German Power Grid at ‘Edge of Capacity’ as Country Exits Nuclear

OK, so here's the $64,000 question which nobody seems to be asking but me. Economic activity and GDP growth in the human industrial paradigm is almost perfectly correlated with electrical power generation. Economies don't run, let alone grow, without juice. So, if the German economy is supposed to grow strongly enough to "rescue" Europe, how can it do that with much less electricity available? It's so obvious. And you see bankers know this very, very well. So the bankers are controlling the crash in their own way, to serve their own ends.. and killing everything else in the process.  - MCR

Bloomberg,

26 November, 2011

Germany’s power grid is nearing the “edge of its capacity” as the nation switches to renewable power because of the decision to exit nuclear generation, and after slow modernization of the network, the regulator said.

Seventy-three of 149 grid expansion projects are delayed, among them 12 of 24 deemed crucial by the government, the Bundesnetzagentur said in an e-mailed statement today. The switch to renewables such as wind power makes generation more erratic than nuclear plants because of shifts in the weather.

“Energy transformation can only work if grid modernization keeps up with the expansion of renewables,” Matthias Kurth, head of the regulator, said in the statement.

Chancellor Angela Merkel shut more than a quarter of German atomic capacity in March and seeks to complete an exit from the industry by 2022. The share of renewables will increase to at least 35 percent by 2020, from about 21 percent currently.

Germany needs new transmission lines and increased capacity for storing energy to stabilize the grid as wind turbines and solar panels are built. While the grid is “stable and safe,” operators have increasingly to intervene, Kurth said.