar as better for energy security because they are produced locally rather than 3,000 miles away by people you genetically dislike. Solar and wind are also allegedly better for the climate whatever that word even means any more, and they also produce cheaper electricity than everything else. Wind and solar, per that story, have no flaws — except that permitting drag that the same government dealt with in no uncertain terms.

It turns out, however, that one of the flaws that solar specifically does not have is the fact that panels only generate their maximum or an approximation thereof in sunny weather. There’s output in cloudy weather, too, but it’s palpably lower. So, the government concluded, it makes perfect sense to have higher electricity prices during cloudy and rainy days when solar is not in top shape.

The good people in Olaf Scholz’s cabinet have an identical idea for windless days — higher transmission rates for those days so people and businesses learn to adjust their electricity consumption to the weather. A while ago, people who suggested that the transition crusaders would try and force us to only consume electricity when solar and/or wind can generate it were dismissed as either jokers or conspiracy theorists. Now, we have proof they were neither.

Understandably, business owners were quick to voice some opposition to the plan, with the head of the association for small and medium enterprises, often referred to as the backbone of Germany’s economy, finding it necessary to state that “machinery needs reliable electricity every hour of the day, every day of the year”.

In other breaking news, gravity exists, snakes and lizards are reptiles, plants absorb carbon dioxide, and the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

A while ago, when German businesses were complaining about soaring energy costs at the height of the gas crunch in Europe, Economy Minister Robert Habeck made history by uttering a phrase more fitting for a four-year old who is only just beginning to try and grasp how the world works.

Here’s the quote in all its glory, from a Reuters report dated September 7, 2022: “Asked whether he expected a wave of insolvencies at the end of this winter due to companies' rising energy bills, Habeck said "No, I don't. I can imagine that certain industries will simply stop producing for the time being."“

Accusing the German — or any other climate crusader government — of trying to kill its own economy continues to be dismissed as either disinformation or a conspiracy theory. And yet here is the Germany Energy Minister doing literally that and not out of maleficence, no. He’s doing it because he hasn’t got the foggiest idea of how an economy actually works. Yet he remains an economy minister and I have to hand it to the Germans — they are one patient people.

So, he said that in 2022. Since then the number of German companies slipping into insolvency has grown, as has the number of businesses considering relocation, while the desire among business-minded individuals to set up companies in Germany has dried up.

Yet here is Habeck again, trying to force industries to stop producing for certain, potentially prolonged, periods of time depending on the weather or, if they are unwilling to do that, pay higher prices for the energy they need in order to produce whatever they produce. And you probably thought I was going to make fun of Guterres after his latest seizure in Tonga.

There is a good chance that the idea of matching energy consumption to seasonal weather patterns would never make it all the way to a law. Then again, the determination of the climate crusaders shouldn’t be underestimated. They have proven repeatedly that nothing is out of bounds when we’re saving the climate, whatever that means.

And do you know how the German government fast-tracked wind and solar developments? Why, by designating them “an “overriding public interest” that serves national security,” per Bloomberg. Apparently, the Habecks of this world have no concept of what national security means, either. But they call it differently: “Germany combines two things: a longstanding strategic approach and the recently developed strong economic opportunity of renewable deployment,” per some crusader from think tank Agora Energiewende.

So whenever someone says we need a case study of the energy transition, a real-life, real-time project to see whether the transition, as envisaged by the climate crusaders, can work, I say we don’t need one. We’ve already got Germany.