[ExI] How Electricity Became a Luxury Good

[Mirco Romanato]

How Electricity Became a Luxury Good

http://abcnews.go.com/International/electricity-luxury-good/story?id=20158621#!

Apparently Germany is starting the road to become a hunter-gatherer
society. But surely they will be happy to hunt and gather and die at 35
like Ötzi.

> Altmaier and others are on a mission to help people save money on 
> their electricity bills, because they're about to receive some bad 
> news. The government predicts that the renewable energy surcharge 
> added to every consumer's electricity bill will increase from 5.3 
> cents today to between 6.2 and 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour -- a 
> 20-percent price hike.
> 
> German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in 
> Europe. But because the government is failing to get the costs of
> its new energy policy under control, rising prices are already on
> the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany, and
> one of the country's most important future-oriented projects is
> acutely at risk.

Altmaier is on a mission to help save other people money because they
are the cause of the additional costs but do not bear any bad effect
from their choices.

> Former Environment Minister Jürgen Tritten of the Green Party once
> claimed that switching Germany to renewable energy wasn't going to
> cost citizens more than one scoop of ice cream. Today his successor
> Altmaier admits consumers are paying enough to "eat everything on the
> ice cream menu."

Surely Environment Minister Jürgen Tritten didn't pay any consequence
for being wrong with someone else money.

Mirco