By Paul Homewood
RWE’s new lignite power station opened in Neurath in 2012
Germany’s dash for coal continues apace. Following on the opening of two new coal power stations in 2012, six more are due to open this year, with a combined capacity of 5800MW, enough to provide 7% of Germany’s electricity needs.
Including the plants coming on stream this year, there are 12 coal fired stations due to open by 2020. Along with the two opened last year in Neurath and Boxberg, they will be capable of supplying 19% of the country’s power.
In addition, 27 gas fired stations are due on line, which should contribute a further 17% of Germany’s total electricity generation. (Based on 2011 statistics, total generation was 575 TwH).
It is worth noting that none of these coal or gas plants will be built with Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), which is a legal requirement for coal generators in the UK, despite the fact that the technology does not yet exist on a commercial scale.
The UK government is so desperate to get out of the corner it has boxed itself into, that it wants to hand out huge sums to subsidise the cost of developing CCS technology. According to their “Overarching National Policy Statement for Energy” (Page 31), they want to support the cost of four commercial scale CCS projects.
But since the report was written in 2011, nothing much has happened, other than the announcement of two preferred bidders for the £1bn programme. One of these, the White Rose project at Drax, won’t be submitting a planning application until next year, and a final government investment decision won’t be made until 2015.
In the meantime, UK energy policy is allowed to drift. No company would abandon a successful, proven and efficient method of operating, without an alternative, better way having already been thoroughly tried and tested. So why does the UK government think it knows better?
APPENDIX A
German Coal Fired Power Stations Due to Open By 2020
| Operator | Location | MW | Date Due | Status |
| Trianel | Lunen | 750 | 2013 | In Trial |
| EnBW | Karlsruhe | 874 | 2013 | In Construction |
| GDF | Wilhelmshaven | 800 | 2013 | In Construction |
| Steag | Duisberg | 725 | 2013 | In Construction |
| E.ON | Datteln | 1055 | 2013 | In Construction |
| RWE | Hamm | 1600 | 2013 | In Construction |
| Vattenfall | Hamburg | 1640 | 2014 | In Construction |
| GKM | Mannheim | 911 | 2015 | In Construction |
| MIBRAG | Profen | 660 | 2020 | A/W Approval |
| RWE | Niederaussem | 1100 | n/a | A/W Approval |
| GETEC | Buttel | 800 | n/a | A/W Approval |
| Dow | Stade | 840 | n/a | A/W Approval |
As supplied by BDEW, the German Energy Producers Association.
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Replacing nuclear with fossil fuels, coal even. Sounds green to me! Must see the global cooling handwriting on the wall. At least they wont have to worry about that tsunami threat on their nuke plants.
All the coal the US is selling on the cheap makes the German decision a no-brainer. With the world’s largest reserves the US would have enough coal to power its economy for a couple of centuries, if only it was allowed to use it. Instead it sells it dirt cheap to its economic competitors. Along with the coal goes the manufacturing jobs that need low cost power to remain competitive. No problem, lots of jobs as Wal-mart greeters.
The miracle of fossil fuels. They are the most diverse set of energy and material resources we have. They should be celebrated on Earth Day.
Fredberple: “Along with the coal goes the manufacturing jobs that need low cost power to remain competitive. No problem, lots of jobs as Wal-mart greeters.”
Erm, no the US is experiencing a manufacturing renaissance thanks to cheap shale gas. Coal was displaced largely by cheap gas not by regulation.
http://nytimes.com/2012/04/11/business/energy-environment/wider-availability-expands-uses-for-natural-gas.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.aogr.com/index.php/magazine/cover-story/unconventional-plays-touching-off-renaissance-in-u.s.-manufacturing-sector
http://aap.newscentre.com.au/cpsunat/130330/library/private_&_public_partnerships/30771806.html
Thats a major step backwards from the nuclear plants they used to have.
Germany closing their Nuclear Powerplants because of the tsunami threat was one of the dumbest decisions of manking history.
Tsunami in the Baltic ????
This is the second time Germany has abandoned nuclear. From the Nuremberg transcripts between US Prosecutor Robert Jackson and German Minister of Armaments Albert Speer :
MR JUSTICE JACKSON: And certain experiments were also conducted and certain researches conducted in atomic energy, were they not?
