German Plan to Abandon Its Nuclear Energy Lags

[FBaggins]

More than a year after pledging to drop nuclear power, Chancellor Angela Merkel has acknowledged that her ambition for a Germany that runs on renewable energy is falling behind schedule and faces a range of obstacles, not least the revamping of the energy grid at a cost of billions of euros.

In recent weeks, Ms. Merkel has redoubled her efforts to push Germany’s troubled energy transformation, replacing her environment minister and declaring that she would make a new priority of the project, which foresees replacing nuclear power with renewable energy sources within a decade.

Since passing the legislation last year, in the aftermath of the tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan, Ms. Merkel’s own energies have been absorbed by the euro crisis and a series of regional elections. Last weekend she conceded that “we are behind on several projects.”

“Time is pressing, because we are completely transforming our energy supply,” Ms. Merkel said Saturday in her weekly podcast. “That means we need a completely different network than previously.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/world/europe/german-plan-to-abandon-its-nuclear-energy-lags.html?_r=1

[TheWraith]

1. And in the meanwhile, their use of dirty coal is increasing hugely.

New coal plants, reactivating previously closed ones, to the tune of an unconscionably huge spike in CO2, not to mention the many other toxic environmental releases of coal.

[kristopher]

2. The desperation of nuclear enthusiasts knows no bounds...

Germany's renewable energy revolution leaves UK in the shade
The country expects renewables to contribute 35% electricity by 2020 – no matter what the cost


Damian Carrington, Feldheim, Germany
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 May 2012 07.37 EDT

The blazing blue skies that Germany baked under last weekend added a fresh gleam to the nation's renewable energy revolution: a new world record for solar power generation, equivalent to 20 nuclear power stations. It is the battle between nuclear, fossil fuels and renewables, and between the big utilities and the community-owned renewables eating into their profits, that has driven Germany's radical energy transformation to the top of its political agenda, with success seen as vital to chancellor Angela Merkel's hopes of re-election in 2013.

"We are still occupied by the four powers," says Werner Frohwitter, standing in the harsh sunlight below an 85-metre tall wind turbine in the flat east German countryside – referring to the four giant energy companies that have carved up the nation. They are RWE, E.ON, Vattenfall and EnBW.

The hamlet of Feldheim, set amid rippling rye fields and foxy-barked forests, rebelled. Its 128 inhabitants now get all their power by tapping into some of the 43 turbines dotting the fields around, some solar panels and a plant that turns farmyard manure into gas-powered electricity. When leasing of the local grid that connects the village's squat, steep-roofed homes was made prohibitively expensive, Frohwitter's company, Energiequelle, built its own.

Germany and UK energy statistics


...

More at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/30/germany-renewable-energy-revolution?newsfeed=true



Also Wraith, you'll want to be aware of this. Lot's of people besides the nuclear industry want renewables to appear to be a failure.

Right wing stepping up attacks on renewable energy
A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama's energy agenda.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112714465


ALEC Says It Plans To Craft Legislation To Take Down State Renewable Energy Targets
Two leading conservative political organizations say they are stepping up coordinated efforts to repeal state-level renewable energy targets.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112715562

[TheWraith]

3. That's a lovely set of statistics. Too bad they're not real.

It's a very nice little propaganda sheet designed to ignore the reality that in order to get rid of its clean nuclear power, Germany is relying heavily on coal.

A conservative government trying to get rid of green energy, using a fig-leaf of solar power while firing up dozens of planet-killing coal plants, and some people still believe that they're doing the right thing? Sheesh.

[NickB79]

4. One thing that chart doesn't list that I'd like to know

CO2 per capita.

On Wikipedia, I found this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1127&pid=16437

As of 2008, the UK beat Germany in CO2 per capita: 8.5 tons/person in the UK vs. 9.6 tons/person in Germany. I wonder how that statistic has changed in the past 4 years.

[PamW]

5. The Germans can always do what they've always done...

The Germans can always do what they've always done.

It seems their backup plan has always been to buy power from the French.

Of course, the French get it from where?

The Germans have never minded nuclear power as long as the reactor that produces it is not in Germany.

It's just like California and coal power. California has never really had a problem with coal power, we transport a lot of it in from other States. We just don't want the coal plant to be within California; so we can say we are being "clean and green".

BTW - the Altamont Pass wind turbines are going real slow today.

PamW