Germany sets shining example in providing a harvest for the world

[jpak]

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2132527,00.html

Hanno Renn, a Freiburg taxi driver, invested in a communal solar electricity system on a building in the German town in 1993. "Everyone laughed and said I was wasting my money," he says.

But now he has paid off his investment and earns a regular income from the electrical company for the power he generates. "I have had the last laugh," he grins.

Mr Renn is part of a revolution in renewable energy that is sweeping Germany and bringing citizens of every kind into the fight against global warming.

<snip>

Germany has 200 times as much solar energy as Britain. It generates 12% of its electricity from various renewables, compared with 4.6% in Britain. It has created a quarter of a million jobs in renewables - a number that is growing fast. Britain has only 25,000, a number that represents the amount of jobs created in the industry in Germany in the past year alone.

<more>

[applegrove]

1. K & R

[IndyOp]

2. Britain could go ZERO carbon in only 20 years ---

From the article in the OP...

While a new report from the Centre for Alternative Energy says Britain could, with sufficient will and effort, go zero carbon in only 20 years, Germany's figures put the British government's claims to be leading the world on climate change into perspective.

:wow:

If they can do it, so can we.

[The Doctor.]

3. The US is being left behind by Germany.

[DFW]

4. There is a one-word explanation for this

It's called INCENTIVE

Germany has a population a quarter the size of the USA and about as much
land as Texas and no oil to speak of. Gas costs over $7 a gallon there,
and heating oil is not cheap either. Solar panels on houses are very expensive,
as is land--much of the population can't afford to live in a house of their
own. Even at their expensive fossil fuel energy prices, it is estimated that
the installation of solar energy panels will tale over ten years to pay off
the investment, but more and more people are doing it. They know that oil
will probably not get cheaper soon, if ever, and no one likes living next
door to a nuclear power plant (in a country as crowded as Germany, no one
lives far from one).

Wind-energy turbines are to be seen all over the country, too. The Germans
are not investing in next week, they are investing for the next generation.
We are looking for more fuel-efficient SUVs.

It also helps that they have no Iraq occupation to finance, and the rebuilding
of East Germany is well on the way to completion.

[NNadir]

5. Building 26 coal plants is a shining example?

I don't think they'll be able to see the sun through the soot.

[razzleberry]

6. 'various renewables' --> codeword for 99.9% hydro ...

and 0.1 percent wind and solar