More Proof the skeptics are WINNING!!

[skookerasbil]

SOLAR POWER IS HERE TO STAY!!!! THE SUN WILL NEVER GO AWAY!!!!! (til 5 billion years but hey)

Indeed you are correct s0n.........but thankfully, it will be a decidedly fringe source of power!!!

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Who's not laughing?

I guess Germany doesn't know about the 97%.

 

[flacaltenn]

I know I just lost some intelligence just trying to cogently assess that last post by fuffa0nutter. please save yourself time by not reading it.

it's only point worth mentioning is that he made his own graphy in gradeschool without mommy's hep. it shows what energy is being consumed according to his polling and research. His funding was two cookies, a milk and a nap.

...while the rest of the world ADAPTS according to BETTER and MORE ETHICAL STANDARDS in an ever changing world.

Don't want polluted water for half a million people in WV (a county away from me) THEN DON'T REQUIRE COAL (hence a coal-cleaning agent crude MCHM) and presto! GONE LIKE THE WIND and HERE TO STAY LIKE THE SUN BABY!!!!

SOLAR POWER IS HERE TO STAY!!!! THE SUN WILL NEVER GO AWAY!!!!! (til 5 billion years but hey)

So --- lemme get this straight.. Those folks in Germany ALREADY burdened with bulging costs of subsidized non-workable solar and wind just need more SOLAR.. No coal plants required. Leave the nuclear plants shuttered.

Is that what youre selling this week??

Want to stake some lives and one of the worlds biggest economies on that??

 

[polarbear]

Solar prices have declined 100 times since the 70s; whereas oil has steadily risen to nearly 100x (from 3 dollars/barrel in '72 to $95 today).

SOLAR @ .74 cents/WATT

That roughly equates our variable gas, coal and oil price per WATT today! Only China keeps its price per watt at 50 cents through coal subsidies and a mandate, most countries including US are often higher.

GO SOLAR POWER!!!!!!!!!!! GO flower power...

Beware the BS AGW k00k math logic on renewables. The far left fucks with statistics ALL THE FUCKING TIIME


Note that their statistics are always measured against themselves. A fatty woman can say that she has decreased her bodyfat by 15%, thus making you think youd be looking at Kim Kardasian, but if she was 250 pounds to begin with, she still looks like shit compared to Kimmy K.


Same with green energy ( renewables ). When compared to coal, they are mega-expensive ( which is exactly why in the EU, the green energy revolution is over......plenty of links in this thread about it )


What Im never sure about is if the AGW bozo's are too stoopid to realize that the downward trend of renewables is compared to itself or its just presented that way in a fraudulent manner.


If the meathead who made this last post above wanted to present a genuine comparison, he wouldn't have posted the dopey graph above!!!










From DOE study >>>>

No matter how often you explain what it takes to supply power on demand along comes another idiot who has no clue what`s involved.
Here we got yet another idiot:

SOLAR @ .74 cents/WATT

That roughly equates our variable gas, coal and oil price per WATT today!

First of all that $ .74 per watt is just the cost of the solar panel and all that will give you is DC volts....it does not include the rest of the hardware such as the inverter to convert DC to AC
A commercial > than 10 KW system currently costs $ 4.87 per watt in the US not $ 0.74 per watt
Price per watt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Solar panels are currently selling for as low as US$0.70c a watt (7-April-2012) in industrial quantities; the balance of system costs (inverters, racks, wiring, marketing) made the median price in 2011 of large (>100 kW) systems $2.60/watt in Germany and $4.87/watt in the US

...and the $ 2.60 per watt in Germany does not include the heavy "green energy tax"-subsidies foisted on the taxpayer.

It takes a liberal idiot with no clue how things work to believe that all it takes to generate power is a solar panel:

GO SOLAR POWER!!!!!!!!!!! GO flower power...

 

[flacaltenn]

You only GET $0.78/watt price if you buy a square mile of it.. That's how economically challenged a leftist is..

So there's 640 acres per square mile. How much you wanna pay for that? I'm sure when you work out the cost per watt INCLUDING the land and the utility access --- you get a whole 'nother figure..

I'll leave that to Gnarly to figure out...
How to Calculate Energy Per Acre for Solar Panels | eHow

 

[gnarlylove]

polarbear, you couldn't be more helpful and intelligent. I want to note my tone was derived from the tone of kook so I wasn’t intending serious debate but all the better!

