Coal revival cripples Germany’s $130 billion green drive
The power station Niederaussem has the second highest cooling tower in the world with a height of 200m.
Germany is likely to miss its 2022 climate targets and greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, as the country’s use of coal continues to increase.
Only last year the share of electricity generated from coal in Europe’s biggest economy hit the highest in 24 years. The country also opened more coal-fired power plants in 2013 than any other time in the past 20 years as it moves towards a target set three years ago, which aims to have all nuclear power stations shut down by 2022.
Germany’s energy revolution —or “Energiewende”— has come at a high price. According to Bloomberg, it has so far added more than $134 billion (100 billion euros) to the power bills of households, shop owners and small factories.
But falling coal prices seem to have wet the government’s appetite for the fossil fuel, to the point that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has recently announced it considers coal-based power plants as “indispensable” for the foreseeable future.
“Despite the massive expansion of renewable energies, achieving key targets for the energy transition and climate protection by 2020 is no longer realistic,” Thomas Vahlenkamp, a director at McKinsey & Co. in Dusseldorf, Germany, told Bloomberg.
“The government needs to improve the Energiewende so that the current disappointment doesn’t lead to permanent failure,” the adviser to the industry added.
German utilities plan to start new hard-coal plants with 5,606 megawatts of capacity this year and next, data from Bonn-based national grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur show. That compares with a target of at least 10,000 megawatts from new solar and wind installations in 2014 and 2015 under Germany’s renewable energy act, which took effect Aug. 1. Solar output reached a record 24,244 megawatts on June 6, according to EEX.
Image by IndustryAndTravel | Shutterstock
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3 Comments
bob ashworth
It seems persons trying to rid the planet of our conventional fuels; coal, oil and natural gas, will go to great lengths of completely lying. First of all, so-called but misnamed “greenhouse” gases cool the earth – they don’t warm it! Also, so-called “green energy” is not green at all!
Greenhouse Gases do not Exist
Any mass between you and a radiant energy source will provide cooling. Stand near a fireplace that is burning and feel the warmth of the radiant energy; then have two people drape a blanket between you and the fireplace — you will feel
cooler! Another example, stand outside on a sun shiny day. When a cloud goes
over and shades you from the direct rays of the sun, most people feel cooler,
but perhaps not the IPCC scientists. Nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon
dioxide and any dust that is in the atmosphere all provide cooling as well. Why
is this? If there were no atmosphere, all radiant energy from the sun would hit
the earth. However, with an atmosphere, a portion of the incoming sun’s rays are
absorbed or reflected away from earth by striking the gas molecules and dust
particles, so less radiant energy hits the earth and the earth is cooler because
of its atmosphere.
bob ashworth
I’m disappointed with your limited understanding of science. Man did create the warming from 1965 to 1998 from CFC destruction of stratospheric ozone that allowed more UV light to hit the earth and warm it. No warming since 2002 after Montreal Protocol put in place and CFC production was stopped. Not many real scientists exist anymore it seems.
bobby44
Some good discussion below. Usually you do not find sensible conversation in these forums – just ranting!
The real problem is that the political thinkers do not react to science; they react to ‘vote getters’. Slogans, celebrity endorsements, simple letters like GHG, and kneejerk reactions.
Nuclear power is part of the energy mix that emits no GHG but a kneejerk reaction kills it too.
In the world of politics an endorsement from a celebrity outweighs a thousand man years of research! Ask Barak Obama!