Back To Berlin: Obama Should Take a Second Look at German Policies Wind

While running for president in 2008, then-Sen. Obama delivered a speech in Germany in which he urged the world to “look at Berlin” for inspiration to “save this planet” by curbing carbon dioxide emissions. Five years later, President Obama is returning to the country he once heralded as a model for the world, yet history has not played out as President Obama hoped.

Since 2008, Germany has seen dramatically higher electricity prices because of its massive subsidies for renewable energy. And despite Germany’s “green” rhetoric, the country is actually building a large amount of coal-fired electricity generation.

When candidate and later President Obama said that we should look at Berlin for energy policy advice, we listened. In 2009, the Institute for Energy Researched commissioned a study which found that Germany’s approach “failed to harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective introduction of renewable energies.” The study also discovered that German energy policies had driven up the price of electricity by nearly 20 percent.

READ MORE:  http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2013/06/19/back-to-berlin-obama-should-take-a-second-look-at-german-policies/