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In 2013, energy was 4 times cheaper in the United States than in Europe, and 6 times cheaper than in Germany.

Using current EUR/USD conversion rates and cents/KWh

Industry Retail Nov 2012 (including taxes):
* Germany: 15
* US Avg: 6.53

Residential Retail Nov 2012 (including taxes):
* Germany: 35
* US Avg: 11.74

If you wander why the German residential electricity is so high, it is because they pay a massive 20.50 EUR/MWh or 27 cents/KWh in taxes.

Seriously, nowhere have I been able to find the how electricity would be 6 times more expensive in Germany than in the US, even with taxes applied the difference is only 2.5-3 times. Without taxes, it is less than 2 times.

Ref:
http://www.energy.eu/
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a
http://www.eurelectric.org/media/60787/taxes_and_levies_on_electricity_2011_-_final-2012-560-0006-01-e.pdf

You made references as if I was in Europe. I'm not. Read the first two letters of my name, or my sig for a better hint of where I am.

Heh, talk about coincidence- I'm in Fairbanks. In any case, I didn't want to make any allegations. As far as I knew you had an unhealthy obsession with Harry Potter, or 'AK' were your initials. I normally pay no real attention to sigs.

After that, let me let you in on a little secret. I'd bet there are more PV panels per capita in Alaska than Nevada.

I know of 2 installs here in Fairbanks. I'm willing to bet there's a lot more down in Nevada, even per capita, though the remoteness and low population density which makes our electricity bloody expensive makes PV attractive here, at least in the summer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consumption The EU has more population and lower oil consumption. Thus savings measures will have a greater effect in the USA than Europe. Thus, EVs *should* be adopted in the US before Europe.

You live in Alaska and you don't know that there are more uses for oil than simply burning it in automobiles? I use approximately equal measures in my truck and house! If I had a family and the house was occupied more I'd be seriously looking at wood.

In any case:
Fewer cars? False. Though if you include 'all' 4+ wheel vehicles, we take the lead again(though it's still around 75% as many vehicles per capita).
Fewer miles? 14k km(9k miles), vs ~15k miles, though latest DOT is closer to 13k. So about 50% more. Your earlier assumption of 8k km was therefore only slightly above HALF of what the statistics actually say about average driving over in Europe, and is still less than if you misstated and meant miles. Plus Americans are driving less as well.
Better Economy: True, but I never disagreed with you there. On average, US vehicles use 32% more fuel. Still, Europe averaged €1.59/liter vs USA's $3.85. A US gallon is 3.79L, And 1 Euro =$1.28. Making European gas $7.71/gallon. Adjusting for the average superior mileage of European vehicles, they're still falling behind at $5.84/gallon equivalent. Raise prices that much and Americans drive less.

Again: My statement was merely trying to state that EV adoption should be quicker over in Europe.

1, The battery is the single thing that drives the cost of an EV higher than a traditional gasoline vehicle.
2. An EV driven less doesn't need as large of a battery.
3. A denser average population also means that potential charge points are also more common.
4. The cost of fuel is far higher in Europe

Conclusion: Small EVs should be quite popular over there(if they were 'almost' economical in the USA), but they're not, so they're not really that close yet.

Most of the land in Alaska has no access to any utilities at all.

True; though if you want water it's more 'dig a well' or 'drive into town once a week/month to fill up a big tank in the back of your truck' and most of our population IS collected around population centers where utilities(at least electricity) is available.

Still, just to fact check:
Alaska: .1 MWp. 723k people, .00014 MWp/person. Only 10 registered installs?.

You apparently did not do the actual maths.

Electric: 0.09 euro/kWh, or about 0.025 euro/MJ
Gasoline: 1.5 euro/liter, or about 0.047 euro/MJ

In other words, the energy for electric costs half that of gasoline, and that's still excluding the much higher efficiency of the electric car. Per driven kilometer, it is even more extreme.

If you don't like electric for it's limited range and slow charging times, sure. But despite the expensive batteries, it's getting damn close to the gsaoline cars.