I appreciate the lesson in I'm an idiot and for foisting me into the liberal camp. I thought I vehemently disagreed with both parties but thanks for helping me realize I'm just another lazy liberal. Those are the two most important points that matter to you (and anyone on this thread) for those terms really set the stage for your dismal or agreement. Quoting Sunspot, Dept. of Energy was just icing, it didn’t matter if it was true and no longer is—you would have found any info just to fit your resistance—instead of pursuing more ethical ways of “mining” energy.

First off, your info is no longer accurate as solar has advanced significantly in 2013. Allow me to also use Wikipedia—grid parity is what we're assuming in being able to compare the apples and oranges of price per watt:

"Everyone wants to talk about “grid parity” – I’ve banned that phrase from the lexicon of First Solar. Electricity has value only at a point in time and a geographic place . There is no magic number that describes the true economic cost of electricity. You may have a tariff structure that describes it that way, but that is not the reality, and frankly, sophisticated power markets don’t operate like that. So you have to look at time of day, season and location to determine the true cost of power, and there are lots of times of day, seasons and locations where solar is economic today without subsidy. So our focus is to find those places, find those times of day, and find those market structures where we can apply ourselves."
First Solar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So it isn’t so easy to compare in the first place. This is my main argument: apples and oranges. Allow me to develop it robustly later but let's assume we can compare solar to fossil fuels. $4.87 is 2011. It's 2014. The cost of solar manufacturing has declined significantly in the last 30 months. So has the efficiency in solar power transfer to electricity: just shy of 19%.This is in contrast to your data which had at best a 17.3% transfer rate but the average had to be less given older models with less efficient rates. Hence 4.87 is obviously going to rapidly decrease as time progresses and has.

Indeed, we aren’t even comparing the same relevant data. Solar is on average 74 cents per watt (and is as low as 65 cents. Predicted to be 52 cents by 2015—see same Wikipedia page). After the panels are installed and transferring energy, the average price per watt is 74 cents. This is how coal, oil, and gas ppw are determined. We don’t factor how much it took to ship the coal from WV or how much dynomite it took to blow up the mountain and disel to power the machinery.

You are factoring in the overall cost, which is a different figure and is necessarily higher. Both of us are right. Or at least you were but now 4.87 is inaccurate as an outdated 2011 number, not 2013 or better yet, 2014 number. Give me some figures with coal or other FF that calculate the total cost of extraction, cleaning, shipping, burning and distribution.

One thing we do know is solar price will continue to decline for private and commercial use. Oil, coal and gas have been in place for centuries but will only continue to rise as time goes on, unless we subsidize it more . The fossil fuel industry already receives billions in subsidies to lower the cost of ppw. Solar and other renewable energies are also being subsidized but not nearly as much as fossil fuels. Dept of Energy granted 112 million in subsidies to SunSpot solar. That's a huge difference and yet we don't see gas prices dropping without also rising do we? We can't use linear perspective here, it confuses the issues taking a complex thing and turning it into a turd.

This brings me back to the apples and oranges point. We can calculate the various costs of fossil fuels by how much capital is put in to produce it for consumption. We neglect a fundamental component however: natural capital. There is no free lunch and blowing up moutain tops do not just extract coal: they remove any biology that once lived there. Nature isn't free; there are consequences for extracting fossil fuels that disturb the balance of life, which is a crucial component for the foodchain. The more you disrupt and drill, the more chaos will ensue. Fossil fuels cause wars, droughts, famines and a host of other global and ethical issues that are not included in our price per watt calculations.

Solar has a much lower drain on natural capital. According to TruCost in an UN backed study, in 2008 the top 3,000 companies world wide cost over 2 trillion in environmental damages. In other words the cost of doing business (see TRUCOST | RESEARCH INSIGHT).

Unfortunately one and a half trillion dollars resulted from co2 emissons. Pavan Sukdhev, a leader in India’s natural capital calculations, argues we must take this more complete understanding and mold it into policy in the form of strict fines and reduction of subsidies to the sectors doing the most damage. That excludes solar but definitely includes fossil fuel extraction. Why? Because fossil fuels cost us integrity of the environment which is a crucial component for climate stability.

