Slashdot Mirror
Germany Is Burning Too Much Coal (bloomberg.com)
Several readers share a report: Germany is widely seen as a world leader in the fight against climate change. Thanks to its investments in renewable power, wind and solar energy provide a third of its electricity, more than double the U.S. share. Germany's goal to lower carbon-dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020 is significantly more ambitious than that of Europe as a whole or the U.S. After the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed even greater determination. "We can't wait for the last man on Earth to be convinced by the scientific evidence for climate change," she explained. But there's another, troubling side to the German story: The country still gets 40 percent of its energy from coal, a bigger share than most other European countries. And much of it is lignite, the dirtiest kind of coal. As a result, Germany is set to fall well short of its 2020 goal. This dependence on coal is partly a side effect of Germany's abandonment of emissions-free nuclear power and partly foot-dragging on the part of a government wary of alienating voters in German coal country. During the summer election campaign, Merkel largely avoided the subject.
The emergency move away from nuclear has been incredibly short sighted. I understand not wanting to build new reactors, but shutting down running reactors, with all the capital investment involved, just doesn't make any sense. Especially when there is little risk of natural disasters in Germany.
If people are serious about maintaining the same quality of lifestyle that we have today without burning as much coal, the current solution is Nuclear Energy. Yes it does pose many risks but so does burning coal, and the latter seems to be destroying our environment.
That 40% sounds like a required need for base load. I doubt they will be able to eliminate it without much wailing and gnashing of teeth from their utility engineers.
They could have accomplished their goals by keeping those nuclear plants going. Shame they let feelings get in the way of good energy policy.
Not sure why you're being modded down, because you nailed it.
For all their lofty goals, paranoia and empty gestures are all Germany has thus far achieved.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Germany has spent 100s of billions on renewables without much to show for it. Their electricity rates are among the highest in Europe, yet they still pollute 10x as much as France" If they spent that money on next generation nuclear their emissions would have dropped. As it currently stands nuclear power is the only viable option to mitigate climate change.
Sigh. "Virtue signaling" is something that has real meaning. It doesn't just means "does something that I don't like or don't sympathize with". Your sarcasm is essentially correct regarding nuclear power, and their turning off their nuke plants was a terrible idea, but that doesn't mean the people here weren't sincere.
Correction to your headline: They're not burning too much coal, which makes it sound like they're wasting coal by burning too much. In fact, this is just the opposite. The amount of coal they're burning is the amount necessary to provide 40% of the electricity to their country. A more accurate headline would be "Despite their reputation as a leader in renewable energy, Germany is actually burning more coal than most other European countries".
Germany is running out of reliable sources of power generation: If not coal or nuclear, then natural gas would be a good choice. But do they have the political capital to switch from one fossil fuel to another?
25-year supply if nuclear provided all electricity on Earth -- If we continue the once-through throw most of the fuel away non-cycle. Simply adding fuel reprocessing multiplies that number by a few times. Going to breeder reactors multiplies that by several more times.
Then there's the seawater extraction mentioned elsewhere.
Beyond that, there's thorium. According to my CRC Handbook, thorium is "about as common as lead", and "there is probably more available energy in the earth's crust from thorium than from uranium and all fossil fuels combined."