Coal Story

I sat and watched last night a German news piece off ARD (Channel One).  The topic of this three to four minute piece....the end of the coal era in Germany (set by the government (CDU and SPD cooperating) to the period of 2038).   This is in some way an effort to 'SAVE' Germany.  Folks within the environmental cause feel awful proud that the coal industry is to die off.

But there are some issues.

Some folks within the right-of-center group (the CDU, Merkel's party) have been reading over the coal commission ideas to help the area (NW Germany) affected.   In their mind, the proposals are mostly a flush of billions (of Euro) into a pit, with limited to marginal payback. 

It would appear that a pretty fair number of CDU Party members (maybe up to half of them) just don't believe  in the coalition plans to shut down the coal industry.  The accompanying idea of tax revenue being flipped around to create some alternate industry and jobs market?  It's almost laughed at.  You can probably use eastern Germany as an example here.....where tens of billions have flowed in and simply not created jobs. 

Adding to this mess....there's speculation of electricity costs for the public going up after the coal-fired plants shut down. Some folks are already calculating that electrical production will simply shift out of Germany.....to some neighboring state where they will have coal plants, and sell power at hefty prices back to the Germans. 

Right now on the books.....there's forty billion Euro set to flow into the coal regions.  Some of the plans for use of the money?  Faster internet, new rail infrastructure, research institutes.  Will it equal new jobs?  Unknown. 

The odds that this coal shutdown will be stopped?  I'd suggest right now....zero chance.  Where does the forty billion Euro come from?  Best not to answer that (more taxation).  The odds of Germans buying coal-produced electricity from Poland, Czech or Hungary?  I'd give that a 100-percent chance as you approach 2038.  A smart investor would pour money into Polish electrical stock over the next decade.  It wouldn't surprise me if a third of all German power consumed shifts to production outside of Germany. 

All of this, if you add it up....means more costs for the German consumer and escalating prices for just about everything produced or sold in Germany.