Don’t agree that the environment is worth calculating? It’s simple economics, here’s one example:

The damage of deforestation in China resulted in a drought in the 97 then flooding of the Yangtze River in the 98. This took a serious toll on the local and even national economy leaving 14 million homeless and destroying villages. It was because the water would normally be absorbed into the root systems of the forest but with those systems lacking hindsight revealed logging companies and ensuing deforestation were the culprit. Calculating the loss of waterways, loss of agricultural productivity with millions of acres flooded, damage to communities etc. resulting from the drought and flood means the cost to natural capital was twice the cost of timber. However, the price of timber did not reflect this. Neither does the cost of oil or coal reflect the damage it has caused by upsetting the balance in the Gulf and reducing fishing. Nor does coal reflect the cost of over a week of contaminated water in WV. That’s significant loss despite every penny of “profit."
Notably PUMA released in 2011 its report on the cost of doing business including natural capital which identified 94 million dollars of damage to the environment. Otherwise, their profits would not reflect the obvious depletion that is going on by extracting fossil fuels.

So our data has yet to reflect the true total cost of a company’s operation or how solar and fossil fuels stack up. One can be sure though, fossil fuels will continue to dwindle as solar and its technology becomes cheaper, more efficient, and increasingly the single smart choice for sunny areas. Perhaps we can propose a pipeline that carries energy gathered in sunny places to Ohio or other places with less than 150 sunny days. Why not? They are proposing to do it with natural gas.

Sorry for not being able to keep it simple but unless you profit from being employed by fossil fuel industry, why do you resist using the sun as energy (or do you)? It’s price per watt may be a bit pricey today, but in 2 decades, solar will undoubtedly come to challenge the energy market. It will happen. The sun is not leaving and if it did, we would’nt have to worry about living anymore now would we?

 

[flacaltenn]

Gnarly::

Glad that you've been helped by this forum.. I read every word.. I expect that solar prices will decline much as marijuana prices will eventually decline and eventually both will be cheaper than the taxes that are applied to the product.

But since you couldn't answer the question as to WHY Germany (or China for that matter) NEEDED MASSIVE new build-ups of coal plants DESPITE all this encouraging solar economics --- I'm still undecided as to whether I should INVEST in solar technology.. Take a look at the following chart and tell me --- whether I should buck the collective wisdom and buy at the bottom...

Why not invest $BILLs in a power source that can produce power 6 hours a day? Somedays... If it doesn't rain or snow. Or it isn't too cloudy. Or if I live where the sun is high enough on the horizon during winter?

Let those evil fossil-eating conservatives pay for the OTHER power plant that I need idling and wasteful to GUARANTEE the power for my emergency operation at the hospital..

The subsidies are NO LONGER the issue. You folks have been brainwashed into accepting that "HIGHWAYS" are a fossil fuel subsidy as are "payments for Low Income Energy Allowances".. The only fossil fuels competing with solar are COAL and NAT GAS. And the subsidies involved THERE are at MORE than parity for solar and wind. That chart above, the FAILURE of US industry to sustain its lead in solar panel production, the Europeans pulling the plug on renewable subsidies, all should inform you that SOMETHING is wrong with you perception about the EQUALITY OF UTILITY between solar and what you think --- it replaces..

It is NOT "an alternative".. It is a PEAKER TECHNOLOGY, that can only be used in limited geographical areas, and only with GUARANTEED quick response and RELIABLE power backing it up...

I'm all for it.. As long as it's OFF THE GRID... Use it to make hydrogen -- off grid.. Use it to desalinize water -- off grid.. Use it to make other biofuels for transportation --- off grid.

 

[gnarlylove]

I'm not here to make economic decisions for you. I hope you make all the money in the world, I have little use for it.

I don't live in your world of this versus that. I have a keen intellect and have no concern for how you label. Like the horse shit about highways. I never once expressed that view but as long as you can label or categorize something as x then you can easily agree or disagree and rationality follows your intial categorization. You can never accept a future where fossil fuels won't be necessary. You cannot envision the ability to store electricity garnered from sun in California and have it shipped to whereever needed (shipped is merely a vehicle, not a literal FEDEX). Since you cannot think without serious political constraints, then I have no interest in meeting your demands for answering your questions. I quickly learned that this forum is mostly filled with people dedicated to maintaining their belief system and wild egos, not here to participate in honest intellectual dialogue and scholarly decorum. Almost 100% of the posts contain incoherent or irrelevant name calling and other absurdities that have no room for honest personal inquiry. But given the size of your ego, you'll understand this as some leftist jive and can therefore digest it or dismiss it. So I'm ignoring more and more posters on here because its not worth my time. I respect you as a person, as with anyone, but as a deeply convicted individual who is swallowed by his necessity of being right, I have no interest, no time to spend going back and forth on the same point

