The reason I brought that up is that often the implication people are hinting at when they suggest that total electricity production is significantly down, woul

The reason I brought that up is that often the implication people are hinting at when they suggest that total electricity production is significantly down, would be that Germans are using significantly less energy which has some quite worrying implications. The thing I wanted to point out though is that the amount of energy used by Germans hasn't actually changed very much, it's decreased a little, but nothing like what would be suggested by the generation figures. This is just because mainland europe actually has a more integrated and interconnected electrical grid than the USA does, and Germany is importing a lot of energy. > It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. In this case, it'd be like if a country decided to do something about the fact that some manufactured good they were producing was toxic, and so they lowered the amount they produce of that good, and substitute it with imports while they also rapidly ramp up their ability to produce a non-toxic alternative.