Europe's Global Warming Fanaticism Is Killing its Economy...Is The US Next?

Ladies and Gentleman welcome to the future of America.  According to Forbes, Europe's artificially high energy costs created by their increasing dependence on expensive renewables is killing its economy.

The costs for electricity across Europe are more than twice than here in the US, for example Counting the costs of electricity from all sources, the Institute for Energy Research reported that “Germans pay 34 cents a kilowatt hour compared to an average of 12 cents in the United States).”

  Their cost of electricity is high, and they might not be able to pass it on to consumers when consumers are free to patronize businesses operating where electricity costs are much lower. Many businesses under pressure are likely move to a lower-cost location, and jobs will go with them. Antonio Tajani, European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, warned: “We face a systemic industrial massacre.”

The Boston Consulting Group reports electricity is one of the biggest factors that determine manufacturing costs.

That sucking sound of European business going to the US

The Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) reported that its surveys indicated many German business executives would rather move operations to the US than remain handicapped by high European electricity costs as they try to remain competitive in world markets. DIHK Chief Executive Martin Wansleben acknowledged that “The U.S. has become much more attractive to companies than Europe.”

It’s no wonder more European companies are opening or expanding facilities in the U.S., and more U.S. multi-nationals are shifting overseas operations back home:

• Airbus is building an aircraft assembly plant in Mobile, Alabama. It will produce A320 jets for the American market. Der Spiegel noted that Airbus “could save on manufacturing costs compared to its plants in Hamburg, Germany, and Toulouse, France.”

• Siemens, a German multi-national engineering and electronics company, is making turbines for fossil fuel power plants in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

• BASF, the German chemical company, has opened a $33 million facility expansion in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. 

• Michelin, the French tire producer, is developing a $750 million facility in Greenville, South Carolina.

• BMZ GmbH, a German company, opened its U.S. facility in Virginia Beach, Virginia for research, development, assembly and distribution of lithium ion rechargeable batteries.

• SO.F.TER Group, an Italian plastics compounding company, is building a new plant in Lebanon, Tennessee.

• British-based Rolls Royce decided against expanding a plant in the U.K. and instead built a plant in Prince George County, Virginia for producing engine parts.

• Dow Chemical closed facilities in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and the U.K., while opening a plant in Texas.

The reason the US electricity costs have been relatively stable is fracking which increased our supply of natural gas and the abundance of coal which is used to generate about 40% of our electricity.  The president's latest anti-coal regulations should fix those stable costs. As Joe Manchin said on Friday:

“If these regulations go into effect, American jobs will be lost, electricity prices will soar, and economic uncertainty will grow. We need the federal government to work as a partner, not an adversary, and to invest in America’s energy future. I will continue to fight EPA overreach, just as I did as Governor, to protect the reliable, affordable energy and the good-paying jobs that coal-fired power plants provide in West Virginia and across this country.”

On top of the higher electric costs, Europeans have to cough up higher taxes to subsidize high-cost wind and solar power

Wind and solar power are costly because they’re intermittent. The amount of wind and sunlight often vary considerably from one hour to the next. Sometimes the wind doesn’t blow, and the sun doesn’t shine (especially at night). Many wind turbines are reported to generate power only about one-third of the time. According to the London Telegraph, output from renewables averages about 17 percent of capacity in Germany and 25 percent of capacity in the U.K.

And the fun of all of this is that it's all being because of the global warming theory of which there's enough scientific evidence disputing the Global Warming theory to throw it into doubt. Especially when you consider even the climate change gurus acknowledge it hasn't gotten warmer for a decade and a half and the doom/gloom predictions of the last twenty years have turned out to be false.

Anybody who says there is a scientific consensus regarding global warming is either lying, trying to redistribute income internationally, have a business investment in "green energy-related products, or just plain stupid!

Thanks to those global warming fantasists in Europe their economy is being damaged..and thanks to President Obama and the progressives in this country..we're next. 

If you wish to read the full Forbes report click here