They are not phasing out fossil fuels; they are phasing out nuclear energy and still digging and burning coal.
I posted this in another thread a while back: As Germany hosts green summit, an energy firm is razing a nearby forest
As I frequently point out, over and over and over, seven million people die each year from air pollution and yet Germany has declared nuclear is "too dangerous."
A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (Lancet 2012, 380, 2224–60: For air pollution mortality figures see Table 3, page 2238 and the text on page 2240.)
They're phasing out nuclear, but they have zero interest in phasing out fossil fuels. Which do you suppose has killed more Germans in the last half a century, German nuclear plants or German air pollution?
The belief that the German energy program is somehow laudable is pure marketing and nothing else. And let's be clear on something, OK? Germany is one of the largest customers for Danish Natural Gas
I have spent thirty years in the primary scientific literature on energy, beginning as a nuclear opponent - stimulated to find out more about Chernobyl - and then as ambivalent about nuclear but still strongly in favor of so called "renewables" - and then extremely positive about nuclear and so called "renewables" and finally, beginning about 5 years ago, convinced that nuclear energy is the last best hope of humanity, however much maligned it may be and that the renewable adventure, an experiment that has proved to be a very expensive failure, is a tragedy of unbelievable proportion.
As I also frequently point out, updating with each year's new edition, the UNEP Frankfurt School Report, issued each year: GLOBAL TRENDS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY INVESTMENT 2017, indicates we are spending, on a planet where more than two billion people lack improved sanitation facilities, more than two trillion dollars every ten years on so called "renewable energy."
For the last ten years or so, I have been consistently been reporting that solar and wind combined do not produce even 5 of the 576 exajoules of energy humanity generates and consumes each year.
However, it appears I needed an update, as I discovered when writing this post: The Growth of "Renewable" Energy Has Exceeded 2007 World Energy Outlook Projections by 55%!
I'll quote myself, as clearly I must:
Now let's turn to so called "other renewable energy." In 2000, "other renewable energy" - which includes solar and wind energy provided 2.5 exajoules of energy; in 2016 it provided 9.4 exajoules of energy.
Now listen, two trillion dollars to increase the output by 6.9 exajoules over a 17 year period, a period where people were dying at a rate of 7 million per year from air pollution is not a worthy investment.
It's instead, quite nearly a faith based affectation, a ritualized form of suicide.
You write:
If we cannot figure out a way to leverage renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc ... we're completely fucked as a planet, pardon my french.
With sincere respect, because I certainly believe you are actually thinking and not sloganeering, as many of our friends at DU do when discussing so called "renewable energy," I must say that I very strongly disagree with your statement.
I would take you phrase and add clauses thus with my additions bolded:
If people who actually care about the environment continue to believe that if we cannot figure out a way to leverage renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc that... we're completely fucked as a planet, pardon my french, we will fail to do a shred of justice to all future generations.
You are where I was maybe five to ten years ago. It would be easy for me to join in the cheering for renewable energy and be praised for endorsing what I truthfully regard as the squandering of increasingly precious resources.
I'm not going to do that. I can't, because I could not live with myself if I engaged in the
"bandwagon fallacy" in which what is popular is confused with being right. The popular opinion is often wrong, dead wrong, dangerously wrong,
fatally wrong.
If we "needed" solar energy the world would end every evening, and few people would live through the winter solstice. We don't need it. It's useless, expensive and failed.
When I write these days, approaching the end of my life, deeply distressed by my part in the world I will leave behind.
I feel very much like the mythical Cassandra, who had the gift of prophesy given by a God she refused, but cursed in that her gift was such that no matter how truthful she was, she was never believed.
Ultimately, according to the myth, she was raped, enslaved and then murdered. I hope I don't go there.
I am sometimes known in this space as being somewhat brutal with my opinions. Please don't misinterpret me here, because I sincerely believe you mean well, but I strongly disagree with your belief in so called renewable energy.
Years ago, the rhetoric was, "if we spent as much money on renewables as we spend on nuclear, the world would be a better place!!!"
We are now spending
more money than was ever spent on nuclear, and the results are in.
As I pointed out in the earlier post I linked here:
In the 20th century, there were between 1959, the year the data collection began, and 2000, a period of more than 4 decades, five years during which the annual increase exceeded 2.00 ppm, 1977, 1983, 1987, 1988, and 1998, the latter - an El Nino year. (The "rebound year, 1999, is one of only two years since 1980 to show increases smaller than 1.00 ppm; in 1999 the increase was 0.93 ppm.)
In the 17 years since 2000, there have been 11 such years, one of which, 2015, exceeded 3.00 ppm, with 2016 coming close at 2.98 ppm.
The average annual increase in the 20th century was 1.3 ppm per year; in the 21st century it has reached 2.2 ppm per year. Even if this 21st century average didn't increase - and it will increase - we will be at 450 ppm in less than 20 years, that is by 2047 (when happily, I'll be dead, so "we" doesn't apply to me) - if we're lucky, and we won't be, because there's no evidence that the second derivative - the rate of change of change - won't continue to increase, as it has since the 1960's when every year showed an increase of less than 1.4 ppm, and when 6 of the ten years showed increases of less than 1.00 ppm.
We are now in the position that as a culture, we care more about hyping so called "renewable energy" than we do about its effect on the environment, which is in the best case nil, and in the worst case disastrous. (I believe the worst case.)
I have looked carefully at the external costs of wind and solar. It's not pretty when compared to nuclear. I could spend hours on the subject, but I won't. I will refer to another writing on the internet on this topic that I wrote two and a half years ago, scratching the surface of what I learned. I will also say that my opinion on the sustainability of so called "renewable energy" has declined further since then.
Sustaining the Wind, Part I
No one alive today will ever see a carbon dioxide concentration of less than 400 ppm ever again, particularly if we insist on lying to ourselves.
Thank you for your sincere comment.
I wish you a pleasant Sunday.
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