Solar Energy in Germany: Where the Sun Don't Shine

Posted February 13, 2013

The Internet was abuzz last Friday with some astounding news: Germany has more sun than the United States! 

That’s as reported by Fox business reporter Shibani Joshi last week on Fox and Friends, in a statement she’s probably been regretting ever since.

The good news about this news is that it’s simply not true. In fact, Germany has solar energy resources comparable to those of Alaska, while our mainland is more akin to sunny Spain:

This image, from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is by now a familiar sight to anyone who knows anything about solar energy -- a group that clearly doesn’t include Fox and Friends.

The same week, another Fox story also concluded that solar is on the decline. Why? Well, it’s clearly because solar is affordable only when the government “throws” billions in subsidies at it, which are now “being slashed.” At the same time, homeowners have been snapping up solar because of an influx of cheap panels from China. So, let me get this straight: The problem is that solar is not affordable without subsidies -- and also that it's so affordable that people are buying it in droves. There must be logic in there somewhere … right?

What these stories really tell us 

What’s really on the decline is not solar. It’s a couple other things -- and one of those is Fox News itself. A recent poll shows that the network’s credibility is at an all-time low, though that’s still not low enough when you consider how many people continue to absorb its misinformation. And while other media outlets may not be as laughably off-base as Fox (which some are now comparing to The Onion), the American public is not getting an accurate picture when it comes to solar.

What’s more significant, though, is that fossil fuels are on a slow but steady decline. Last year, even amajor coal company admitted that it’s only a matter of time till we move away from them -- and that this is the right move to make.