SPEER: We had not got as far as that, unfortunately, because the finest experts we had in atomic research had emigrated to America, and this had thrown us back a great deal in our research, so that we still needed another year or two in order to achieve any results in the splitting of the atom.
MR JUSTICE JACKSON: The policy of driving people out who didn’t agree with Germany hadn’t produced very good dividends, had it?
SPEER: Especially in this sphere it was a great disadvantage to us.
Oh, the trials of liberalism. We followed the Germans when they flogged solar, latitude notwithstanding. When they embraced wind. When they built gardens on urban roofs. But how, oh how, can we continue now that they have come to their senses? Oh, I know. Dust off the good German-Bad German meme from 80 years ago. Anything but a rational appraisal of the facts:
Deutschland lives by manufacturing and exporting. Reliable and affordable energy is a keystone of this effort. Bad policy has put this livliehood under stress. Let’s fix it.
Wouldn’t hurt in the US.
If I were them, I’d rethink their brainless decision to shutter those “dangerous” nuclear plants,
which have operated for half a century with no problems. And the Fukashima “disaster”
was easily preventable and harmed no one, except the utility’s investors. The rest of the world is going nuclear – only Germany is building coal fired plants. China has plans for 600 reactors by 2050 and 1600 by the end of the century.
It would seem to be prudent for those anxious to use coal to check out the new no-emission
coal combustion process demonstrated at Ohio State University this month.
Here in the UK we’ve had a bunch of nutters in charge of energy policy for some decades now! Our domestic energy costs have doubled in six years. Our power suppliers are now owned by French and German companies. It’s complete madness here! Now we’re about to get foreign companies to build nuclear power plants – and they’ll be given GUARANTEED energy prices to charge in the future (in order to get them to build the nuclear plants). We’ve lost the plot completely. The only thing that can save us is falling global temperatures. Then, finally, the government will understand that it’s all a load of BS, and open up our coalmines that still have decades of coal in them (we won’t even need to import it, though we probably would as it would be cheaper).
Of course they have to. For once they went crazy after 3-11, the Tohoku quake and tsunami. It was so bad that Geiger counters were sold out in Germany, the media was full of anti-Japanese racism with the media comparing Fukushima with Hitler’s bunker and painting an image of a brutal, inhumane feudal society in which homeless people, minors and foreigners were forced to clean up Fukushima. No, the Fukushima Fifty were no heroes, they were rightless slaves in a brutal feudal society according to German media. (this racism can still be observed in the wake of last December’s election in Japan, the German media cried murder over how the Japanese dared to vote for center-right -which had no anti-nuclear plans- over the left wing-green block -which was focusing only on nuclear power and had no answer over China going nuts in Japanese waters, which was the one of the issues everyone was concerned about, others were the failure of reconstruction by the then ruling party DPJ in the tsunami hit areas, the DPJ’s inability to deal with the TPP negotiations, etc)
The tale of the “yellow peril” stalked Germany, Lufthansa ceased flights into Japan (the competition kept flying) and, worst of all…
The German S&R team deployed to Japan abandoned their mission due to fear of radiation.
Every other team, every single one, stayed and did what they promised to do.
A second German S&R team was never deployed and turned around at once. When the first team fled Japan they even abandoned their equipment. Upon arriving home they were quick to blame the Japanese for a “not ideal” S&R and civil protection system and that there was nothing to rescue anymore, and were also very quick to say that they barely escaped radioactivity (which was of course a lie.) The Turkish team arrived in Japan a day after the Germans ran and had plenty to do.
Then the German green party went crazy. Fukushima could happen in Germany tomorrow was what they claimed. 200,000 Germans protested against nuclear power (note how zero Germans protested against the recent North Korean nuke test and are still more concerned about Japan’s nuclear power than Chinese aggression and attempts to provoke Japan into a shooting war.)