Your numbers are suspect. Here are the actual figures for electric cost:

Austria 0.18 euro/kWh
Belgium 0.19
Denmark 0.26
France 0.13
Germany 0.24
Italy 0.25
Netherlands 0.24
Spain 0.18
Sweden 0.18
UK 0.13

I didn't consciously cherry pick those numbers, and Estonia and Bulgaria are the only ones I see under 0.10. I'd say the true figure is at least twice what you claim, wiping out your supposed cost advantage.

Germany is not phasing out nuclear power. They will need to import power in the short- and medium-term from France and England, both of which are nuclear-heavy (particularly France). Germany will still use nuclear-generated electricity; they're just playing a "not in my back yard" game. And by "they", I mean politicians which are pandering to their electorate to try to keep in power.

Off course they will continue to im- and export electricity to neighbouring countries depending on the day. That's how the electricity market works. France's nuclear reactor for example tend to produce far to little electricity during the hottest part of the summer since they are mostly dependent on river water for cooling. Looking at the total energy consumption and production over the course of a year however Germany has a large electricity surplus. In 2009 this was 54.1 TWh (592.6 produced vs. 538.5 consumed)

As a matter of fact, the seven oldest nuclear plants can be shutdown without any problems immediately (which is what happened) since there is a significant production surplus. Even without the other nuclear power plants and all wind and solar power Germany still has enough production capacity to meet it's highest consumption moment so far. In practice that moment is always during the afternoon when you are guaranteed at least a quarter of installed solar power plus some of the wind power (since it's distributed across the fairly large country).

Long-term, they are putting themselves at the mercy of Russia. The NordStream natural gas pipeline will eventually be providing fuel, which can and will be used as a political lever (Russia has successfully done so several times in the past to strong-arm NATO over membership for the Ukraine and Georgia).

However, unlike the Ukraine and Georgia Germany has other sources of Gas (the Netherlands and Norway) and significant storage capacity.

Also, natural gas is a fossil fuel just like oil, and if the CO2 boogeyman is still the boogeyman, well... how does that not cause problems? On a per-megawatt basis, nuclear power remains much cheaper than natural gas, and a full decimal order of magnitude cheaper than solar (recall how far north Germany is. That's a problem for solar.) Switching from nuclear power to natural gas is not a step forward, economically, politically, ecologically

The difference is that gas can be put into service (or out) much faster than nuclear. Itâ(TM)s a much better partner for intermittent renewables (Which is what Germany is going for to replace the nuclear power plants). And while existing nuclear electricity is indeed very cheap (because the massive investment cost have already been depreciated and because the producers donâ(TM)t have to pay for decommissioning). New nuclear power is a lot more expensive, doubly so after Fukushima. Building one on spec (that is, without public financial guarantees and/or investment)to be finished in 2018 is already more expensive than some of the feed in tariffs paid in Germany for solar now. Most wind is already cheaper than any kind nuclear plant that still has to be built. And solar is expected to continue getting cheaper (the price of photovoltaic installations in Germany has halved in the last five years thanks to economy of scale and technological improvements)

This is just another example of politicians doing long-term harm for short-term political dominance.

Well, the nuclear fase out plan in Germany has been on the books for years. Itâ(TM)s was only in the last y

Germany produces 35% more electricity than it consumes, it is a electricity exporter in Europe.

Source? Also, if it's exporting less electricity, that implies that other countries are having to generate more electricity because they're not buying it from you, and that implies burning more NG and/or Coal.

By the way, I pay 20 cents/kWh and I'm with a utility that uses renewables exclusively. I don't know where the source in Wikipedia got their numbers from.

Well, good for you on the renewable electricity. Germany also has some of the highest renewable power subsidies going, so it's probable that a lot of your electricity cost is being subsidized by your government. - requiring utilities to buy solar at 62 cents a kwh, for example.

As for the wikipedia article, I should have mentioned that the costs in the wikipedia article are in US Cents. As 1 Euro is currently $1.42 USD, that makes your .20 EU into .28 USD, or a smidge under the quoted rate, easily explained by variances in the exchange rate from the 2009 sample. The source is right in the table, even. Going to the source gives an average of .22-.24 EU a kwh for residentials for Jan 2011.

