Slashdot Mirror
Germany Sets New Solar Power Record
An anonymous reader sends this quote from a Reuters report:
"German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour — equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity — through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank said. The German government decided to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, closing eight plants immediately and shutting down the remaining nine by 2022. ... The record-breaking amount of solar power shows one of the world's leading industrial nations was able to meet a third of its electricity needs on a work day, Friday, and nearly half on Saturday when factories and offices were closed."
As opposed to US politics, there is a consensus in German politics. Namely that politics is for the benefit of the people and society. Business is a part of that society, not the other way around.
No, it is not that. It is just that Americans have a strong commitment to freedom, while certain European countries
sacrifice freedom in order to reach a higher (by material standards and measured by HDI) standard of living.
That is why homeschooling is generally legal in America, while in Germany there is a Nazi-era law
that persecutes homeschoolers as if they were rapists. In Germany, the freedom to teach one's own
child is less important than the benefit of having ideological uniformity in the nation, making for a stronger
society. Another example is "hate speech" legislation that makes politically incorrect ideas verboten.
Yet another example is the excessive tax burden of Scandinavian countries, which amounts to
a violation of property rights.
Even if the USA didn't have the world's fourth highest HDI (behind only the Netherlands, Australia and Norway),
and the world's most advanced science/technology, it would still be the best place to live due to political decentralisation
(state's rights) and a strong liberty-protecting Constitution (specially the First Amendment).
Freedom trumps all.
(posting again because some dishonest moderator moded my original post down)