The German green party won votes with this. The German parliament went crazy, and especially chancellor Merkel, who supposedly has a degree in physics and should know better, made herself into some kind of icon in the government to fight “evil” nuclear power. It’s something she likes to do. The woman has some serious issues with her ego and her understanding of democracy and free speech is questionable, at best (she has proven this earlier with the whole “Sarrazin Affair”, where she made herself into the sole authority over what is free speech and what isn’t.)
Last year anti-nuclear activists started to claim that the Wackersdorf facility was dangerous for the surrounding areas. They claimed that radiation from the facility had caused the birth rate of girls in the area to drop below national average. Never mind that a few years ago that same birth rate was above average. Not to mention a complete lack of understanding how birth rates work and averages work.
These people are blind fanatics, zealots, who cost the German government huge sums of money every time a CASTOR transport runs. Thousands of cops have to guard it because these eco-nitwits would attack that train if there was no security.
There were a few reasonable voices who asked where the electricity should come from without nuclear power. They pointed out the flaws in “renewable”, but initially nobody listened. It took the government a long time to realize that yeah, solar and wind aren’t really reliable and efficient and would explode the costs for electricity which would effectively kill Germany’s economy. Then the run for fossils started.
As Professor Zöllner from the university in Bonn (he’s professor for Japanese Studies) said in his famous letter against the German anti-nukers and anti-Japanese German media: if you have friends like Germany you don’t need a nuclear crisis.
I translated Professor Zöllner’s letter in late 2011. If you want to read it: http://wormme.com/2011/11/22/apocalypse-now/ Original German article: http://www.welt.de/kultur/article12985489/Apokalypse-jetzt-Wir-Deutschen-sollten-uns-schaemen.html
And then consider what is currently happening in the UK
22 March 2013
Oxfordshire’s ‘Didcot A’ Power Station has been turned off after 43 years in service…Nine months of decommissioning begins on 31 March, with demolition of the six towers expected to take several years.
Greenpeace campaigner Ben Stewart said it marked the beginning of the end of coal burning in the UK. He added: “Off shore wind is where we should be focusing, given Britain is the Saudi Arabia of wind, and we should grasp the opportunity to make a huge investment there. “We’re the last generation that can do something about climate change. We’re right at the crunch point.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-21881129
I do not expect affordable price of electricity any time soon.
In addition to displacing coal, cheap shale gas has also put an end to the Nuclear Renaissance, for all practical purposes, and is beginning to place significant competitive pressures on existing nuclear plants.
The Kewaunee Power Station in Wisconsin is closing because it can’t make a profit in a competitive power market; the Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida and the San Onofre nuclear plant in California have been seriously damaged by incompetently managed steam generator replacement projects.
It is easy to predict that the Vogtle nuclear expansion project in Georgia will eventually be terminated because of its serious cost growth problems; that the Watts Bar 2 construction restart project will also be terminated for similar reasons; and that Sumner expansion will not go forward.
Here in the US, the next decade will see a significant reduction in our nuclear-generated capacity as cheaper gas-fired plants are brought on line in ever-increasing numbers and begin to displace those older nuclear plants which can’t compete economically.
Our nuclear fleet is aging and new ones will not be built because the price tag is too
high. Natural gas will take their place as old ones are shut down. Eventually nat. gas will
get to $6 per m/btu at which time coal will again be the dominate fuel for the generation
of electricity in the USA. In a few years coal will surpass crude as the #1 energy source
worldwide.Coal`s future is very bright.
After Fukishima many greens thought “hey, this is a great opportunity to close down these dirty, dangerous nuclear power stations.” Out of the frying pan and into the mire. 😉 Add to that the boom in coal use and the shale gas revolution and there is very little chance of reducing our co2 output. Long live carbon dioxide.
By the way it’s not just Germany expanding it’s coal use.
To Steven Hales:
Cheap natural gas does help replace coal generation at SOME coal plants when the price of natural gas is about $3.00- to $3.50 per million BTU. But the reason so many coal plants are closing is that the added costs of installing technologies to reduce emissions of every sort makes them no longer economic. Natural gas will recover in price enough (~ $4.50?) so that remaining coal plants will once again generate all the electricity that they can. The prices have to recover because drillers won’t do much horizontal drilling plus fracturing of the shale — costly technologies in combination — until prices recover. At that time, more gas will be used than would have been the case, because so many coal plants will have been retired.