edit: i know that I don't know. I don't have all the solutions but I'm aiming to have obvious natural solutions flourish in a lively dialogue. It couldn't be more clear you intend to stifle this dialogue by lumping what I say in with leftist cultists nonsense. You are dwelling in your own cultist ego if you cannot tell. Whatever lifetime of work and academics you've achieved, if money has been central to it, you've lived the life I acknowledge as personally corrupting and weakens resolve to strive for a better, freer, more aware, more loving self. It seeks private gain first and concerns itself with justice as an afterthought to money. I don't deny you have lived a noble life but until you drop your thick veil, I vote to pass.

 

[flacaltenn]

I'm not here to make economic decisions for you. I hope you make all the money in the world, I have little use for it.

I don't live in your world of this versus that. I have a keen intellect and have no concern for how you label. Like the horse shit about highways. I never once expressed that view but as long as you can label or categorize something as x then you can easily agree or disagree and rationality follows your intial categorization. You can never accept a future where fossil fuels won't be necessary. You cannot envision the ability to store electricity garnered from sun in California and have it shipped to whereever needed (shipped is merely a vehicle, not a literal FEDEX). Since you cannot think without serious political constraints, then I have no interest in meeting your demands for answering your questions. I quickly learned that this forum is mostly filled with people dedicated to maintaining their belief system and wild egos, not here to participate in honest intellectual dialogue and scholarly decorum. Almost 100% of the posts contain incoherent or irrelevant name calling and other absurdities that have no room for honest personal inquiry. But given the size of your ego, you'll understand this as some leftist jive and can therefore digest it or dismiss it. So I'm ignoring more and more posters on here because its not worth my time. I respect you as a person, as with anyone, but as a deeply convicted individual who is swallowed by his necessity of being right, I have no interest, no time to spend going back and forth on the same point

edit: i know that I don't know. I don't have all the solutions but I'm aiming to have obvious natural solutions flourish in a lively dialogue. It couldn't be more clear you intend to stifle this dialogue by lumping what I say in with leftist cultists nonsense. You are dwelling in your own cultist ego if you cannot tell. Whatever lifetime of work and academics you've achieved, if money has been central to it, you've lived the life I acknowledge as personally corrupting and weakens resolve to strive for a better, freer, more aware, more loving self. It seeks private gain first and concerns itself with justice as an afterthought to money. I don't deny you have lived a noble life but until you drop your thick veil, I vote to pass.

There is the general welfare of society and actually lives at stake in being RIGHT sometimes. We don't have the liberty of being laid back free thinkers on everything.

From a science/engineering standpoint -- it's always the physics/calculator nerds that are the wild-eye sci-fi consuming dreamers. THey KNOW how to control their fantasies. And temper their imaginations with physical laws and limits. You -- apparently need a grounding tether.. Not a cheap shot.. Just suggesting that if you HAVE a burning interest in these issues --- you should DEVELOP them.. Just like a good fiction writer would do the research. Won't compromise your principles.. I promise you..

So don't worry about my motivations about getting to where I've gotten. It's been entirely PRINCIPLED and rewarding without considering money..

 

[polarbear]

polarbear, you couldn't be more helpful and intelligent. I want to note my tone was derived from the tone of kook so I wasn’t intending serious debate but all the better!

I appreciate the lesson in I'm an idiot and for foisting me into the liberal camp. I thought I vehemently disagreed with both parties but thanks for helping me realize I'm just another lazy liberal. Those are the two most important points that matter to you (and anyone on this thread) for those terms really set the stage for your dismal or agreement. Quoting Sunspot, Dept. of Energy was just icing, it didn’t matter if it was true and no longer is—you would have found any info just to fit your resistance—instead of pursuing more ethical ways of “mining” energy.

First off, your info is no longer accurate as solar has advanced significantly in 2013. Allow me to also use Wikipedia—grid parity is what we're assuming in being able to compare the apples and oranges of price per watt:

fossil fuels will continue to dwindle as solar and its technology becomes cheaper, more efficient, and increasingly the single smart choice for sunny areas. Perhaps we can propose a pipeline that carries energy gathered in sunny places to Ohio or other places with less than 150 sunny days. Why not? They are proposing to do it with natural gas.

