Stupidness

This is going to be a rant involving things that some people might imagine are political in nature (though I don't really), and if you didn't already know about my liberal leanings, you know about them now.

I just heard on the news that Germany cut back its subsidy program for solar power because the government introduced incentives and everyone got solar panels to put on their roofs (which, according to my environmental engineer of a brother-in-law, is not the best place to put them, due to their heavy weight and inconvenience when roof repairs are necessary) and yards. Last year they made twice as much electricity as the country needed, so now they have to cut back. Twice as much. Which means they have two times more than the amount of electricity from solar panels that the entire country needs, and absolutely none of it is dependent on foreign oil or coal, and absolutely all of it was from a renewable resource. I guess they still have a nuclear power plant, or maybe two. Those aren't awesome, and frankly, make me extremely nervous. But I mean, come on, US. We are falling behind, and this is ridiculous. We could absolutely be powering our country with solar and wind energy by now. We're like 20 times the size of Germany! We've got 20 times the amount of space! We could be independent of foreign oil and coal. We could be building a nationwide transit system with electric trains and cars. I'm pretty sure that industry would create a lot of jobs as well. In case you were interested.

What in the world, US. Get it together!


Comments

  1. BethaneyOctober 16, 2012 at 7:00 AM

    Yep. We should be more independent. I am not sure if the government could subsidize much right now, with the deficits it has. And if the USA is 20 times bigger, they would be paying 20 times as much as Germany did to accomplish the same thing--like if Government was giving people $2,000 to get solar panels. However, this seems more worthwhile than some other programs out there....

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