

Germany breaks world solar power generation record in July with 5.1 TWh - MikeCapone
http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/germany-breaks-world-solar-power-generation-record-july-2013-51-twh-leaves-us-dust.html

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dossy
That's a great accomplishment, but compare that to the US's [4143 TWh of
energy consumption in 2010,
alone]([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Cur...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Current_consumption)).

Compare that to Germany's "whopping" 5.1 TWh of solar energy output, and
that's hardly 0.12% - that's like saying "it takes $100 to purchase (some
object X) - look at that panhandler, they earned 12 cents towards that goal -
isn't it amazing? You only earned 1 cent panhandling: you should panhandle
harder."

No, the reality is, investing money in solar energy without aggressive
technological advancements that reduce our consumption is an arms race that we
can NEVER win.

~~~
dossy
Oh, and before people start the old tired "but if we invest in solar energy
today, it'll give us a head start!" realize that those dollars and effort
spent is a finite and limited resource. A dollar and its corresponding effort
spent on solar energy can no longer be spent on anything else, because
spending it uses it up.

We HAVE to be smarter about how we spend our limited resources, or we're just
paying feel-good lip service. Which, is okay: it's important to feel good!
But, don't try and make other people feel bad because they're not making the
same choice to ignore pragmatism and embrace feel-good jingoism ...

