Steffen Kotré
Withdrawal from Coal. Electricity Price.
German Bundestag, January 31, 2020,
Plenarprotokoll 19/144, pp. 17988-17990
[Steffen Kotré is an Alternative für Deutschland
Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Brandenburg. He is an engineer. He here introduces
an AfD motion opposing the German government’s policy of ending coal production
in Germany.]
Many thanks for the floor.
Right honorable Herr President. Right
honorable ladies and gentlemen.
I see yet again no minister on the government
bench.
(Federal
minster Christine Lambrecht waves from the government bench)
Ach so, excuse me. I take it back. To the theme.
Welcome to Madhouse Germany! Nonsense reigns
in our country. With the coal withdrawal, the government damages its own economy;
approximately 100 to 150 billion euros will be taken from the citizens’ pockets
in the form of tax money and the price of electricity. That alone is already
nonsense, but is also nonsense in that there is no basis for it and the specific
aim in view cannot be attained.
After the withdrawal from nuclear energy, the
Federal government now wishes to withdraw from a second domestic and valuable
source of energy. They wish to destroy half the assured electricity production,
half the assured output, 43 gigawatts, without an assured replacement. That
means that soon we will not have a sufficient supply of electricity. The
consequences will be devastating, ladies and gentlemen.
The withdrawal from coal is the product of an
infantile policy; over-hasty, guided by impulse, and without understanding. It
is without foundation; it is in regards its intended purpose completely
inappropriate; it is un-social and dangerous, ladies and gentlemen. The German
coal CO2 portion of world-wide emissions is 0.6 percent and is thus negligible.
It is doubtful whether a reduction can practically effect a decrease in the
rise of temperature. The climate model can indeed at not point apprehend or
clarify the past climate.
The withdrawal from coal is therefore insupportable
and contributes nothing to achieving its stated goals. It will however
contribute to the un-social, further increase in the price of electricity: 30
cents per kilowatt-hour per household is the world’s highest. Hearty
congratulations, Frau Merkel, on this position! In that regard, there is in the
CDU/CSU government program for 2005 to 2009, I cite:
Almost nowhere in
Europe is energy so expensive as in Gemany. That is the result of an
ideological policy.
Thus, ladies and gentlemen of the CDU/CSU,
expensive electricity and the energy transformation are an ideological policy. You
have acknowledged that. Yet today you yourselves implement this ideological
policy! Under your government, the price of electricity has increased an
additional 50 percent. Please make a note of this figure! Besides, you should
in any case stop in and rummage through your older programs.
Sylvia
Kotting-Uhl (Greens): You are still in favor of the old programs!
One or two of these may still be correct.
Frank Passemann
(AfD): They have long since forgotten that!
Please do that sometime.
The un-social policy disproportionately
burdens those of low income and damages the German economy. A citation from the
Bavarian chemical association:
It – that is, the
price of electricity – must be reduced. Otherwise, internationally competitive
production in Germany will soon no longer be possible…The reinvestment quotient
of the energy intensive industry in Germany already in the year 2000 was less
than the write-off…A creeping de-industrialization is already for years underway
here
Or take Wacker Chemical, one of the largest
of electricity consumers. I cite:
The question of a
more secure, of a before all interference-free electricity supply on a large
scale and at competitive prices, emerges as an immediate, existential concern
And a re-location of production to the USA is
being considered.
Please once again make a note…The withdrawal
from coal plus the energy transformation equals de-industrialization and loss of prosperity.
The transfer network manager predicts for
2021 a shortfall in output of 5.5 gigawatts. It remains completely unclear as
to how this gap can be closed. There is no strategy, no concept. At times of
peak output, we will not be able to draw from foreign countries, since then
there also the capacity is reached. Gas power plants are too expensive, must be
subsidized and are available at the earliest in ten years. The costs will be
distributed to the citizens. Costs without end, ladies and gentlemen.
The unstable electricity from renewables does
not have a guaranteed performance; that is to say, one cannot proceed on the
basis that it will be available at a given point in time: The wind does not
always blow, the nights are dark and electricity cannot be stored for
industrial purposes. Technologies like hydrogen or fuel cells are not
competitive. Fuel cell technology has been around for 180 years and it will be
here in the future to serve us. Yet were it the future, it would have long since
have been put to use. But it plainly is not because it is not competitive.
The electricity supply is becoming more
insecure, the network outages more frequent and longer. Energy intensive
businesses can no longer rely 100 percent on the electricity supply.
Electricity is becoming a scarcity good, the German energy policy a socialist,
scarcity economy, ladies and gentlemen. And what can happen during an area-wide
electricity outage can be read of in the 2011 report of the Committee for
Education, Research and Technology Assessment: After a few days, there can be
the first deaths.
The Renewable Energy Law – we can remind
ourselves – is a planned economy law, leading to exemptions. Industrial firms
and such which export are partially exempted from the EEG assessment. And so
non-exporting firms, such as the manual labor [Handwerk] bakeries, must pay the EEG assessment while exporting,
industrial firms, with the same goods and the same customer base, do not.
Bakery goods of the exempted industrial firms – to stay with the example – can thus
be offered at a lower price than those of the manual labor firms. And that,
ladies and gentlemen, is the state-ordered distortion of competition.
Yet one word on nuclear energy. We should put
aside the poisoned and ideological discussions and the left-green disaster
fantasies and test and develop new concepts for new reactors. Part of the CDU
is also for that. It is to be thereby noted that the worst examples of
Fukushima and Tschernobyl cannot happen here –
Gesine
Lötzsch (Linke): That is what was earlier thought!
– and
the disposal site problem is on the way to being solved.
Joseph Weingarten (SPD): Which
solution?
Even for the CO2 fantasists is that indeed
the right way.
It is thus high time for a policy change in
Germany. No more planned economy, socialist experiments around here! Back to a healthy,
human sensibility and an ethic of responsibility.
Many thanks.
[Translated
by Todd Martin]
