“We have few resources in Germany, two of which are coal and engineering…In a hundred years, we will not have Russian gas or oil. But in a hundred years there is the sun and coal.”
So sayeth model German environmentalist: Frank Asbeck. In 1979 Frank stood shoulder to shoulder with Petra Kelly and Gert Bastion at the creation of the German Greens. He remains a party stalwart. Today Asbeck drives his Maserati from his castle, through his private hunting grounds, to the Bonn HQ of Solar World. Asbeck is the CEO and main shareholder of this mammoth enterprise. He also owns extensive land holdings and 25% of the Hauck Aufhauser Bank. He’s worth around $500 million. Asbeck champions renewable energy and “indigenous coal.” He is “a big fan of coal mining in the Ruhr…since I am a patriot.”
Germany is a small, densely populated country whose only natural energy asset is 40 billion tonnes of brown coal. Copious imports of black coal, petroleum, gas, and uranium strain trade balances. As humanity better harnesses the energy locked in these resources, and as energy grows in economic importance, Germany’s future dims.
Thus, Germany embarked on a survival strategy of subsidies, penalties, and preferences to:
* deploy renewable energy and fuel-efficient technologies across Germany;
* become proficient in the design and manufacture of these technologies, and;
* market these technologies abroad.
The goals are to reduce fuel imports, increase manufactured goods exports, and undermine the competitive advantage enjoyed by rival countries blessed with abundant energy resources. The Climate Change campaign, while not solely a German affair, is a deliberate deception used by German elites to advance this strategy. [...]
Germany’s electrical transformation is part of a social counter-revolution. On one side, wealthy property owners install solar panels and wind turbines. Their electricity bills decline and they pocket tidy profits from the surplus power they feed into the grid. On the other side, average German households’ electricity bills have doubled over the last decade. In 2011 electricity prices rose 10% and 600,000 German households had their power cut off for non-payment. 15% of Germans live in “fuel poverty.”
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