Back in 2000 Germany decided it was going to lead the world in renewable energy production. They spent tons and tons of money and effort to get it done too. The result is not what they thought it was going to be. This is at World News Era:

In 2000 when the program was first launched, 6.6 percent of Germany’s electricity came from renewable sources such as solar and wind. In 2019, almost two decades later, the share reached 41.1 percent. That’s where the good news end. In 2000, Germany had an installed capacity of 121 gigawatts with 577 terawatt-hours generated, which is 54 percent as much as it theoretically could have done (that is, 54 percent was its capacity factor). But in 2019, the country only produced a meager 5 percent more (607 TWh).

During the twenty-year period, the Germans also paid a hefty price for the program. For example, the average cost of electricity for German households has doubled since 2000. By 2019, households had to pay 34 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to 22 cents per kilowatt-hour in France and 13 cents in the United States, according to data from IEEE Spectrum.

So they are paying a premium for their electricity, that isn’t necessarily the death knell for the industry though. It would, however, be a huge burden for the poor. The real alarming data comes a little later in the article.

“In 2000, the country derived nearly 84 percent of its total primary energy from fossil fuels; this share fell to about 78 percent in 2019. If continued, this rate of decline would leave fossil fuels still providing nearly 70 percent of the country’s primary energy supply in 2050.”

[…]

“The guaranteed output of wind energy and photovoltaics is between zero, two or three percent. So de-facto is zero.”

To make matters worse, Germany had so much confidence in their green dream that they began shutting down their coal and nuclear plants. This now leaves them beholden to other countries for their energy. RBB is the German Berlin-Brandenburg public broadcasting network.

RBB then warns of the increased odds of blackouts for the region, like the blackout in Berlin in 2019.

So what’s the plan for the future? The reporter went on to say that Germany will have to rely more on natural gas from Russia, coal power from Poland, and nuclear power from France.

So in effect, the German public was sold on a green energy dream, that basically spent like wild, and ended up almost no better than they were 20 years ago. In fact, in some ways they are worse off, because they have to rely on other countries to make sure their citizens don’t freeze in the winter. This is a far cry from the energy independence that we envisioned under President Trump.

To add insult to a self inflicted injury, a move like this in the United States increases our reliance on oil imports that have to travel through the Straits of Hormuz. This hands much more power to the Iranian mullahs that can close off the straits at a moment’s notice.

The entire green dream is just that, a dream. Wind and solar look shiny and clean, but we would probably be better off burning the tax dollars to create steam.