Germans happily pay more for clean energy. Why don’t Americans?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

In the U.S., any policy that raises taxes on anyone or causes anyone to pay more for anything -- at least in a way that's visible or traceable -- has become verboten. It's axiomatic in American politics that you can't do it. The populace will revolt, right-wingers will demagogue you, you'll be driven from office. There was even an amendment in Congress last year that would have disavowed any policy that would raise energy prices by even a cent (and every Republican voted for it!). This is, of course, a mind-bendingly stupid and myopic constraint to put on public policy. It is quite frequently the case, in our family lives as well as our public lives, that we need to invest now for future benefits. If we can't do that, we're pretty much destined to spiral into decrepitude. And indeed that's the direction America seems to be headed.

So one of the most startling things I learned in Germany last week is that the country's renewable energy law -- the EEG -- is now and has always been popular with the public. Why is that startling? Because the EEG explicitly charges German ratepayers an extra fee. It's right there on their electricity bills! In fact, the utilities, which are not big fans of the EEG, work to make the fee as prominent as possible. Today it amounts to about 15 percent of the bill, which isn't huge (about four beers a month, I was told) but isn't nothing either.

And yet the German public is OK with it. In 2005, a poll found that 25 percent thought the level of government support for renewable energy should stay the same -- and 62 percent thought it should increase! In 2010, another poll found 73 percent of the public supported continuing or increasing the program. In 2011, EEG tariffs were, for a variety of contingent reasons, spiking. For the first time, 40 percent of Germans said the tariffs had gotten too high. (They're expected to resume falling in coming years.) Then again, in the wake of Fukushima, fully 71 percent of the German public said they'd pay 20 euros ($29) more per month for clean, non-nuclear power.

So here you have a situation where a polity has decided on a worthy goal, spread the costs in a fair and transparent fashion, and embraced the results. It sounds simple, but from my vantage point inside U.S. politics it might as well be a miracle. Perhaps Germans are just different. Then again, feed-in tariffs have spread to some 50 countries and tend to be popular where they're implemented. Maybe they see this happening and decide that what they're getting is worth the money:

So maybe it's just Americans who are different -- who want the benefits of good social and environmental policy without paying anything. Then again, there's quite a bit of data showing that Americans would also be willing to pay extra to encourage clean energy.

So maybe the problem is not the American public but American politicians and American media. Maybe having one and a half out of two parties devoted to the interest of the wealthy, eager to demagogue any effort to dislodge the advantages of energy incumbents, relentless in their pursuit of cutting taxes on the well off and removing regulatory restraints on corporations, and in bed with a corrupt media trained to pass along their perspectives and talking points without challenge ... maybe that's the problem. Yeah, now I think we're getting somewhere.

http://www.grist.org...-dont-americans

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

germans don't have hot summers like we do. the below is my rates. would you like for cali to match them?

Regular Rate: 10.81¢ per kWh

Time of Use Rate: 17.89¢ per kWh (hours of 1500-2000)

15% on a german electric bill is 4 beers - maybe one should inquire about the cost of that beer before making it sound insignificant.

[HeatDeath 430]

It's not obvious that we should be wanting to imitate the Germans on social policy.

On a fundamental level, the German people, as a large group, think massively authoritarian highly centralized government with almost total control over the economy, i.e fascism, is perfectly wonderful, normal, and the natural order of things. They always have - it is basic to their national character.

Remember, it was the Prussians who actually invented the modern form of the deeply overcontrolling, massively centralized federal nation-state, while the rest of the European powers were [by modern standards] loose confederations of duchies and earldoms. This massive growth in the power and centralization of the federal governments of other European states and the US occurred mostly during the early to mid 1800s, a time when Germany's star was rising. Academia at the time records having the specific goal of making all countries to be like Germany. In fact, the rise of the Phd, originally only offered by one Germany university, as effectively the only higher academic degree of any importance whatsoever in the entire world, occurred during this period. [Like the apostolic succession, a Phd can only be conferred by another Phd. It was originally a tiny little academic club, with a very interesting and specific set of shared ideologies, that traces back to a single German university in the early 1800s.] This tendency [or was it an intentional plan?] by academics to adore Germanic ideals and advocate the slavish imitation of Germanic policy worldwide lead, among other things, to the spread of the eugenics movement to the rest of Europe and America. Remember, even while we were fighting two world wars with Germany, "right-thinking" academics the world over still felt that Germany had become and continued to exemplify everything a modern nation-state should be. In the successful spread of it's social institutions and cultural worldview, in the universal adoption of it's most basic assumptions about the role of government and the proper running of society, it can fairly be said that Germany conquered the world in the 1800s.

