The Renewable Energy Law of Germany (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz or EEG)

July 28, 2010 by jason

The Renewable Energy Sources Act of Germany (Das Gesetz für den Vorrang Erneuerbarer Energien, or EEG for short), is a piece of legislation that has almost single-handedly catapulted Germany to one of the highest investors in renewable energy production, since its inception on 29 March 2000, all within a few short decades. It has created per capita revenue from renewable energies unseen in the rest of the first world, certainly in the United States. The Renewable Energy Sources Act basically encourages the use and deployment of renewable source of energy (mainly electricity) through a feed-in tariff. The stated purpose of the Act is the following:

Source: Depths and drilling times of the two EPICA Dome C drilling sites (source: Act Revising the Legislation on Renewable Energy Sources in the Electricity Sector and Amending Related Provisions))

Why is this act important?

Well in this case, a pictures says more than a thousand words. Below is an image of the extracable energy from different renewable sources, shown against the total amount of human demand:

Usable energy from different renewable sources, against total human demand (source: Wikipedia: World energy resource and consumption)

Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive description of the topic that I probably don't need to echo, but I think it's important to consider the way europe is tackling global warming, especially when some people try to argue that combating global warming will make us poor. In Germany, power plant owners actually pay farmers and households for the carbon offsets they create - how is this bad for the people??