Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumAmory Lovins: Germany's Renewables Revolution
Amory B. Lovins
April 17, 2013
While the examples of Japan, China, and India show the promise of rapidly emerging energy economies built on efficiency and renewables, Germanythe worlds number four economy and Europes number onehas lately provided an impressive model of what a well-organized industrial society can achieve. To be sure, its not yet the world champion among countries with limited hydroelectricity: Denmark passed 40% renewable electricity in 2011 en route to a target of 100% by 2050, and Portugal, albeit with more hydropower, raised its renewable electricity fraction from 17% to 45% just during 200510 (while the U.S., though backed by a legacy of big hydro, crawled from 9% to 10%), reaching 70% in the rainy and windy first quarter of 2013. But these economies are not industrial giants like Germany, which remains the best disproof of claims that highly industrialized countries, let alone cold and cloudy ones, can do little with renewables.
Germany has doubled the renewable share of its total electricity consumption in the past six years to 23% in 2012. It forecasts nearly a redoubling by 2025, well ahead of the 50% target for 2030, and closing in on official goals of 65% in 2040 and 80% in 2050. Some areas are moving faster: in 2010, four German states were 4352% windpowered for the whole year. And at times in spring 2012, half of all German electricity was renewable, nearing Spains 61% record set in April 2012.
Efficiency and Renewables Bolster Post-Fukushima Germany
To underscore the remarkable German case, lets review what happened in 2011, right after Fukushima. The Bundestagled by the most conservative and pro-nuclear party, with no party dissentingoverwhelmingly voted to close eight of the countrys nuclear plants immediately and the other nine by 2022. (In a double U-turn, a nuclear phase-out agreed in 2000 was first slowed and then reinstated; nuclear output has actually been falling since 2006.) Skeptics said this abrupt shutdown of 41% of nuclear output would make the lights go out, the economy crash, carbon emissions and electricity prices soar, and Germany need to import nuclear power from France. But none of that happened.
In fact, in 2011 the German economy grew three percent and remained Europes strongest, buoyed by a world-class renewables industry with 382,000 jobs (about 222,000 of them added since 2004, with net employment and net stimulus both positive). Chancellor Merkel won her bet that it would be smarter to spend energy money on German engineers, manufacturers, and installers than to send it to the Russian natural gas behemoth Gazprom. Germanys lights stayed on. The nuclear shutdown was entirely displaced by year-end, three-fifths due to renewable growth. Do the math: simply repeating 2011s renewable installations for three additional years, through 2014, would thus displace Germanys entire pre-Fukushima nuclear output. Meanwhile, efficiency gainsplus a mild wintercut total German energy use by 5.3%, electricity consumption by 1.4%, and carbon emissions by 2.8%. Wholesale electricity prices fell 1015%. Germany remained a net exporter of electricity, and during a February 2012 cold snap, even exported nearly 3 GW to power-starved France, which remains a net importer of German electricity.
Was this just a flash in the pan? No. In 2012 vs. 2011...
http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2013_04_17_germanys_renewables_revolution
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)got an entire hive of Africanized bees up his butt over Amory Lovins for some reason.
madokie
(51,076 posts)At any rate I don't see much of big guy anymore.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)By Lovins, written in 1976.
You can download it here: http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken
Or you could dig up the book, "Non-Nuclear Futures: The Case for an Ethical Energy Strategy" (1975)
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)What's happening to fossil fueled generation as a result of this exemplary build-out of renewables?
Bupkis.
I thought the goal was to drive down GHG generation as well as nuclear? Nuclear is going down, all right, and because it's a "soft target" compared to fossil fuels one could easily predict that.
I'm very happy to see that, in one country in the world at least, renewables are knocking out nuclear power. The last thing I want to see is a crash of civilization with 400+ reactors still running. But the true danger to civilization (and possibly to life itself) is CO2 produced by fossil fuels. Germany's renewable electricity supply is making no inroads whatsoever on that front.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)There is a shift going on in the mix of types of fossil fuel generators. There are two types of coal plants shutting down:
1) those coal plants that have an operating profile similar to nuclear - meaning they depend on running full out 24/7 in order to pay for themselves - are being replaced with plants that can ramp up and down quickly as renewable penetration increases. This has an obvious result when it comes to CO2 emissions - they respond to increased renewables by decreasing the amount of fuel burned, which of course results in steadily decreasing CO2 emissions.
In the US natural gas is the choice for this rapid response generation, but Germany has made a political decision to retool and favor their domestic coal industry over imported natural gas.
2) The immediate reductions in both wholesale electric costs and fuel consumption are coming as natural gas peaking plants are idled by solar.
Finally, your graph is missing 2012 - where the trend towards increasing renewables continues.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)From 2000 to 2011 Germany's CO2 output dropped by 12.5%, while their FF consumption overall (including transportation) dropped 10%. So while their mix is changing from coal towards NG, the shift is not happening very fast and they are not abandoning FF in general.
Here's the proportion of German electricity generated by FF over time:
I think that this round of civilization has maybe 20 years before it runs into serious trouble due to rising global CO2 emissions. So while it's nice to see one country moving slowly in a good direction, I have not changed my view from seven years ago that renewable energy can not save us from the real problem the world faces, which starts with CO2 and over-consumption. Those are much bigger problems that will not be addressed globally within the next 20 years by windmills and solar panels. As a result, I think that anyone who tries to jawbone renewable energy into a general "solution" of some sort, is naive at best, and a species traitor at worst.
Of course, I always think the best of you, kristopher.
I'll post 2012 numbers when BP releases them in June.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)The 2012 numbers are prominent in Lovins' article; something you'd know if you bothered to even go to the link.