Sorry for not being able to keep it simple but unless you profit from being employed by fossil fuel industry, why do you resist using the sun as energy (or do you)? It’s price per watt may be a bit pricey today, but in 2 decades, solar will undoubtedly come to challenge the energy market. It will happen. The sun is not leaving and if it did, we would’nt have to worry about living anymore now would we?

Okay I apologize for that:

I want to note my tone was derived from the tone of kook so I wasn’t intending serious debate but all the better!

It`s just that I`m getting a bit tired of having to explain the difference between a home-brew solar or wind turbine setup and what it takes to tie a significant amount of power to a power grid.
I did that for a living, so I`m pretty sure I can tell you a bit more than what you can get from Wikipedia.
So I`ll explain it here one more time.
A power grid has to supply power on demand, which means it has to be able to INSTANTLY ramp up if the grid demand goes up.
Power plants do this by ramping up their turbines, such as the wicket gates or the fuel racks if it`s a large Diesel, like they have in remote areas.
That`s not a problem because in a hydro-electric plant you got enough pen-stock pressure to generate the extra torque which is needed to keep the power at 60 Hz and in phase with the rest of the grid.
It works the same goes for coal or gas fired power plants, but with wind or solar you don`t have that buffer, because you can`t call for more wind or more sun...which is why every country that has attempted to tie "renewable" to their power grid has to keep so called "spinning reserves"...which are hydro- driven, gas or coal fired power plants on-line to absorb the load increase.
Read up on "spinning reserves"...here is a quicky:
Spinning reserve

Perhaps we can propose a pipeline that carries energy gathered in sunny places to Ohio or other places with less than 150 sunny days. Why not? They are proposing to do it with natural gas.

I tell you why not. But first you`l have to understand what a "power factor" is and then you will understand what happens if you try to increase the distance with HVAC.
here is another quicky-lesson:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81n7HrLn3Ng"]electrical power factor - YouTube[/ame]
A long AC transmission line is a resistive and an inductive load.
The US is not set up like our grid in Canada where most of our power comes from very distant hydro plants way up north.
We use HVDC not AC and then convert that back to HV-AC in converter stations which are close to the heavy users...
But none of that will help you with the problem you got with wind or solar when large loads suddenly come on line,...you`ll need enough spinning reserves else you`ll have a cascading power grid failure.
In addition to that the sun does not shine at night in Ohio but most industrial users do run a night shift!...and as long as that is so you can`t base a power grid on solar or wind.

 

[skookerasbil]

Im laughing......in a nutshell, the reason the AGW nutters are losing is simple economics.

 

[polarbear]

Who's not laughing?

It`s funny you should mention that, because nobody in Germany is laughing any more.
First the investors who put their money into "Prokon" went into shock and awe when it came out today, that the Prokon "wind energy" corporation is going bankrupt :
Prokon: Verbraucher geben Entwarnung für Stromkunden - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Zigtausende Prokon-Anleger müssen um ihr Geld bangen. Für die Stromkunden des von Insolvenz bedrohten Unternehmens geben Verbraucherschützer aber Entwarnung: Selbst im schlimmsten Fall hielte sich ihr finanzieller Schaden in engen Grenzen.

And then this bit of news:
Höhere Ökostrom-Umlage für Braunkohle-Tagebau - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Energiewende: Massive Öko-Rabatte für Braunkohle-Konzerne

Berechnungen zufolge betrugen die Befreiungen im Jahr 2013 insgesamt rund 166 Millionen Euro. 2014 könnten sie gar auf 197 Millionen Euro steigen. 2012 lagen die Entlastungen demnach noch bei 109 Millionen Euro.

