on May 28, 2020

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Germany Just Built a Brand New, Clean, Beautiful Coal Plant

Written by Isaac Orr

Legislators in Minnesota who support mandating more wind and solar onto our electric often point to Germany as an example of we should be doing. Someone had better inform them that Germany, the darling of many Minnesota greens, has just finished construction on a brand new 1,100 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant. This plant would be about half as large as the Sherburne County coal plant, which is the largest power plant in the state of Minnesota. According to Bloomberg Quint, the plant, Uniper’s Datteln-4, will start feeding electricity into the grid on a commercial basis on Saturday. It appears that legislators...

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on January 31, 2020

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German Electricity Prices Have Increased 2.5 Times Since 2008

Written by Isaac Orr

in Energy

Every year for the last several years, Minnesota lawmakers have piled onto a plane to visit Germany, which is supposedly a renewable energy utopia. It is amazing that so many taxpayer dollars can be used to learn so little, because Germany is a prime example of what not to do. I've written about this topic many times, but the myth that Germany's energy system is a success story never seems to go away. Over the last 12 years, Germany has spent hundreds of billions of Euro on wind and solar, and the only thing they have to show for it is...

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on November 06, 2019

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Mass Decommissioning of German Wind Turbines Could Cost Hundreds of Millions of Euro More than Planned, Overwhelm Disposal Capacity

Written by Isaac Orr

in Climate, Energy, Environment, Minnesota Economy

Germany is often lauded as an example that Minnesota should follow by renewable energy supporters, but it turns out Minnesota isn't the only part of the world that may have an expensive tab to pick up once their wind turbines reach the end of their 20 year useful lifetime. A new study from the German Federal Environmental Agency has found that the expected dismantling of thousands of old wind turbines in Germany could overburden the country's recycling capacities and lead to financial difficulties for the turbines' operators as reserves set aside might have been calculated too low, according to Clean Energy...

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on September 20, 2019

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Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply, McKinsey Warns In New Report

Written by Isaac Orr

in Climate, Energy, Environment

Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan and other lawmakers recently traveled to Germany to supposedly learn about Germany's "Energy Transition," and bring home useful lessons that can be gleaned for Minnesota's energy future. From what I can tell, they group didn't get their money's worth, because almost all of the media covering Germany's attempt to close their nuclear plants and rely on wind and solar are saying that the policy is a disaster. It's not just people who work at think tanks, either. In fact, consulting giant Wood McKinsey wrote that Germany's energy policy poses a signficatn threat to the nation's economy and energy...

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on August 27, 2019

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Wind Power Is Collapsing In Germany, Does Lt. Governor Flanagan Know?

Written by Isaac Orr

in Climate, Energy, Environment, Minnesota Economy

This summer, a delegation of Minnesota lawmakers, including Lt. Governor Flanagan and Senator Dave Senjem, traveled to Germany (burning a lot of CO2 in the process) to learn about the country's renewable energy system. Do you think they learned how wind power is collapsing in Germany? I sincerely doubt it, but they should have because Germany is a role model of what not to do. The article below, originally published by the Institute for Energy Research, discusses how wind installations in Germany have plummeted by 82 percent due to local opposition and wind's inability to compete on a level playing field with other...

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on July 11, 2019

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Flanagan and Senjem To View The German Energy Failure Firsthand

Written by Isaac Orr

in Climate, Energy, Environment, Minnesota Economy

Tomorrow, Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan and State Senator Dave Senjem, along with several other members of a Minnesota delegation including Jessica Hellman, Steve Kelley, and members of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission head to Germany for a weeklong visit that will include an energy seminar. I wrote about this last week but it bears repeating: Germany energy policy is a failure by every objective metric and we should not copy their bad policies here. Today I'm posting a blog post that highlights these failures in a new way. Many advocates of renewable energy point to Germany as the example of how to...

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on July 03, 2019

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Will Peggy Flanagan View German Energy Policy as As The Failure That It Is?

Written by Isaac Orr

in Climate, Energy, Environment

On July 12, Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan will be jet-setting off to Germany to learn about sustainable energy, according to the Star Tribune. This makes me wonder, will the Lt. Governor and the delegation she is leading realize what a spectacular failure the German energy experiment has become while there? The failure of the German Energiewende, as they call it, is becoming obvious throughout the entire world. Germany has spent more than $580 billion on renewables, experienced skyrocketing electricity prices, and failed to make any meaningful reductions in CO2 emissions since 2008. Oh, and the country plans to burn coal for electricity...

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on January 28, 2019

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Germany To Burn Beautiful, Clean Coal For 19 More Years

Written by Isaac Orr

in Energy, Environment

Renewable energy rent-seekers often tout Germany as a paradise of renewable energy integration, but Germany is no role model that Minnesota should follow. Unless of course, it's following Germany's lead in keeping Minnesota's coal plants open for another 19 years....

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on December 18, 2018

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New Technologies, Not Paris Climate Agreement, Will Do the Job

Written by Isaac Orr

in Climate, Energy, Environment

Wind and solar simply aren't working, and these inefficient and unreliable technologies are a key reason the Paris Climate Accord is a dismal failure. The article below is a sobering piece that sheds light on how the proposed "solutions" to carbon dioxide emissions have been expensive failures. The article below was originally published in The Financial Times. Since climate change began to gain political traction in 1990, very little has been achieved. The concentration of carbon in the atmosphere has kept going up. Lots of money has been spent, vested interests have profited, but the reality is that we remain well on course for...

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on December 14, 2018

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German Co2 Emissions Remain Stubbornly High

Written by Isaac Orr

in Energy, Environment, Minnesota Economy

A lot of people I talk to about renewable energy in Minnesota think of Germany as a great example what we should be doing here. Green groups in the U.S. constantly characterize Germany's aggressive attempts to increase the amount of electricity generated by wind and solar as a smashing success, but unfortunately, these accounts fail to tell the whole story. In reality, Germany's "energy transition" has stalled, according to YaleEnvironment360. "Today, the Energiewende finds itself stalled and floundering. Germany’s carbon emissions have stagnated at roughly their 2009 level. The country remains Europe’s largest producer and burner of coal, which generates more than one-third of Germany’s power supply....

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