Bishop Hill Why?
Jul 31, 2014 Bureaucrats Greens Reuters is carrying a report that the German Environment Agency is trying to kill off any shale gas developments in that country. The bureaucrats lack the ability to put an outright ban in place, so the intention seems to be to apply a garotte of red tape to neck of the infant industry.
A spokeswoman for the environment ministry said draft laws on fracking would be presented to the cabinet after the summer break. She added that the rules laid out in the water protection law - the responsibility of the environment ministry - would mean that fracking would be ruled out in the foreseeable future.
Bizarrely though, the report notes that German gas companies have used fracked non-shale gas formations - so called "tight gas" - for decades without incident. And a recent moratorium on new tight gas licences is expected to be lifted at the same time as the shale industry is strangled.
I'm struggling to understand the apparent inconsitency.
Reader Comments (17)
Germany is a mass of contradictions. It will end badly.
And yet they are getting ready to clear-cut the Palatinate Forest for wind turbines.
Didn't Germany have a pretty good head-start on science, about 100 years ago? Seems like they threw it away somewhere down the line.
You are looking for consistency amongst Green thinking! Good luck!
Real Alice in Vunderlandt here.
"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”
Russia.
Why frack when you've still got a coal industry... and new power stations that will burn it.
Interesting this is a recipe for appeasing Russian interests, some points.
1. Germany will have to carry on relying on Russian gas.
2. Germany will lose support militarily from the US.
3. Many members of the Bundestag and German civil service still appear to be working for the Russians, my guess is the ones from the former DDR.
4. The green lobby has a lot of power in Germany, many Germans have obviously forgotten what the red army did in 1945.
5. Once enough Germans realise the deep sh*t they are actually in many people may finally wake up and go for regime change, but to what?
Interesting.
Far fetched?
I am not so sure.
I am often intrigued by German energy policy, which seems to leave it exposed to put it mildly. The green experiment gives too much energy when you don't need it and very little when you do. Nuclear has been abandoned owing to a tsunami 12,000 miles away and lignite welcomed despite its apparent greenhouse propensities. A certain Mr Putin was a KGB boss in Dresden and a certain Frau Merkel an eminent scientist there? I am not a conspiracy theorist usually, but to demand that your country remains shackled to foreign gas, when you might have your own supply seems bizarre in the extreme.
Why? Because gas gives CO2.
No further dexplanation needed.
You guys in Europe need to be rather cautious about Germany.
Mix together the Potsdam Institute, Deutsche Bank and Munich Re and you have 3 dangerous, wealthy groups. up to the years in activism
Examne the records, including criminal, of some of the major players and he alerted.
Have a read of the German New World Order stuff that such groups are sponsoring or executing.
Stir in the apparent irrationality of decisions mentioned above and you have a combustible mix.
Don't just dimiss it as weird green. It is institutionalised and in the breed.
Everyone should have a look at Indy web site this morning. Apparently, there is a secret deal between Merkel and Putin over Crimean gas. I blame Obama and the EU for their quiescence.
The EPA's of each country owe their allegiance to the UN and not to their own countries. The way the US EPA works is detailed here, including their close links with CRU:
"The United (Nations) States Environmental Protection Agency"
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/the_un_states_epa.html
Trefjon, Geoff Sherrington:
It may be of interest that the Potsdam Institute, founded by Schellnhuber in 1991, and formerly in East Germany, started life in the old Stasi building, I think they kept the propaganda manuals. Merkel was brought up in East Germany.
Schellnhuber has been Merkel's climate adviser for years. From 2001-2005, he was Research Director of the Tyndall Centre and Professor at the Environmental Sciences School of the University of East Anglia. From 2005 – 2009 he was Visiting Professor in Physics and Visiting Fellow of Christ Church College at Oxford University as well as Distinguished Science Advisor for the Tyndall Centre. Oxford is where the Environmental Change Institute resides, and where Myles Allen works. It was founded, again in 1991, when climate money started appearing big time, by Martin Parry, co-chair of WGII, AR4. Parry is Visiting Professor at The Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, and also Visiting Research Fellow at The Grantham Institute.
Schellnhuber has been on and off, Chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU); Chair of the Global Change Advisory Group for the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission, Member of the corresponding panel for FP7; Member of the Committee on Scientific Planning and Review of the International Council for Science (ICSU); Member of the Environment Steering Panel of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC); Member of the WEF Global Agenda Council on Climate Change.
He also happens to be a member of the Grantham Research Institute Advisory Board, where Nick Stern is chairman. In turn, Stern was, until recently, a member of the Potsdam Scientific Advisory Board. Brian Hoskins, head of the Imperial College Grantham Institute, is still on the Potsdam SAB, along with Ex WWF Jennifer Morgan, formerly at E3G, former advisor to Tony Blair and Schellnhuber and now at World Resources Institute where Al Gore is a director.
Schellnhuber is also on the Climate Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank, along with Lord Browne and Lord Oxburgh. Browne is also on the Grantham Board. A previous colleague on the Deutsche climate board was a certain Dr Pachauri.
I am surprised that Lord Browne hasn't been lobbying his German colleagues on fracking, as chairman of Cuadrilla, which is part owned by Riverstone Holdings, where Browne is a partner.
The leading people working in the Bundesumweltamt (BWA; Federal Environment Institute) were mainly recruited from the ministry of environment, who where either from the Green Party or where people in other parties who are sympathizing with green ideas. So it's no surprise the BWA is objecting fracking.
There was a much more friendly report on fracking from the Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (Federal Institute for Geological Science and Commodities), on which there was very few reporting. The majority of newspapers in German are nowadays nearly as green a The Guardian. A poll a few years ago showed that journalist in Germany are voting for the Green Party and the Labour counterpart SPD (who harmonises well with the Greens) at a much higher rate than the average German.
Many thanks, Geoff Sherrington - its far worse than I assumed if you are right. Puts Philby et al in the shade. The connection between the people mentioned and their influence on everything from the MSM to Education and central government is disturbing.
@Geoff Sherington @ Trefor Jones.
There's a very interesting essay on German Greenism at Quadrant.
It's a little highbrow (kultur) for me. I'm interested to hear what the cleverer people make of it.
"Why? Because gas gives CO2."
But apparently Russian gas doesn't, eh?
The Germans are very secretive about drilling ops. It's illegal to report all manner of details that are required to be made public in the UK.
As noted, they have been long-time pioneers of fracking for non-shale tight gas.
So the green mob is killing an industry over a technique used without incidence for over 50 years.
Big green is the enemy of human progress and health.