Fossil Fuel Uncompetitive in Germany; Plants to Shut Down

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday August 18, 2013 · 3:48 PM PDT

2013/08/18 · 15:48

This is the future that the Koch Brothers and their ilk fear desperately want to steal from us.

In Germany, energy provider RWE is taking 3.1 gigawatts offline because their fossil fuel powered plants are no longer competitive with renewables. Wholesale energy prices have been halved over the last four years.

[Link to chart (in German) on the price drop]

According to the chart, even atomics are in danger of not being economically viable. While scheduled to be phased out in 2022, nuclear plants still benefit from the higher pricesas their electrical output is sold as futures for up to 3 years.

Oh fickle Invisible Hand of the Market!

German Green Party Member of Parliament Hans-Josef Fell, obviously, says that this is great news. If RWE can’t operate fossil fuel power plants that have already paid back their investment at current wholesale market prices, then it makes no sense for them to build any more fossil fuel plants which have no chance at earning back its capital cost.

This is the future that keeps the Koch Brothers and friends up at night and why they buy all the government they can to keep their pollution filled status quo afloat. It is a future, for us, worth fighting for.

Sources:
http://www.rawstory.com/...
http://www.welt.de/...

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Fossil Fuel Uncompetitive in Germany; Plants to Shut Down

Comments are closed on this story.