Germany has always been significantly more authoritarian, militarized, and centralized than it's neighbors, pretty much since Charlemagne. The relatively liberal Weimar Republic was a historical aberration imposed from without, and collapsed under it's own weight with only the slightest provocation. Left on their own, the German people deeply miss fascism (or it's closest contemporary equivalent), and naturally gravitate right back to it. That's why they transitioned so well from the Reich to the American military government after WWII [where the same policy repeated since the war in other countries has been, at best, a continued source of muddled quagmires].

The idea that the German institutions and worldviews were anything less than the highest achievements and purest expressions of human civilization simply did not occur to anyone in the policy-making castes of the Western governments or academia until the revelation of the Holocaust after WWII. By that time Western Civilization had spent 150 years remaking itself in the German mould. It was far too late to undo the damage. It can, in fact, be argued that the social unrest of the last 50 years - and the massive divide that has formed between the political Left and the political Right in every Western nation-state - is our ongoing, as yet completely unresolved attempt, as a civilization, to figure out where to go from here.

The Germans, of course, are continuing to be German. This shouldn't surprise anybody. But given the history of the last 200 years, we should maybe think twice about uncritically following them, hmm?

Edited April 21, 2011 by HeatDeath

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

15% on a german electric bill is 4 beers - maybe one should inquire about the cost of that beer before making it sound insignificant.

That's no secret: In Germany beer is sold in packs of 20 half liter bottles. Such pack runs as little as EUR 5.00 and EUR 15.00 for premium brands. So, you do the math - four beers means between EUR 1.00 and EUR 3.00. The comparison here is probably based on the premium beer - did a quick check and found that the average German electric bill runs about EUR 67.00 / month. EUR 3.30 of that is attributable to EEG - that's less than the 15% quoted in the article. That 15% is made up of the EEG and another tax levied (Ökosteuer - average at EUR 6.00) which, combined with the EEG, comes closer to the 15% of the total.

Worth keeping in mind, too, that along with the introduction of these surcharges that support sustainable energy resources and make the country and its economy fit for the 21st century, appliances and other electric devices have been improved significantly and use much less power today than they used.

[_Simpson_ 250]

We're in a recession and now is not the time to buy into the global warming hysteria.

You've been presented with two good points I hope you come back to defend your post.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

On a fundamental level, the German people, as a large group, think massively authoritarian highly centralized government with almost total control over the economy, i.e fascism, is perfectly wonderful, normal, and the natural order of things. They always have - it is basic to their national character.

Yes, that is clearly why Germany has adopted and Germans have since strongly supported the structure of a Federal Republic where the states have significant authority to regulate their business and where central government (Bundesregierung) needs the consent of a majority of the states to enact any law whatsoever. Suggest you grab yourself a book and read up on postwar Germany. Your ignorance on the country's more recent history is quite amazing.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

We're in a recession and now is not the time to buy into the global warming hysteria.

You've been presented with two good points I hope you come back to defend your post.

Global Warming? How about sustainable energy? How about embarking on the trip towarsds future energy rather than subsidizing yesterday's energy? How about leading rather than being led. How about not allowing oneself to go from one dependency (oil) to another (future energy technology)?

Oh, and I have yet to see any good point that was presented here. Chuck had half a point in regards to the hot weather in parts of this country. That's a non-issue, though. I live in a pretty hot spot and my electric bill sure isn't killing me. In fact, when rates went up, my electric bill went down. Thanks in large part to my investment into an energy efficient A/C unit. We installed it about two eyars ago and it'll have paid for itself by the end of the summer.

[mawilson 2,133]

On a fundamental level, the German people, as a large group, think massively authoritarian highly centralized government with almost total control over the economy, i.e fascism, is perfectly wonderful, normal, and the natural order of things.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

We're in a recession and now is not the time to buy into the global warming hysteria.

