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Germany To Phase Out Coal Use By 2038, Says Report (abs-cbn.com)
Germany has laid out a $91 billion plan to phase out its use of coal by 2038, a government-appointed commission said Saturday. "Under the plan, half of the up to $91 billion will go to the regions shuttering plants in the west and east of the country, while the other half will be spent on preventing electricity prices from rising," ABS-CBN News reports. From the report: The commission agreed to the deadline after months of bitter wrangling as pressure mounts on Europe's top economy to step up its commitment to battling climate change. The panel, consisting of politicians, climate experts, unions and industry figures from coal regions, announced the deal after a final marathon session ended on Saturday morning. The commission's findings will now be passed on to the government, which is expected -- barring a surprise -- to follow the recommendations of the panel it set up. The plan will be discussed at a meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel, Finance Minister Scholz and regional leaders on Thursday, national news agency DPA said.
Several plants using lignite or brown coal, which is more polluting than black coal, would be closed by 2022. Other plants will follow until 2030, when only 17 gigawatts of Germany's electricity will be supplied by coal, compared to today's 45 gigawatts. The last plant will close in 2038 at the latest, the commission said, but did not rule out moving this date forward to 2035 if conditions permit. The affected regions, where tens of thousands of jobs directly or indirectly linked to brown- and black-coal energy production, will receive 40 billion euros as compensation over the next two decades. Two billion euros will also be spent each year over the same period to stop customers from facing rising electricity prices.
Several plants using lignite or brown coal, which is more polluting than black coal, would be closed by 2022. Other plants will follow until 2030, when only 17 gigawatts of Germany's electricity will be supplied by coal, compared to today's 45 gigawatts. The last plant will close in 2038 at the latest, the commission said, but did not rule out moving this date forward to 2035 if conditions permit. The affected regions, where tens of thousands of jobs directly or indirectly linked to brown- and black-coal energy production, will receive 40 billion euros as compensation over the next two decades. Two billion euros will also be spent each year over the same period to stop customers from facing rising electricity prices.
The people making the decisions will be long gone by then, anything can happen.
If this was the US I'd agree with you since in the US you have a culture of electing Republicans who then tear down everything the Democrats did, them you elect the Democrats who tear down everything the Republicans did, then you elect the Republicans who tear down everything the Democrats did .... and repeat this ad infinitum in the expectation that eventually something will change for the better. However, this is German and here Liberals and conservatives can actually agree and work together on sensible policies. If the CDU (the conservatives) are willing to do this, the Social Democrats and Greens (aka. the evil liberals) will be even more willing to do it. Coal is a dead and uneconomical way of producing energy and it looks to me like the Germans have accepted that and moved on to technologies that have a future.
Most German coal is lignite, which is filthy low-grade crap that generates even more CO2 per KwHr than bituminous coal.
If the Germans had any sense they would have kept their nukes running and shutdown these coal plants long ago. I can understand not building new nukes, but shutting down perfectly good reactors that were humming along, producing clean power at very low cost, made no sense.
Imagine what life would be like today if the first two major airline crashes had caused us to stop pursuing aviation.
So basically very little change, with some of the 2018 numbers explained by unusually mild weather. Yeah, success that.