The German coal industry is raking in massive rebates since wind and solar can`t close the gap when the German "Green Party" pushed the nuclear power plant closures.
Germans are furious, because that party is a fringe element that usurped to power during the time when they were a coalition partner in a minority Government.
The damage they did was irreversible and now the German taxpayer is on the hook not just paying fat subsidies for wind & solar, but now for coal as well...which nixes the reasons why Germans were told to go with "green energy" to reduce CO2 emissions.
Well that`s what happens when a bunch of communists start running a government as so called "socialists" as was the case when the Soviet Union collapsed and the entire ex-communist East German population could vote in West Germany after the "iron curtain" came down.
Since then we had nothing but minority Governments which had to cater to fringe elements to stay in power...much the same way it works under Obama. One major fuck up after another, which costs our industry and those who make a living in it.
Just like in the US, the lefties in Germany don`t care because all of them get paid out of the public purse and get a free ride.
In the US it`s the 47 % Mitt Romney mentioned that are the bulk of the liberal power base which are pushing the same crap as the German "Green party". The latter got wiped off the political landscape but there is no easy fix for the damage they did.
It`ll be interesting to see if Obama can push his "green" agenda beyond the point of no return while he is still in office.
That`s the one thing "liberals" are good at, forcing fringe minority views down the throats of the majority....no matter what it is about, energy, legalizing dope, gay weddings, fags parading in public or "teaching" school kids.
We went through the same bullshit in Canada when the liberals were in power and we are still working on reversing the damage they did after they got wiped out in a 2006 election back-lash.
The problem is that all these bastards we want to get rid off have "public sector jobs" with public sector union contracts and are hard to get rid off.
The communists with whom they sympathize don`t have that problem, they simply purge and/or execute all dissenters.
Maybe you should post that socialist agenda video you linked to a couple of month ago again...I forgot the title.

 

[Abraham3]

The Green Party did not "usurp" power in Germany. They were elected.

 

[polarbear]

The Green Party did not "usurp" power in Germany. They were elected.

They had 16.7 % of the vote...they were not elected...they got cabinet seats through a back-room deal with Angela Merkel behind closed doors, which is "usurping" by any standard !
In the last election they got only 8.4 %
If they had been the "capitalists", you hate so much instead of "greens" then you would not say "they were elected".
Do you have any idea who "Joschka" Fischer, the founder of the German "Green party" is?
He was a fucking terrorist, tied in with the Baader Meinhof group, aka the "Red Army Fraction" and was directly involved in the murder and assassinations this group carried out on behest of the East German Stasi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joschka_Fischer

In the Deutscher Herbst (German autumn) of 1977, Germany was rattled by a series of left-wing terrorist attacks by the Red Army Faction (RAF) and Revolutionary Cells (RZ). According to Fischer's own account, witnessing these events, particularly the kidnapping and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the Entebbe hijacking,[5][6] made him renounce violence as a means for political change. Instead, he became involved in the new social movements and later in the newly founded Green Party, mainly in the state of Hesse.

....and the only reason why he made it in politics instead of going to jail was that by then too many ex-communists like Merkel managed to USURP the Federal Republic of Germany after the "re-unification". I know that swine very well, because during that time I served with the BGS....and was given the opportunity to study Chem.Eng...which landed me in Canada.
That`s "Bundesgrenzschutz" if you want to Google it. What Google won`t tell you is how many of these terrorist swines we shot when we became the first federal police in post war west Germany.
You`ll only find it if you add GSG9 after the "BGS":
However by the time this list starts I was already in Canada doing less violent, but equally interesting things...because by then I was already "too old" for that stuff,...nevertheless my trigger finger still twitches when I come across assholes like the Joschka Fischers we have today.

