NEW ENERGY BOOM IN GERMANY

Sun and Wind Alter Global Landscape, Leaving Utilities Behind

Justin Gillis, September 13, 2015 (NY Times)

“Of all the developed nations, few have pushed harder than Germany to find a solution to global warming…Germans will soon be getting 30 percent of their power from renewable energy sources…[It is] by far the largest industrial power to reach that level…[which is] more than twice the percentage in the United States…[Its demand for wind turbines and solar panels] has helped lure big Chinese manufacturers into the market, and…is driving down costs faster than almost anyone thought possible just a few years ago…Electric utility executives all over the world are watching nervously as technologies they once dismissed as irrelevant begin to threaten their long-established business plans. Fights are erupting across the United States over the future rules for renewable power. Many poor countries, once intent on building coal-fired power plants to bring electricity to their people, are discussing whether they might leapfrog the fossil age and build clean grids from the outset…The word the Germans use for their plan is starting to make its way into conversations elsewhere: energiewende, the energy transition…Techniques to manage demand have been in limited use for decades, but new technologies are enabling a far more ambitious approach…” click here for more

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