Germany gets almost 1/3 of its energy from renewable sources. Why not us?
by David Atkins
The United States could easily be doing this. But we aren’t.
Germany is now producing 28.5 percent of its energy—nearly a third—with solar, wind, hydro, and biomass. In 2000, renewables accounted for just 6 percent of its power consumption.
This is further proof that Germany is, essentially, the world leader in renewable energy. No other country has demonstrated such a dedicated, accelerated drive toward transitioning to clean power—in Germany’s case, away from nuclear to solar and wind. It has done so by intensely incentivizing private and commercial solar, aggressively pursuing wind power contracts, and, yes, by raising, slightly, the cost of energy in the process.
A couple years ago, Germany broke a record when, for a day, its wind and solar plants generated enough clean power to meet half the country’s energy needs. This year, it broke a new one when they whipped up enough power to meet 75 percent of demand. That’s three-fourths of a nation, running on clean energy.
This despite the fact that we get far more sunshine than Germany (Fox News correspondents notwithstanding.)
On a geopolitical level, Germany is also doing its part to reduce Vladimir Putin’s power over Europe by reducing its dependency on Russian natural gas. And, of course, there are the climate change impacts.
With our enormous deserts and wind-swept coasts and plains, there is just no reason at all for America not to be getting most of its energy from renewable sources. It’s simple stubbornness and greed.
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