You've been presented with two good points I hope you come back to defend your post.

Steven does 'hit & run' posting. Defending is not one of his strengths.

[Zero Sum 305]

Global Warming? How about sustainable energy? How about embarking on the trip towarsds future energy rather than subsidizing yesterday's energy? How about leading rather than being led. How about not allowing oneself to go from one dependency (oil) to another (future energy technology)?

Oh, and I have yet to see any good point that was presented here. Chuck had half a point in regards to the hot weather in parts of this country. That's a non-issue, though. I live in a pretty hot spot and my electric bill sure isn't killing me. In fact, when rates went up, my electric bill went down. Thanks in large part to my investment into an energy efficient A/C unit. We installed it about two eyars ago and it'll have paid for itself by the end of the summer.

Bingo.

We sure like to tout the marvels of free enterprise, but we forgo to reason in the effect of consumption on that same free market's price structure.

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

That's no secret: In Germany beer is sold in packs of 20 half liter bottles. Such pack runs as little as EUR 5.00 and EUR 15.00 for premium brands. So, you do the math - four beers means between EUR 1.00 and EUR 3.00. The comparison here is probably based on the premium beer - did a quick check and found that the average German electric bill runs about EUR 67.00 / month. EUR 3.30 of that is attributable to EEG - that's less than the 15% quoted in the article. That 15% is made up of the EEG and another tax levied (Ökosteuer - average at EUR 6.00) which, combined with the EEG, comes closer to the 15% of the total.

Worth keeping in mind, too, that along with the introduction of these surcharges that support sustainable energy resources and make the country and its economy fit for the 21st century, appliances and other electric devices have been improved significantly and use much less power today than they used.

4 beers could also be about 5 euro each, if one buys them in a pub.

[HeatDeath 430]

Yes, that is clearly why Germany has adopted and Germans have since strongly supported the structure of a Federal Republic where the states have significant authority to regulate their business and where central government (Bundesregierung) needs the consent of a majority of the states to enact any law whatsoever. Suggest you grab yourself a book and read up on postwar Germany. Your ignorance on the country's more recent history is quite amazing.

In a way, that's exactly my point. The German national character is what it is. It doesn't matter that the Allies managed to impose a more stable version of Weimar for a few decades - their national character transcends any particular government and is finding a way to express itself in other arenas.

If you are seriously arguing that the relative liberalism of post-war Germany represents a fundamental shift in an aspect of Germanic national character that remained unchanged for almost a thousand years, I think you may not have as solid a grasp on human nature as you might want.

[And strictly speaking, giving the state strong regulatory authority over industry is a meaningless shell game if the state is composed primarily of former or future industrialists and their lobbyists. As we've found in the US with fiscal policy: If you hire bankers to create your fiscal policy, it doesn't matter how much alleged regulation is imposed, if all it is is a few tens of thousands of pages of regulations that amount to "carry on as usual".]

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

There is something wrong with those folks.

[Zero Sum 305]

In a way, that's exactly my point. The German national character is what it is. It doesn't matter that the Allies managed to impose a more stable version of Weimar for a few decades - their national character transcends any particular government and is finding a way to express itself in other arenas.

If you are seriously arguing that the relative liberalism of post-war Germany represents a fundamental shift in an aspect of Germanic national character that remained unchanged for almost a thousand years, I think you may not have as solid a grasp on human nature as you might want.

[And strictly speaking, giving the state strong regulatory authority over industry is a meaningless shell game if the state is composed primarily of former or future industrialists and their lobbyists. As we've found in the US with fiscal policy: If you hire bankers to create your fiscal policy, it doesn't matter how much alleged regulation is imposed, if all it is is a few tens of thousands of pages of regulations that amount to "carry on as usual".]

Excellent aside in that bracket. Makes perfect sense. Funny thing is people here will continue choosing exactly that kind of fiscal policy making (either way- bankers or no bankers) and then complain about it when government bails out the financial sector.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

4 beers could also be about 5 euro each, if one buys them in a pub.

I know. The average EEG charge is EUR 3.30, however. So, the comparison was made to 4 premium beers from the retailer.