A study by the Washington-based "American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy" gave the gold medal to Germany as the most energy-efficient major economy. In general, Europe takes the best positions.
Surprisingly (at least for me), China achieves a good position in the ranking.
Not so surprisingly, the USA rank poorly, reaching 13th in 16, while Australia gets a warning for its inflexion in energy policies.
Mexico takes a shameful last place.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Germany is the Most Energy Efficient Major Economy
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 19 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 0) by lonestar on Friday July 25 2014, @02:13AM
Good a time as any, I reckon. :)
http://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ [youtu.be]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @04:04AM
wait, why? why did you make me click that? damn you
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @02:23AM
So much for the myth of efficient German sex.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 25 2014, @02:57AM
I wonder what metric may one use nowadays to measure the efficiency of sex...
Ummm... errr... fuck it, I give up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @03:07AM
You were close. It is :
Fuckit + fuckit / $ == I give up
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 25 2014, @03:12AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @04:10AM
Welcome to the 21st century, where Germans aren't procreating, and Mexicans are procreating. Good bye Germans, the future will be Mexican.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @10:17AM
It's not 1721. [wikipedia.org]
Humans no longer have to breed like rats to ensure the future of the species.
A baby-making pyramid scheme is a losing strategy.
China figured this out decades ago.
Apparently, India and the like are going to have to suffer starvation before they do.
Geometric growth in anything is not sustainable.
...and an enormously successful industrial power has nothing to worry about from a nation of subsistence farmers (who would rather to be in El Norte because they can't compete with subsidized US crops).
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday July 25 2014, @07:21AM
Well, sex consumes energy and is therefore best avoided. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Friday July 25 2014, @09:39AM
If you watch German porn, you understand why. Not many of the activities going on can result in pregnancies...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @03:24PM
They had to figure out other methods of population control besides rounding everyone up into camps and gassing them. German efficiency indeed.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Friday July 25 2014, @03:05AM
Anyway, here's the closest access point to the report [aceee.org] - the executive summary is free, report free as well but requires registration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by subs on Friday July 25 2014, @10:17AM
Why even report on articles without sources and just claims? We can't check the study and its methods, whether they're sound and properly applied. Besides, "energy efficiency" is about as nebulous a term as they come in. Why did France, for example, take the 4th place, when their CO2 emissions per capita [worldbank.org] are 50% of that of Germany [worldbank.org], they have a strong modern economy [wikipedia.org] and their CO2 emissions per kWh are about 80% lower than Germany's [iea.org] (see page 110), i.e. France's CO2/kWh is already in the year 2050 - enjoy playing catch-up, Germany.
I guess implying that nuclear is an environmentally friendly technology and the fastest way to decarbonization isn't an acceptable fact in the modern environmental movement, so facts be damned, we somehow gotta make Germany with its megatons of renewable horseshit appear to be the winner.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Friday July 25 2014, @12:42PM
Germany is the winner: you are just conveniently ignoring the entire article.
It is about efficiency. So Germans need less energy than the french to do the same things.
Where the energy came from and how much CO2 was produced is completly irrelevant to this ranking.
So the French got a 4th place for the right reason: they are wasting energy. The fact that they are wasting clean energy does not matter.
Even worse: If the french had not wasted it themselves they could have supplied more to the Germans. (They already exchange a lot of electricity) That would have resulted in lower CO2 emmissions for the Germans, which seems to be what you were concerned about in the first place.
(Score: 2, Informative) by subs on Saturday July 26 2014, @01:53AM
Germany is the winner: you are just conveniently ignoring the entire article.
The article summarizes some paper that isn't available without subscription.
It is about efficiency. So Germans need less energy than the french to do the same things.
Sources? Even adjusted for GDP per capita [wikipedia.org] French CO2 emissions per capita (6.39t) are ~30% lower [worldbank.org] than German (9.1t). Ok, so it's resource usage, so we'll examine that:
You know, reality is that thing that when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Even worse: If the french had not wasted it themselves they could have supplied more to the Germans. (They already exchange a lot of electricity) That would have resulted in lower CO2 emmissions for the Germans, which seems to be what you were concerned about in the first place.
The electricity grid doesn't work that way. France is admittedly exporting lots of energy already [templar.co.uk] and some of it to Germany as well, however, there were times when German renewable production pushed electricity prices into negative values [energytransition.de] on the exchanges and since German grid operators are required by law to take it before anything else [theenergycollective.com], they were effectively paying their neighbors to burn up their excess production (mostly from home solar). What a fantastic system! If you're a German neighbor, that is, not so much if your a German resident and are paying for this scam on the German people.
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Saturday July 26 2014, @12:29PM
My source:
1. Follow the link in the article
2. Read the linked page and click on link to report
3. Click on summary or full article link
Yes, you need to register, but there are no costs involved. (and the registration page does not even seem to check the email address).
It took me a few minutes to get the full 104 page report.
(Score: 1) by subs on Saturday July 26 2014, @01:37PM
Oh cool, thanks, didn't realize that I could punch in random nonsense and get the report. I thus retract my statement on the report not being available - it is, if you're willing to jump through the hoops. I've gotten used to reading stuff on arxiv.org where the reports are but a click away.
I still stand by my criticism of the reports conclusions and cite two examples in the report:
1) right in the introduction on page 2 it shows raw data on the energy use, population and GDP of countries. Dividing 1000 tonnes of oil equivalent energy use by GDP we see that both Germany's 64438 x 1000 tonnes of oil equivalent per trillion of GDP produced is higher than France's (58315), Japan's (52763), Australia's (50880), UK's (51134), so for all intents and purposes, Germany is less efficient at turning energy into products.
2) After that on page 3 the report gives a table by how they assigned points, with points awarded for "Mandatory energy-savings goals" and "Water efficiency policy". This is basically about whether a country has enacted policies the authors of the report liked and considered efficient, not on whether these actually result in measurable gains in energy efficiency. This is greenwashing, not real data analysis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @04:36PM
Let me guess ... you are French?
(Score: 1) by subs on Saturday July 26 2014, @01:23AM
Nope.