The question then becomes: are the costs worth the benefits? EPA of course has its view on that, and they run the show. Are they right? That is the issue, it seems to me.
Here’s more great news from the UK. Warmists must realise they are fighting a losing battle. The Earth needs more co2 not less..
So what if Germany is opening some new coal plants? So what if they have more on the drawing board? So what? They are spearheading a transformational change in how energy is produced. They’ve paid upfront costs that others would not. Anthony Watts has seen fit use solar. Not that Germany or solar itself need justification or approval from him. Something for anyone gleeful over Germany opening some new coal plants.
Newsweek’s article on BP’s cover-up of the Deep Water Horizon spill and it’s willfully exposing clean-up workers to a dispersant it knew to be hazardous echoes similar behavior by fossil fuels companies. I’m thankful for Germany’s efforts to advance renewables and for our own NREL and the research they have done to advance it in our interests. The transition will take time and coal, oil and gas still have large roles to play. We’re moving toward a sea change in energy. Too bad the 20 billion BP will end up paying does not go directly into renewables. Metallica said it best, So What? (Edited for mods.)
“In the meantime, UK energy policy is allowed to drift. No company would abandon a successful, proven and efficient method of operating, without an alternative, better way having already been thoroughly tried and tested. So why does the UK government think it knows better?”
Paul you put ‘UK Government’ and ‘think’ in the same sentence – you should have realized then what the problem is. The UK government is full of ‘do you want fries with that’ arts graduates who are the easy marks for the CAGW grifters. The thing is that the UK politicians do not yet see a problem….not at all. Look at all those lovely windmills with PR man ‘call me Dave’ standing chin up looking into the distance – the greenest government ever – as in wet behind the ears – and it shows. There was an article in the Independent yesterday: “Our shameful hierarchy – some deaths matter more than others” http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/owen-jones-our-shameful-hierarchy–some-deaths-matter-more-than-others-8581715.html that to me raised a totally different point from that in the article. In UK the deaths on the roads number around 1500ish a year; there are continual exhortations for drivers to drive safely, road traffic police, instant fines etc etc. If the numbers increase by 5% questions are asked in parliament and responded to in serious tones pledging action. More than twice the number that die in a year on UK’s roads died of cold in just in the month of March due to energy poverty. Not a single politician raised this. Not one. They will still increase fuel prices to cover the cost of subsidizing useless windmills despite huge numbers dying. You ask “So why does the UK government think it knows better?” The UK government doesn’t think about such things at all – the UK members of Parliament have demonstrated by their inaction that they could literally not care less.
What is the source for 3000 dying from energy poverty in the UK?
Imho, as an American, what is important in this article is that it opens the opportunity for the USA to sell natural gas and natural gas electric plant technology to Germany.
Natural gas is cheaper and cleaner than coal for generating electricity. Germany will flock to that like a moth to a flame!
The Green’s once again show that they never run out of feet nor bullets to put in them .For its them that have pushed Germany to get rid of nuclear on ideological grounds that has lead to all these coal powered plants in the first place.
In my area Wal Mart no longer has greeters….California economy I guess….. Now where should I look?
The solution is real simple. Rather than building coal-fired plants, why not follow China’s lead and develop Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs), which can produce electricity cheaper than coal, and no produces no harmful emissions (Pb, Hg, NOX, CO, Carbon particulates, SO2, etc) and require no water to run the turbines.
The £1 billion required to develop ridiculous CO2 CCS technology mentioned in the article is sufficient to get the first test LFTR developed and built.
Here’s the math: 1.2 GRAMS of Thorium is sufficient to provide ALL the energy needs of an individual (including transportation) for a year, with about 0.12 grams/person of nuclear waste that has a half-life of only 300 yrs.
As a rough napkin note calculation, Moving from a fossil fuels to a Thorium based world economy would save the world about $3 trillion/yr in energy expenditures plus another $1 trillion in military spending in protecting/securing fossil supplies.
Imagine what the world could create with $4 trillion/yr and the political and economic stability such a world would look like, especially with Middle-Eastern oil becoming completely irrelevant…
It boggles the mind.