• October 17–18, 1977: Lufthansa Flight 181 was hijacked by four Palestinian terrorists demanding the release of Red Army Faction members. GSG 9 officers stormed the aircraft on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, with help from the Somali Army and British SAS and freed all 86 hostages, killing three terrorists and capturing the last one.
• 1982: Arrest of RAF terrorists Mohnhaupt and Schulz.
• June 27, 1993: Arrest of RAF terrorists Birgit Hogefeld and Wolfgang Grams in Bad Kleinen. The theory that Wolfgang Grams was executed in revenge for the death of GSG 9 operative Michael Newrzella during the mission (Grams had shot and killed Newrzella when Newrzella tried to tackle him) was discredited by the official investigation which found that Grams committed suicide.
• 1993: Ending of the hijacking of a KLM flight from Tunis to Amsterdam, redirected to Düsseldorf, without firing a single shot.
• 1994: Ended a hostage situation in the Kassel Penitentiary.
• 1994: Involved in the search for the kidnappers Albert and Polak.
• 1998: Arrest of a man trying to extort money from the German railway company Deutsche Bahn.
• 1999: Arrest of Metin Kaplan in Cologne.
• 1999: Arrest of two suspected members of the Rote Zellen (Red Cells) in Berlin.
• 1999: Involved in ending the hostage situation in the central bank in Aachen.
• 2000: Advised the Philippines in relation to a hostage situation.
• 2001: Arrested two spies in Heidelberg.
• 2001: Assisted in the liberation of four German tourists in Egypt.
• 2002: Arrested a number of terrorists related to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
• 2003: Protection of the four members of the German Technisches Hilfswerk (THW - the governmental disaster relief organization of Germany) in Baghdad, Iraq. The THW's mission was to repair the water distribution network.
• 2004: GSG 9 is responsible for protecting German embassy property and personnel, including the embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. On April 7, 2004 two members were attacked and killed near Fallujah while in a convoy travelling from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad. The men, aged 25 and 38, were travelling in a car at the rear of the convoy, and therefore received most of the enemy fire after passing the ambush. The men were shot after their armoured Mitsubishi Pajero/Shogun was hit and stopped by RPGs. In a later statement, the attackers apologized for mistaking the German convoy for an American convoy. One of the bodies is still missing.
• 2007: Three suspected terrorists were seized on Tuesday, 4 September 2007 for planning huge bomb attacks on targets in Germany. The bombs they were planning to make would have had more explosive power than those used in the Madrid and London terror attacks.[7] They wanted to build a bomb in southern Germany capable of killing as many as possible. Fritz Gelowicz, 29, Adem Yilmaz, 29 and Daniel Schneider, 22, were charged with membership in a terrorist organization, making preparations for a crime involving explosives and, in Schneider's case, attempted murder.[8]
• 2009: The GSG 9 were on the verge of boarding a German freighter, the MV Hansa Stavanger, which had been hijacked by Somali pirates. The case of the Hansa Stavanger, at this time off the Somali coast seemed sufficiently symbolic to justify another potentially successful rescue operation, though on a much larger scale. More than 200 GSG 9, equipped with helicopters, speedboats and advanced weapons, had been secretly brought, via Kenya, to a location 80 kilometres (50 mi) from the German freighter. The United States Navy helicopter carrier USS Boxer (LHD-4) was lent to the Germans to act as their flagship, and a screen of German Navy warships flanked the Boxer.

Next thing you tell us Germans that you know more about us than we do!

Then again you are a troll and can`t help it....and always have something utterly stupid to say, no matter what the subject...

 

[gnarlylove]

polarbear, I really appreciated your descriptions. I don't doubt that current solar technology is lacking to provide the necessary 14 terawatts globally. I don't claim we should cease Fossil Fuels today. With that said, I think your info only bolsters the fact that we need to develop better technology for solar.

it's no doubt that as time passes, solar will become more efficient so that eventually we will capture excess photons and transfer them into stored electricity. I don't propose to know the mechanics, but it seems inevitable as long as its possible and I don't think storing electricity from photons is impossible. The point I'm making is let's go ahead and advance this source, along with the rest of renewables so with all sorts of energy sources we can reduce fossil fuel dependence significantly by using apropos sources of energy and effective transportation of stored electricity where possible. Just like their proposing to do with a natural gas pipeline through much of America...making it available throughout whether they live in a frack state or not.

 

[Abraham3]

The Green Party did not "usurp" power in Germany. They were elected.

They had 16.7 % of the vote...they were not elected...they got cabinet seats through a back-room deal with Angela Merkel behind closed doors, which is "usurping" by any standard !

Did they usurp the government at gunpoint or was it some form of blackmail?

Making a deal with Angela Merkel is not usurpation. One would presume she wanted the support of the 8.4% of Germans they represented - they 8.4% o fGermans who did VOTE for them. It sounds as if you're not crazy about the way your own government works (assuming you actually are a German citizen).

 

[skookerasbil]

I keep hearing in this thread about how the science is "settled". Well......the AGW crowd should take a bow.

Its having no impact in the real world. Green energy......relative to fossil fuels.......is stuck in the mud at about 3%-4% of energy production. Thats called losing........and in the EU, it is curently getting kick in the balls because its too fucking expensive.


Fuel Fix » Ten Reasons Why Coal Is Here to Stay


European Commission Move Away from Climate Protection Goals - SPIEGEL ONLINE

 

[ScienceRocks]

The fact that we global warmers have Obama restricting fossil fuels and funding renewables. Well, a partial victory.

 

[jon_berzerk]

The fact that we global warmers have Obama restricting fossil fuels and funding renewables. Well, a partial victory.

it is really --LOL

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The fact that we global warmers have Obama restricting fossil fuels and funding renewables. Well, a partial victory.

Yes, for liberals, wasting money is a victory.

That makes Obama the biggest winner in history.