Portugal only generates 17% of the electricity it uses: http://energy.eu/#dependency So actually the 45% renewables is 45% of that 17%. Which is really, what, 8% of Portugal's consumed electricity?

Actually, if you look at the source you'll see that those figures are for total energy consumption inclusing oil and gas. Looking at electricity only the CIA worldfactbook states that Portugal generates 91% of the electricity it uses (well in 2007 anyway). And of course the introduction of electric cars would up the overal figure as well.

Portugal only generates 17% of the electricity it uses: http://energy.eu/#dependency So actually the 45% renewables is 45% of that 17%. Which is really, what, 8% of Portugal's consumed electricity? The rest they buy from their EU neighbours, probably mostly from France who export 49% of their generated power, since Spain don't really output enough and presumable wouldn't *only* sell to Portugal (see same table). I'm not saying the Portuguese energy department (whatever it's called) doesn't try to buy renewable energy from the EU grid, but I don't think they practically could buy enough from their neighbours to reach 45% renewables *consumed*, which is what really matters - especially in a country with such a high energy dependency. And Portugal is a hot country. I live in the south of France and used to live in the UK and I know how much lower my energy needs are here because I pay the bills! It's easier to use less energy in a country where you don't really need to heat yourself at any time of the year. Not to be all doom and gloom, this is a political stunt, but if you want a real success story look at Denmark. Net energy exporter (over 35% more power generated than needed by the country) and 30% of the energy it generates is from renewables: http://energy.eu/#renewable And they want to do better. Now that *is* impressive. If they weren't exporting so much energy then more than 50% of their consumed power would be renewable (though I guess the exports pay for a lot of the investment in renewables).

Portugal only generates 17% of the electricity it uses: http://energy.eu/#dependency So actually the 45% renewables is 45% of that 17%. Which is really, what, 8% of Portugal's consumed electricity? The rest they buy from their EU neighbours, probably mostly from France who export 49% of their generated power, since Spain don't really output enough and presumable wouldn't *only* sell to Portugal (see same table). I'm not saying the Portuguese energy department (whatever it's called) doesn't try to buy renewable energy from the EU grid, but I don't think they practically could buy enough from their neighbours to reach 45% renewables *consumed*, which is what really matters - especially in a country with such a high energy dependency. And Portugal is a hot country. I live in the south of France and used to live in the UK and I know how much lower my energy needs are here because I pay the bills! It's easier to use less energy in a country where you don't really need to heat yourself at any time of the year. Not to be all doom and gloom, this is a political stunt, but if you want a real success story look at Denmark. Net energy exporter (over 35% more power generated than needed by the country) and 30% of the energy it generates is from renewables: http://energy.eu/#renewable And they want to do better. Now that *is* impressive. If they weren't exporting so much energy then more than 50% of their consumed power would be renewable (though I guess the exports pay for a lot of the investment in renewables).

When did I say outsurcing is GOOD for the US? You just need to face the truth: whereas it's NOT good for the US, it's only expected for companies to seek lower costs elsewhere. Forcing them to come back to US will actually force them to move away altogether.
Gas prices in Europe: http://www.energy.eu/#prices

You want to look at price per kwh. According to this overview, average price per kwh in The Netherlands is 0.28 per kwh. The Skystream is the most efficient generator per kwh at 5.09 EUR.

Without discounting to present value or accounting for inflation or other possible future taxes, you need 18 years of flawless operation to break even.

They are pretty bad for the wind level where the test was done. Expensive electricity in Europe costs about €0.25, so €10,000 goes an awful long way. Even at the €0.318 quoted for Denmark, the €10,000 goes pretty far.

I certainly am not going to run out and buy something that barely pays for itself in 15 years (and that is without accounting for interest and maintenance...).

(Price quotes from here: http://www.energy.eu/#domestic )

In Europe there is currently an wind energy revolution going on. Germany has increased its use of Wind energy in 2006 by 26%! This is a huge example that deserves following by other nations.