Wall Street Journal: German Government Running ‘World’s Dumbest Energy Policy’

The German language Epoch Times here reports how the entire editorial board at the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) commented how the German government under Angela Merkel was running the “world’s dumbest energy policy”.

“Devastating comment”

After having wasted billions of euros on renewable energies, saddling consumers with ultra high power prices, shutting down nuclear power plants, Germany has just decided to shut down its coal power plants by the year 2038.

The Journal writes on the move to exit coal:

Having wasted uncountable billions of euros on renewables and inflicted some of Europe’s highest energy prices on German households and businesses, now Berlin is promising to kill the one reliable power source Germany has left.”

The Epoch Times calls the Wall Street Journal commentary “a devastating comment on the conduct of political decision-makers in a country that is not geopolitically considered an explicit opponent of the US.”

Even exceeds Europe’s “stupid environmental policy”

The Epoch Times, along with the Wall Street Journal, also says that “although stupid environmental policy is routine throughout Europe, with reference to the fuel taxes of French President Emmanuel Macron, who had triggered the protests of the yellow vests, the looming German renunciation of coal, however, would easily exceed even this standard.”

Last reliable source will be shut down

“After the leadership in Berlin had already wasted countless billions of euros on renewable energies and had imposed the highest energy prices on European households and companies, Germany was now also offering the prospect of the end for the only reliable source of energy left to the country,” The Epoch Times wrote.

The Epoch Times also questions Berlin’s move with regards to pollution, writing that if the government complains that it is unduly polluting the environment, then it must ask itself why it had been “making the wrong political decisions for more than a decade” since it decided to burn more coal in lieu of the nuclear power plants which were shut down in 2011 in the wake of the Fukushima accident.

Green folly, dangerously dependent

And as Germany pushes to complete its Nord Stream 2 monster pipeline for delivering gas from Russia, the WSJ believes that Germany is dangerously making itself energy dependent on foreign countries.

Just the compensation that has to be paid to coal power plants operators for the early shutdown will cost consumers 40 billion euros, the Epoch Times writes.

The WSJ does not think Chancellor Merkel will come to her senses but hopes her successor Annegret Kramp Karrenbauer will. The WSJ adds:

Her successor will have the opportunity to name Ms Merkel’s green folly, and Germany’s troubled electricity customers should hope that this is the case.”

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