German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.
I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?
German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.
I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?
Cmon Germany I wanna root for you so bad because of your pro-consumer laws but blunders like this and the nuke plants keep making it so damn hard.
Don’t those actually come from the EU?
They’re implemented on the EU level but Germany isn’t exactly unknown for pushing for them. The EP also likes to do it, the commission has more an eye on competition, sometimes those things overlap e.g. pushing train operators to finally implement a unified ticket shop (buying a trip from a single provider, even if the trains are run by different ones, has the consumer benefit that if a train is delayed and you miss a connection you can then take pretty much whatever train to reach your goal. And from the commission’s perspective they want train operators to compete, but not by building walled gardens)
As far as Germany specifically, I think one I heard about ISPs being required to discount customers who fall victim to low bandwidth. In other words, they can’t sell you a 50mb/s contract and then say “sorry, bandwidth is bad here so you will only get 20mb/s.”
Yeah, little online test about it, too, but in the end even that took years and there isn’t really any feasible way to get what you want other than suing the company
The contract for RWE to expand the mine there goes back decades and the wind farm operator knew it would be demolished before they build it. It’s at the end of its life cycle now and had to be demolished one way or another.
German government could either breach their contract with RWE and pay them compensation or allow the destruction of a derelict wind park in exchange of RWE stopping coal extraction 8 years earlier then planned. It’s a job well done by the government.
They are the Government, they can just shut down coal immediately by law. Make all coal extraction immediately illegal, sue RWE for climate destruction, throw the executives in jail. Save the planet.
Is that legal? I’ll tell you the answer, it’s not. They would need to pay massive payouts to RWE for breach of contract. What you’re describing is rule of emotion, not rule of law.
Oh it’s absolutely possible to do it legally in Germany: Land, natural resources and means of productions can be socialised without even having to show that it’s for the common good, and compensation wouldn’t be what RWE is hoping for as the amount will not only take their interests into account but also that of the public. Article 15 GG.
But that article has never been used and I indeed would very much prefer if the first time it’s used it’s expropriating landlords in Berlin.
Another interesting approach would be to take Article 14 (2) seriously and demand that RWE buys carbon credits for every single ton of coal they pull out of there. Sure it’s their coal noone is disputing that but using it comes with an obligation to not hurt, if not serve, the common good.
You’re disregarding Art.15 III GG then. Particularly Art. 15 III s. 2,3 GG (of the German version), which regulate reimbursement in the case of nationalisation. Which, again, make it a fairly difficult thing to do. Especially as we all know that Art. 20a GG, which is the only logical argument to base this all on, is just a way of getting out of actually doing something. Pretty much everyone has agreed that it means nothing except for a vague sense of ‘direction’.
As for your last point, that could just as easily be interpreted as the energy they produce being in the service of energy production for the entire country, as well as ensuring that coal miners continue to have a job. If that’s not a socially beneficial use of coal reserves, not sure what to tell you. Energy self sufficiency is important.
As for your landlord comment, which honestly is an entirely different matter in and of itself, that basically won’t fall under ‘land, natural resources or means of production’, unless one of those Berlin judges decides to do Berlin things.
EDIT (because I forgot the context of what I was replying to)
None of this even takes into account that what the guy above me wrote was about simply ‘shutting down coal’ tomorrow. Which is a very different thing from taking public ownership, and then running the business into the ground overnight.
Which is to be equitable between the interest of the owners and society. That is, in a nutshell, below market value.
Yeah no that’s not how externalities work. They’re creating damage with that coal, even to break even it has to be curbed in some way, much less for them to do good. If you want to mount that defence don’t create externalities.
For those big landlords those apartments are means of production of rent. Wouldn’t work for smaller investors or even private abodes but we’re talking about companies with 2000+ (IIRC) apartments, here.
It’s legal if the Government of Germany makes it legal, and as other posters have pointed out, there are already ways that it could be done legally. Stop supporting fossil fuels.
Bro, the last 3 nuclear power plant in Germany have already been shut down in April… You been to France yet?