PeterWK's Periodical

Over Half of Germany's Renewable Energy Owned By Citizens & Farmers, Not Utility Companies

Germany’s promotion of renewable energy rightly gets singled out for its effectiveness, most often by me as an example of how to do things well versus the fits and starts method of promotion common in the US. Over at Wind-Works, Paul Gipe points out another interesting facet of the German renewable energy saga: 51% of all renewable energy in Germany is owned by individual citizens or farms, totaling $100 billion worth of private investment in clean energy.

Breaking that down into solar power and wind power, 50% of Germany’s solar PV is owned by individuals and farms, while 54% of its wind power is held by the same groups.

In total there’s roughly 17 GW of solar PV installed in Germany—versus roughly 3.6 GW in the US (based on SEIA’s figures for new installations though the third quarter of 2011 plus the 2.6 GW installed going into the year).

Remember, Germany now produces slightly over 20% of all its electricity from renewable sources.

The thing that got me though, other than the huge lead in solar PV installations Germany has over the US, thanks to good policy, and the fact that so much wind power isn’t owned by utilities, is what slightly over half of renewable energy being owned not by corporations but by actual biological people means—obviously a democratic shift in control of resources and a break from the way electricity and energy has been produced over the past century.

A good thing: Decentralized power generation, more relocalization and reregionalization of economic activity, the world getting smaller while more connected and therefore in a way bigger at the same time… taking a step backwards, and perhaps sideways, while moving forwards.

Anonymous Takes on Neo-Nazi Groups

No platform for fascists! Anon awesomeness!

From: In These Times (great magazine!)

By Patrick Glennon

A campaign poster for “Operation Blitzkrieg.”

A tale of two systems: German Automakers and German Labor Law vs. American Automakers and US Labor Law.

A great article comparing US and German automakers. In Germany union density is higher, wages are higher, production is higher, and profits are higher. In Germany, companies are mandated to deal with workers (union or not) in “works councils” over various issues related to work life. The article also goes on to talk about how Germany automakers act completely different when operating in the “right to work” (for less) South, and take advantage of the US ideals on labor law by completely ignoring it.

The article also talks about how German automakers would probably not be as cooperative in Germany if the government allowed them to run all over workers.

This is a clear distinction between a big business country, and a country that has some aspects of democratic socialism. The government has a constitutional amendment that creates workers councils where workers and management work out issues in the workplace. The law also backs up unions from being busted by big companies. Because of these workers councils, strikes are rare.

Simply put, this is government actually looking out for the working class, and extending democracy into the work place. Councils like those in Germany are the type of thing that paves the way for workers democracy, and in turn, paves the way for socialism.

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On a side note, when I was talking to my cousin about how Germany had curbed massive unemployment during the worldwide recession by having some cut to 1/2 time or 3/4 time rather than a chunk of people being unemployed.  His response was “well that’s because they’re socialist”.  This of course was a negative by his views.  I don’t think Germany and Europe are truly socialist (social democratic is the better term), but they do have laws that help protect workers unlike the US where the law is weak and workers are crushed by corporate behemoths.

The fact that there is a constitutional law that mandates workers councils is pretty fucking awesome.  Ich liebe Deutschland!

Click the title link for the article.

(this was posted by a friend on facebook, and is floating around the tubes that are the internetz, so I can’t take credit.  I enjoy college football, but I LOVE WWII history, so this is awesome to me.)  Lulz to ensue:

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After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.

“Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work–including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule–our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking.”

Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated “The US only had two major victories–Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren’t influenced by head-to-head contests–they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event.”

German Chancellor Adolph Hitler said “Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks.” Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn ’style points’ to enhance Germany’s rankings. Hitler protested “Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces.”

The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented“France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2.”Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.