Germany’s Unique Path

It’s an extremely frustrating and thankless task trying to explain the German energy transition program. Whether they’re Republicans or Democrats in the United States, one runs into a wall of incomprehension. To a great degree, this is due to the dissemination of incorrect information that can be largely blamed on the media.

The first distortion is that Germany’s transition to renewable sources of energy is due to a gigantic government program: A vision dreamed up in the central halls of the federal government and financed by incomprehensible amounts of tax monies and seamlessly implemented into reality by a single government agency.

Americans tend to envision energy transition as being similar to how the U.S. solar industry is financed, only on a far grander scale. According to this belief, energy transition is a publicly financed colossus doomed to failure, just as happened to the U.S. solar company Solyndra.

This mistaken notion permeates the entire political spectrum, especially when it fits so well with the philosophies held by the anti-government far right wing. But even some moderate voices make the mistake of falling into this fear-mongering trap. People ask me, Angela Merkel has to cut back on the transition to alternative energy because of the problems with the euro, right? Or they tell me that German taxpayers will soon start objecting to funding wind turbines and solar installations.

A Horrifying Monster

I regularly try to explain to them that the impetus toward alternative energy sources originates from a broad mass movement from individual investors, farmers, local cooperatives, small and medium-sized businesses that have been working together for over a decade. I explain that local governments are just as involved as the federal government; that the feed-in tariff isn’t a government subsidy; that governments share in the profits of the renewable energy industry; that it would be far too great an undertaking to try to do away with it.

The second great misunderstanding is that some pie-in-the-sky Green optimism is the basis for the program. In other words, a bunch of ecology freaks invented this cloud-cuckoo land where wishful thinking replaces reality. An acquaintance of mine, a New York editor, recently expressed her doubts and said she thought I had become the victim of a load of ideology. When I told a former editor acquaintance on the west coast about Germany’s energy transition, she said she thought the idea might be of interest among some in the American Green Party.

A Moral Crusade

Such comments emanate from a perception that energy transition primarily represents a moral crusade. Then I tell them that Germany’s energy transition program has thus far resulted in the creation of 380,000 new jobs. I also tell them that ultra-conservative Bavarian farmers are putting solar panels on their barns — not because they’re muesli-munching Petra Kellys (many Americans still remember her), but because they’re making a ton of money doing it. Many of those I tell just shake their heads. Profit is the goal of — and the driving force behind — our energy transition. One would think that would be popular in a nation that reveres the free market system.

The third red herring stems from cliches about today’s Germans: They were so traumatized by World War II that they’re now prone to panic attacks over everything. “Panic” is the word used on websites and in the U.S. media to describe Angela Merkel’s nuclear power about-face in the wake of Fukushima. It’s been described as a “panic attack,” as “irrational” and a “knee-jerk response.” Not even the fact that Angela Merkel is a physicist makes any difference. The fearful Germans are described as “special cases” and their solutions not worthy of emulation by anyone, either in the past or the present.

And finally, the question of nuclear power is decisive. Even American liberals — including the Obama administration — tend to be pro-nuclear power, especially by those who consider global warming to be a significant problem. Obama’s flip-flopping on nuclear energy (he was anti-nuke in the past) has resulted in strengthening the pro-nuclear faction among liberals.

Meanwhile, Obama has tripled the amount of federal loan assistance for the construction of a new generation of “safe, clean nuclear power plants” across America. Obama also has a physicist in his administration, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, an energetic proponent of nuclear energy who remarked, “If you look at the difference between a coal plant down the river and a nuclear power plant, personally I’d rather be living near a nuclear power plant.”

Nuclear Power for the Climate

Where does that belief originate? It might have started with the close cooperation between the Obama administration and the Chicago energy provider Exelon, owner of 17 nuclear power plants. And Chu is the former director of a U.S. government nuclear research facility in California But a far more likely explanation for Obama’s pro-nuclear position would be that it stems from a deal he struck with Republicans in 2009 with the aim of supporting measures to combat global warming. In other words, approval of nuclear power and support for the petroleum industry rather than negotiating stricter emission standards.

While the Republicans didn’t stick to their part of the bargain at all, Obama did stick to his. Sascha Miller-Kraenner, Senior Policy Adviser and European representative to The Nature Conservancy, said that some U.S. environmentalists believe nuclear energy is the bitter pill they have to swallow in order to make progress on the problem of climate change.

The German energy transition program is a complex and unique undertaking, but it’s not all that complicated to explain. Everyone involved in explaining it to the rest of the world — whether journalists, government officials or the renewable energy industry — must do a more comprehensive job of imparting the information in plain, easy-to-understand language.